3 ms·

You do realise that said author is... Richard P Feynman, right?

nonrandomstring 2y ago
No I didn't realise that. Which is good, because I was not awed by the author's name. I think very highly of Feynman and might have been swayed to doubt my judgement rather than my experience. Guess this is why blind peer review is an awesome thing. Of course I'm possibly too dumb to appreciate majestic poetry. Or it worked in 1974 in a way that fails now. Or we read different articles. It's actually a writing style I use myself - fragmented but with purposeful "abductive" reasoning. But to pull it off you have to deliver a cadence. A bit of bad writing in no way diminishes my opinion of someone I respect as a scientist and teacher, but humanises him more. I see him as an very authentic person and it brings me a smile to think of Richard Feynman penning this and, as we all do, reading it back a few weeks later and saying "WTF was I thinking?". Smart people are capable of missing the mark.
- anon46327826 2y ago
  It was not written as an article, it's a transcript of a speech (Caltech’s 1974 commencement address, if you read the introduction), that's why it all over the place.
  - krger 2y ago
    >that's why it all over the place. The last sentence explains why it's all over the place quite succinctly.
nonrandomstring 2y ago
Solved. We read different articles! lutusp posted this copy of the actual article https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm The one at https://fermatslibrary.com/s/cargo-cult-science https://fermatslibrary.com/s/cargo-cult-science is junk - a disordered mish-mash of extracts from the real article.
- anon46327826 2y ago
  Those texts are identical.
  - halb 2y ago
    I think some people are reading the columns in the printed article in the wrong order, maybe they are not used to that kind of formatting
- in_a_hole 2y ago
  The FermatsLibrary page contains a pdf showing a photocopy of the original piece with some annotations at the side. The pdf is just a graphic and does not have highlightable text but the annotations are proper text. Perhaps you have some minimal view enabled on your browser and are only seeing the annotations, the only "text" on the page.
  - nonrandomstring 2y ago
    Exactly! What's funny is that rather than simply failing hard it silently kinda half-works, presenting me with a mashed-up, incoherent mess that sort of reads like it might be a legit article, but written by crazy person. A good object lesson in an awful idea for web presentation in my opinion, but amusing nonetheless.

No I didn't realise that. Which is good, because I was not awed by the author's name. I think very highly of Feynman and might have been swayed to doubt my judgement rather than my experience. Guess this is why blind peer review is an awesome thing. Of course I'm possibly too dumb to appreciate majestic poetry. Or it worked in 1974 in a way that fails now. Or we read different articles. It's actually a writing style I use myself - fragmented but with purposeful "abductive" reasoning. But to pull it off you have to deliver a cadence. A bit of bad writing in no way diminishes my opinion of someone I respect as a scientist and teacher, but humanises him more. I see him as an very authentic person and it brings me a smile to think of Richard Feynman penning this and, as we all do, reading it back a few weeks later and saying "WTF was I thinking?". Smart people are capable of missing the mark.

anon46327826 2y ago
It was not written as an article, it's a transcript of a speech (Caltech’s 1974 commencement address, if you read the introduction), that's why it all over the place.
- krger 2y ago
  >that's why it all over the place. The last sentence explains why it's all over the place quite succinctly.

nonrandomstring 2y ago

Solved. We read different articles! lutusp posted this copy of the actual article https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm The one at https://fermatslibrary.com/s/cargo-cult-science https://fermatslibrary.com/s/cargo-cult-science is junk - a disordered mish-mash of extracts from the real article.

anon46327826 2y ago
Those texts are identical.
- halb 2y ago
  I think some people are reading the columns in the printed article in the wrong order, maybe they are not used to that kind of formatting
in_a_hole 2y ago
The FermatsLibrary page contains a pdf showing a photocopy of the original piece with some annotations at the side. The pdf is just a graphic and does not have highlightable text but the annotations are proper text. Perhaps you have some minimal view enabled on your browser and are only seeing the annotations, the only "text" on the page.
- nonrandomstring 2y ago
  Exactly! What's funny is that rather than simply failing hard it silently kinda half-works, presenting me with a mashed-up, incoherent mess that sort of reads like it might be a legit article, but written by crazy person. A good object lesson in an awful idea for web presentation in my opinion, but amusing nonetheless.