The example I cited, of performing parade drills with fake guns without understanding their purpose while hoping they will cause some other effect, is more than sufficient to fill the accepted definition of cargo culting. There is no need to get hung up on specifics of airport rituals, which appears to be your preoccupation.
Yes, you clearly are trying to be offended by reality.
You said in reply
> The article doesn't claim that cargo cults don't exist, they just work very differently and the story that Feynman shared is likely inspired by an exploitation movie from the 60s.
Except we have established that in substance the cargo cults are performing the main claim of repeating observed actions in order to provoke cargo, and there is no evidence for your pure speculation regarding where Feynman got it from.
Ironically enough, that means there is infinitely more evidence that the cargo cults were engaged in the precise thing you are so concerned about than your Feynman theories. He could simply have engaged in poetic license, or been, horror, told by a colleague that was there.
> Yes, you clearly are trying to be offended by reality.
I think I made it pretty clear by now that nobody denies the existence of cargo cults.
> and there is no evidence for your pure speculation regarding where Feynman got it from.
Similarly, there is no evidence that the story as told by Feynman ever happened. That's my whole point.
> He could simply have engaged in poetic license, or been, horror, told by a colleague that was there.
That's exactly the problem. He likely relied on hearsay and gave a distorted picture of what cargo cults are about in general. The example he cites is neither typical, nor supported by the literature.
Look, I'm not saying we should stop using that word or something. I like it as a metaphor. At the same time, we can raise awareness of scientific facts.
Do you seriously not see how parading around a parade ground in an effort to summon cargo, especially in close proximity to an airfield, could rapidly transition to the described behaviour you're objecting to? They're so close to being the same that they basically are the same, especially in terms of being the same for the purposes of the metaphor.
You seem unwilling to join those dots, while being all too keen to conjure up other mechanisms based on no evidence whatsoever.
This whole discussion reminds me of when I made the mistake of using the idiom "the devil is in the details" near a religious literalist, who suddenly thought the important question was whether an actual demon was now occupying the details, as opposed to engaging in what the details are.
> Do you seriously not see how parading around a parade ground in an effort to summon cargo, especially in close proximity to an airfield, could rapidly transition to the described behaviour you're objecting to?
Sounds like "evidence-free leaping" to me ;)
The point is that cargo cults are far more complex than Feynman's story would make you believe. I had a wrong picture of cargo cults myself exactly because of Feynman and I learned a lot from the article and its sources.
Thanks for the insult, but of course it has! If you are not already familiar with actual cargo cults and read Feynman's story, it's hard not to get a wrong impression of the phenomenon.
The example I cited, of performing parade drills with fake guns without understanding their purpose while hoping they will cause some other effect, is more than sufficient to fill the accepted definition of cargo culting. There is no need to get hung up on specifics of airport rituals, which appears to be your preoccupation.