Doctoral Colloquium Keynote Address Conduct, Misconduct, And Cargo Cult Science

Abstract

In the South Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the war they saw airplanes land with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they’ve arranged to make things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas-he’s the controller-and they wait for the airplanes to land. They’re doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn’t work. No airplanes land. So I call these things cargo cult science, becauw they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they’re missing something essential, because the planes don’t land. Now it behooves me, of course, to tell you what they’re missing. . . . It’s a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty-a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid-not only what you think is right about, it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you’ve eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked-to make sure the other fellow ca:n tell they have been eliminated.