> There's good reason. Fraternities are the exact opposite of meritocracy. Their very reason for existence, in fact, is to subvert meritocracy through cronyism and nepotism for those who can afford it.

There may be some like that but there are plenty that are not. I don't remember anyone getting in my fraternity that way and we averaged over 100 members at a time.

Being sociable and cultivating social connections is also a skill, and a marketplace where supply and demand need to be matched up but aren't necessarily able to articulate or quantify their offers, it's one of the most valuable skills you can have.

> Because of this, people engaged in strictly meritocratic work (science and engineering) find that whole world repulsive.

Richard Feynman, John Bardeen, Linus Pauling, and Kary Mullis were all in frats. That's just from 5 minutes of googling famous American scientists I could think of, I'm sure there's more.

Using Feynman as an example doesn't help your case: https://restructure.wordpress.com/2009/08/07/sexist-feynman-...

That said, I don't think we can judge people in the past using modern ethical values and it doesn't take away from his achievements.

The argument was "engineers/scientists find fraternities repulsive". Arguing that a top scientist was a jerk/misogynist/racist/sexist/whatever doesn't refute that.

Science and engineering aren't strictly meritocratic by any means. More than the fraternity system, perhaps, but not strictly.

Right; ask the average person to name a frat and they will think of Skull & Bones at Yale.

That's actually not a frat. It's a "secret society." Related but not the same thing.

What's the difference between a fraternity and secret society? One is more exclusive and secretive?

It varies a lot. Yes, secret societies tend to be more secretive. In some cases, though not Skull & Bones, membership is secret. And they generally don't have public parties as tends to be the case with fraternities. At least some members also generally live in fraternity houses while that's generally not the case with secret societies. That said, there are lots of variants of both as well as honor societies, eating clubs, etc.

Ironically being the most well known! That and Bohemian Grove!