Except the cargo cult religions weren't trying to get cargo to return in any meaningful sense. It was a religious ritual like anyother. If we were watching Chri

Except the cargo cult religions weren't trying to get cargo to return in any meaningful sense. It was a religious ritual like anyother. If we were watching Christian practices from the outside and not knowing any of the nuances of their beliefs we would probably interpret that "they're trying to get this guy named Jesus to return by eating crackers and wine". Feynman's speech is interesting and all but like so many similar gifted scientists who then go on to explore into other domains, they stumble into a field and ignore whole bodies of research into the philosophy and sociology of how science is produced. Thomas Kuhn had already established some solid insight into the social and organizational aspects of "scientific revolution", and showed that despite most people's ardent belief that science is somehow immune to it, there is a significant amount of social hierarchies and ritualistic beliefs that dictate what is considered "acceptable" science. Believing in science as this perfect immutable meritocracy is pretty much its own ritualistic cult, as if you can just pretend away human bias and insular beliefs by thinking really-really hard.