
Richard Feynman: Do We Live in A Cargo Cult Society? - bertm
http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.pdf
======
andreyf
Absolutely. The biggest offenders in software engineering are the things
people integrate into their identity (i.e. "I'm an Agile manager", "I'm a Java
architect", "I'm a Lisp hacker"). Another red flag is when there are no clear
ways of testing a hypothesis (i.e. "NoSQL databases are better for this task",
"This management methodology is best for our organization", "Outsourcing is
great if you do so-and-so"). Most, if not all, of the opinions regarding
industrial software engineering are based in anecdotal experience, without the
tiniest thought given to controlled experiments. C'est la vie.

PS: what's most confusing, for me, is that it seems impossible to fix all of
the variables necessary to answer a question like "what technology is best for
this real-world problem?". I've yet to hear of any good ways of systematically
measuring the effect of technology choices on programmer productivity.

~~~
stellar678
This is also the reason that fields like nutrition science aren't generally
all that useful if what you want to do something like offer diet advice. There
are just too many shifting pieces to offer a systematic explanation of what's
going on, at least with the experimental limits we have right now. You can
only track so many variables at once.

~~~
bertm
This presents an interesting paradox though because at the end of the day a
decision is required. Do I eat thing X or thing Y? And in what proportion? So
when a set of things is not well understood but a decision is required, many
non science strategies enter. So what can be done about this?

~~~
nazgulnarsil
you have to downgrade from induction to deduction. given the environment
humans evolved in and what we know about primate digestive systems, what is
unlikely to do me harm? answer: fruit, nuts, eggs. what is the biggest thing
we do that monkeys don't? eat tons of processed grains.

simple answer: decrease processed carb intake, replace with fruit (primate
diets are often 50% fruit). since eating no grains isn't an option, eat the
ones considered healthier: corn, beans, brown rice.

~~~
rue
And how long do monkeys live again?

That is not to say it is a bad idea, just that you do not present any evidence
that grains are somehow bad. In fact, without considering all the other
variables, one could just as well argue that grains are _fantastically good_
for humans.

~~~
Daniel_Newby
The archaeological and medical evidence (celiac disease) suggests that humans
are not especially well adapted to eating cereal grains. That does not mean
they are entirely bad, just that their hidden costs are relatively more likely
to be whimsical and unpleasant.

~~~
rue
And what do widely present allergies to pea- and other nuts, peas, carrots,
tomatoes, citrus fruit, fish or shellfish (among others) tell us?

~~~
elblanco
Don't forget eggs, bananas, peaches (and relatives), onions, carrots, etc.
(include most foods, yes I've known people with fantastically, life
threatening, sensitive allergies to these foods).

One of my favorites is the genetic differences over perception of the herb
coriander. Some percentage of people hate it because it tastes like soap.
While the rest don't taste any soapy taste at all and find it to be a pleasant
seasoning.

People often make the mistake of conflating "evolved diet=good for you" with
"ready availability of foodstuffs". Chimps will also happily eat a pile of
steak and a milkshake if you give it to them. Alaskan Salmon are fantastically
good for us, but they don't exist at our evolutionary homestead. Some humans
have consumed dairy for so long that they have developed lactose tolerance,
and some eat such a high protein diet that large amounts of carbohydrates
(refined or otherwise) leads to very high percentages of diabetes.

IOW, not every human has the same genetic lineage, Coeliac disease is
interesting for some variety of humans, but doesn't exist at all in other
populations -- and even in the populations it _does_ exist in, it has a pretty
low frequency (generally less than 1% population in any area no matter the
genetic predisposition of the population). Egg allergies (one of the cited
foods in this thread as "evolution safe" are fantastically more common by
comparison. It's the second most common childhood allergy in the U.S.

~~~
dgordon
Celiac disease makes up a tiny fraction of the cases of gluten intolerance,
which as much as 20% of the population of, say, the USA may have. (Source:
Dangerous Grains, by James Braly and Ron Hoggan) Then add in actual wheat
allergies. That's a lot of people.

So yes, people can have allergies to all sorts of things. I've been there
(long story; currently it's only cow's milk I have to avoid) and it's not fun.

~~~
elblanco
I'm going to have to partially dispute you. I'll get to the point, but first
let's define clearly, what is an allergy, an intolerance and what's coeliac
disease.

Some raw numbers, wheat (gluten) allergies affect less than 1% of the
population (it's something like .48%). It's not something you can hide, you
either swell up and stop breathing when you come in contact with it or you
don't. It's actually hard to find in adults as most people grow out of it when
they enter puberty. If you don't die within a short time from eating wheat
(without treatment) due to an IgE antibody surge, you aren't allergic -- full
stop. (yes, there are emergent allergies that occur later in life, gluten
allergies are generally not considered to be in the class of those types of
allergies). <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IgE>

Wheat (gluten) intolerance is more prevalent. But so are most food
intolerances. For example, it's generally considered that 3/4 of the adult
population of the U.S. has a dairy intolerance. Intolerance != allergy. You
can eat foods you are intolerant to. It might give you an upset stomach or bad
gas or some such, maybe diarrhea and a really bad headache. But by those
symptoms most of us are intolerant of high fiber diets, coffee and all forms
of strong alcohol. It might be worse, like dizziness or some such, but if you
don't have IgE antibodies in your system after contact with the suspect food
it's not an allergy. In other words, probably 100% of the population is
intolerant of _some_ food some of the time. People often mistake "allergic"
with "intolerant". Allergies are far more severe and critical than
intolerance. Intolerance comes from a lack of an ability to process a given
external agent due to some genetic predisposition -- like how many East Asians
can't process alcohol properly or MSG makes my Aunt get a headache.

Coeliac disease occurs in about .75% of the population (as identified so far).
It is a distinct and different disease from gluten allergies and gluten
intolerances. Coeliac disease is an autoimmune disorder where the body
destroys the lining (the villi) of the intestine as a response to the presence
of the _byproduct_ of gluten after it's been improperly modified by a faulty
enzyme causing an IgA antibody flareup in the gut. It's only now really being
diagnosed as it is easily confused with other bowel diseases prior (like IBS
or Ulcerative colitis or granulomatous among others). Recent IgA antibody
tests do a pretty good job of positively identifying the disease (but you have
to be on a gluten rich diet for it to work, otherwise you'll have no
antibodies to test for!). The number may grow, but probably not much, even
wildly high estimates put it at under 3% of very localized, genetically
predisposed populations. Whatever the case, it presents as a chronic disease,
not an allergy. You don't eat wheat, then blow up, stop breathing and die.
Your intestine slowly rots away, you become malnourished and your feces turns
white.

Likewise, food intolerance != Coeliac disease != food allergy. The three
things are different. You may as well bundle people with sun allergies and who
have dry skin from harsh soap into your numbers if you are going to do that.
The _only_ common factor is that the causative agent is the same -- wheat. But
even if you add up all the numbers of people with wheat allergies and people
with coeliac disease, you likely end up with something less than 3-4% of the
general population.

"Dangerous Grains" is an interesting book. But if all you look for is a duck,
suddenly everything starts to look like a duck. I'd caution anyone from self-
diagnosing based on descriptions of layman oriented symptoms from a book
written to popularize an interesting theory. Many things cause precisely the
same symptoms as gluten intolerance (and visa-versa). Dangerous Grains, while
an great way to popularize recent science with the layman, is not the same as
medical science.

~~~
dgordon
"If you don't die within a short time from eating wheat (without treatment)
due to an IgE antibody surge, you aren't allergic -- full stop."

What? With all due respect, this is a ridiculous definition of "allergic" and
not at all the standard one. Are all the people with, say, pollen allergies
not really allergic if all they get is a runny nose? I feel lousy when I eat
anything containing cow's milk, and I have high IgE antibody levels for it,
but I don't die. Nonetheless, that is an allergy.

I'm well aware of the difference between an allergy and an intolerance, as I
thought I made clear by mentioning gluten intolerance as well as wheat
allergy.

Dangerous Grains makes and cites plenty of references to the published
literature, so it's hardly your average pop-sci book. A major point of it was
that celiac disease is only one way in which gluten intolerance, that is,
inability to properly digest gluten, can manifest.

~~~
elblanco
Okay, so maybe "die" was a bit strong. :)

Immunoglobulin E antibody presence is the only meaningful definition for
"allergic" in the literature. You are right, there are different degrees of
immune system response w/r to IgE response. But no IgE? Not allergic --
probably intolerant -- _may_ have something else.

Lots of things people say/think they are allergic to, they are actually
intolerant of.

I'm not putting down Dangerous Grains, only cautioning that many people
improperly self-diagnose. The authors are recognized practitioners in allergy
medicine. I forget some of the the terms off-hand, but mistaken self-diagnosis
when learning about new medical topics is sometimes called the "medical school
student syndrome".

Just because many of the easily observable symptoms of Coeliac disease are
commonly found in any random selection of population, does not mean that
Coeliac disease is common. It doesn't help that most of the symptoms may or
may not even be present!

But really here's the list of symptoms: Abdominal pain, Abdominal distention,
bloating, gas, indigestion, Constipation, Decreased appetite (may also be
increased or unchanged), Diarrhea -- chronic or occasional, Lactose
intolerance (common upon diagnosis, usually goes away following treatment),
Nausea and vomiting, Stools that float, are foul smelling, bloody, or “fatty”,
unexplained weight loss (although people can be overweight or of normal weight
upon diagnosis), Anemia (low blood count), Bone and joint pain, Bone disease
(osteoporosis, kyphoscoliosis, fracture), Breathlessness (due to anemia),
Bruising easily, Dental enamel defects and discoloration, Depression, Fatigue,
Growth delay in children, Hair loss, Hypoglycemia (low blood sugar),
Irritability and behavioral changes, Malnutrition, Mouth ulcers, Muscle
cramps, Nosebleed, Seizures, Short stature, unexplained Skin disorders
(dermatitis herpetiformis) Swelling, general or abdominal, Vitamin or mineral
deficiency, single or multiple nutrient (for example, iron, folate, vitamin
K), Type-1 diabestes, autoimmune thyroid disease, autoimmune liver disease,
rheumatoid arthritis, addison's disease, sjogren's syndrome.

Almost everybody I know has half of these symptoms half of the time -- and the
ones that are less common are from something that's not CD (hair loss? how
about Rad poisoning. Short children? Pituitary irregularity. Mouth ulcers? How
about being a skank in High School?)

Here, let's try some example differentials: Patient is 28, Female, Caucasian,
blood pressure is normal, pulse is normal, height and weight are average.
Symptoms: Anemic, Bloating, Constipated, Abdominal Pain, Nausea and vomiting,
Bruising easily, Fatigue, irritability and behavioral changes, muscle cramps,
swelling, vitamin D and Calcium deficiency in lab work.

Does she have a) Lupus? b) PMS? c) or one of the .5% of the adult population
with CD? (hint, it's never Lupus).

How about this: Patient is 62, Female, Caucasian, BP is elevated, pulse is
elevated, height is below average and weight are average. Symptoms: Anemic,
Indigestion, Occasional Diarrhea, Bone and Joint Pain, Bone disease
(osteoporosis), Bruises easily, Dental discoloration, Fatigue, Hair loss,
Hypoglycemia, Malnutrition, Short Stature, unexplained, Hives, Vitamin and
mineral deficiency.

Does she have a) Lupus? b) Old, eats a crap diet of mostly snack foods, works
a high stress sedentary job and drinks lots of coffee and tea and just
starting eating a high fiber diet for the first time in her life? c) one of
the .5% of the adult population with CD?

Or let's try another: Patient is 34, Male, Caucasian, BP is normal, pulse is
elevated, height is average, weight is above average. Symptoms: Thyroid
disease, type 1 diabetes, fatigue, vomiting, foul smelling stools, diarrhea,
irritability, nosebleeds, vitamin and mineral deficiency.

Does he have a) Lupus? b) Has hereditary Grave's disease, is fat, eats a crap
diet of pizza, candy and Jolt, has poor social skills, and just ate a bad
piece of three day old pepperoni and we should check to see if he has sepsis
and swab for known food-borne pathogens? c) one of the .5% of the adult
population with CD?

My point is that the observable presentation symptoms for CD are crap. They
could be symptoms for anything. Hence the caution on self-diagnosis. It also
doesn't mean people should go out of their way to inconvenience themselves to
avoid grain products and food with gluten in it because they get bloated on
occasion or have stinky poo.

<http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/celiac/> _"Diagnosis involves
blood tests and, in most cases, a biopsy of the small intestine."_

------
pizzapete212
I feel like we go round and round, dealing with the same problems that our
ancestors had to deal with.

What I see here is part of the human condition. Pitfalls that "most" people
are doomed to repeat. People are born with similar ways of thinking. I would
propose that intuition is most always wrong. This is one reason we must
educate people. Unfortunately, Memories and Communication are not precise. And
I realize that all job fields require some sort of education or training.

There exist Complex ideas, technologies, material things (eg. biology): that
are not comprehensible by one single person at a time. This is why we have
groups of people that make products and not individuals.

Also people age, lose their usefulness. If only you could educate people who
would increase their intelligence, and never die.

We live in a world of conclusions based on facts. A conclusion can be wrong, a
fact cannot. News media, blogs, conversation are an exchange of conclusions.
We can't communicate in just facts because we can't work with that much data
at a time.

If only, one could link to another: a computer or another brain and be able to
access knowledge and its accuracy. Is this possible, I don't know.

There are many problems worth fixing (but probably won't any time soon): a
phonetic english alphabet with a different letter for each unique sound, Human
Language to AI command compiler, optimize human mental process (engineer the
human mind), build biospheres in inhospitable regions of the Earth, Fast
internet that is cheap (100Mb/s (and I mean Megabit)) -> HD remote controlled
robots, Tactile feedback for TV just like we have visual and sound, Engineer
ways of rejuvenating/regeneration of humans so we can control our lifespan,
Creating or finding what makes humans "sentient" or "have a soul" or
"conscious" or "self-aware" -> Preserve this "consciousness" without a body
for long trips of space flight

------
Confusion
Choice quote:

    
    
      The first principle is that you must not fool yourself 
      -- and you are the easiest person [you can] fool.

------
natep
There's one paragraph I don't get:

    
    
        "I tried to find a principle for discovering more of these kinds of things, and came up with the following system. Any time you find yourself in a conversation at a cocktail party in which you do not feel uncomfortable that the hostess might come around and say, "Why are you fellows talking shop?" or that your wife will come around and say "Why are you flirting again?"--then you can be sure you are talking about something about which nobody knows anything."
    

I've been trying figure out what he meant, so I can apply the same method.

~~~
thefool
He meant that if you ever catch yourself in a conversation where no one knows
anything about the subject matter, you should end the conversation.

~~~
duncanj
I think he's saying that certain topics allow everyone to participate because
no one knows anything. If specialists were in the conversation, it would
become shop talk.

------
tokenadult
Previous submission:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=993150>

A good book for background on how people in general think is What Intelligence
Tests Miss by Keith Stanovich.

[http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=97803001238...](http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300123852)

[http://www.amazon.com/What-Intelligence-Tests-Miss-
Psycholog...](http://www.amazon.com/What-Intelligence-Tests-Miss-
Psychology/dp/030012385X)

As Feynman points out, "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself
--and you are the easiest person to fool." Human cognitive illusions are part
of the human condition, and every scientist has to guard against them
ceaselessly.

------
RevRal
I just finished reading this: <http://www.nthposition.com/thelastcargo.php>

Very interesting. I especially liked the term "cargo prophets."

The article paints cargo cultists as performing, with fervor and rigor, a
"magical repetition" of an "inexplicable complex of delusions."

And the cargo prophets, being the messengers, expound new canon to the "John
Frum" myth which further glorifies and necessitates this "inexplicable complex
of delusions," or rituals and methods.

The methods and rituals these cargo prophets ask followers to perform are NOT
reason or integrity.

I could go on with my thoughts on this, but basically yes. I do see a very
clear parallel.

------
Tichy
How can I get a link to the scribd HTML5 reader?

~~~
natep
I'm not sure. With the big announcement that was made about how they're
switching and everybody here on HN celebrating, I was expecting all the
[Scribd]'s to turn into HTML5 links. Is that because the HTML5 isn't ready
yet, or because the HN code hasn't been updated?

