I would just say "cargo cult thinking" or "cargo cult scholarship" instead of cargo cult science, as it's more accurate in general, and avoids addressing whethe

I would just say "cargo cult thinking" or "cargo cult scholarship" instead of cargo cult science, as it's more accurate in general, and avoids addressing whether political science and media science (the fields of the people used as examples in the article) are considered science per se. Just as plagiarism cuts across disciplines, including non-science fields, so does cargo cult thinking. So, it's a better term.