Page 72 - The Art and Science of Analog Circuit Design

Richard P. Feynman

6. Cargo Cult Science'

During the Middle Ages there were all kinds of crazy ideas, such as that
a piece of rhinoceros horn would increase potency. Then a method was
discovered for separating the ideas—which was to try one to see if it
worked, and if it didn't work, to eliminate it. This method became orga-
nized, of course, into science. And it developed very well, so that we are
now in the scientific age. It is such a scientific age, in fact, that we have
difficulty in understanding how witch doctors could ever have existed,
when nothing that they proposed ever really worked—or very little of
it did.
But even today I meet lots of people who sooner or later get me into a
conversation about UFOs, or astrology, or some form of mysticism, ex-
panded consciousness, new type of awareness, ESP, and so forth. And
I've concluded that it's not a scientific world.
Most people believe so many wonderful things that I decided to inves-
tigate why they did. And what has been referred to as my curiosity for
investigation has landed me in a difficulty where I found so much junk
that I'm overwhelmed. First I started out by investigating various ideas of
mysticism, and mystic experiences. I went into isolation tanks and got
many hours of hallucinations, so I know something about that. Then I
went to Esalen, which is a hotbed of this kind of thought (it's a wonderful
place; you should go visit there). Then I became overwhelmed. I didn't
realize how much there was.
At Esalen there are some large baths fed by hot springs situated on a
ledge about thirty feet above the ocean. One of my most pleasurable ex-
periences has been to sit in one of those baths and watch the waves crash-
ing onto the rocky shore below, to gaze into the clear blue sky above, and
to study a beautiful nude as she quietly appears and settles into the bath
with me.
One time I sat down in a bath where there was a beautiful girl sitting
with a guy who didn't seem to know her. Right away I began thinking,
"Gee! How am I gonna get started talking to this beautiful nude babe?"
I'm trying to figure out what to say, when the guy says to her, "I'm,
uh, studying massage. Could I practice on you?"

Adapted from the Cal Tech commencement address given in 1974.

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