I suspect that many aspects of the ritual behaviour being investigated by anthropologist Harvey Whitehouse and his colleagues (Nature 493, 470–472; 2013) could well apply to academia, and to the scientific community in particular.

Science generally operates in what Whitehouse calls the 'doctrinal mode', but the 'imagistic mode' might also be relevant. Examples of the doctrinal mode include the ritual of the weekly lab meeting, the bonding induced by social outings, the ritualized nature of scientific conferences and the stereotypical behaviour of different lab members as they go about their research.

For the imagistic mode, what about the agony or ecstasy of having your paper rejected or accepted by Nature? Or the terrified first-year PhD student who has his or her results lambasted at a lab meeting or, worse, at a conference? It is not unknown for people to crumple under the onslaught of such a “traumatic ritual”.

Studying the scientific community would be less dangerous than spending seven months in the middle of a civil war, and might encourage scientists to consider their own ritual behaviours.