liquid

Just a little complaint here, but perhaps not the one you expected from the thread title.

I do get very annoyed by scientists in the creation/evolution debate criticising engineers because there are a couple of prominent ones in the American creationist movement.

I am an aerospace engineer myself (and have biology qualifications as well), and needless to say, I fully support mainstream science. So do the vast majority of engineers, probably as much as pure scientists.

So I would appreciate it if people cut out an amount of the engineer bashing on the basis that there are engineer fundamentalists. There are fundamentalist biologists too - but it just doesn't conflict as much with their main work, and so are not as easily dismissed as cranks.

The second point I would like to make in defense of my kind is the criticism that we don't do 'real' science or research.

That is such a load of rubbish I don't know where to begin. It does appear to me to be a very American attitude, but correct me if I am wrong.

For instance, take the field of thermodynamics. A vital area of the physical sciences, both for our debate and life in general. Research in this field is almost exclusively run by engineers. Many engineers are more able in applied mathematics, programming and simulations than mathematicians, and know more about thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, aerodynamics and a host of other fields that physicists now know little about. All our work follows established scinetific and empirical rules, with the sole caveat that we often run into non-analytical but numeric situations because our work is very linked to the real world.

The simple fact is that engineering, in all its various forms, actually has jurisdiction over a lot of what the public would consider physics and mathematics, and conducts research equal to the highest level of the pure sciences. Name almost any major technological achievement translated into reality, and it was an engineer. The phone, the radio, the TV, the satellite, the robot, the aeroplane, the rocket, the cervical smear scanning machine, the IC machine, the MRI scanner, the CAT scan, cryonics. The list goes on.

So to avoid this being a rant, and to bring it back on topic, I am looking for some real input on why we get this hassle, and particularly in relation to the creation/evolution debate.

Late_Cretaceous

You make a very good point. I work in engineering research at a large univeristy (my degree is in biology), and yes of course it is real research. A lot of our work is done collaboratively with the biological sciences dept. Now, I have heard engineers criticize biology as being "escoteric (and chemistry as a "soft science" BTW), and biologists described as not knowing what they are doing because "they collect data from lakes and don't construct [mathematical] models". So it works both ways.

Besides, engineers are just so darned easy to make fun of.

Q: What does an engineer find works most effectively as birth control?
A: His personality

If an optimist says the glass is half full, and the pessimist says the glass is half empty, the engineers declares that the glass has been disigned to have double the required capasity. <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> <img src="graemlins/boohoo.gif" border="0" alt="[Boo Hoo]" />

Peez

Hi liquid,

I must admit that I have not noticed any "engineer bashing" around here, but perhaps I am not sensitive to it. Certainly engineers (like many other groups) tend to be saddled with stereotypes (to say nothing of engineering students . I have a great deal of respect for engineers, and some of ny best friends are engineers of one sort or another.

I also accept that many engineers engage in science, but science is not what engineers seem to be trained primarily to do. I should point out that the development of "the phone, the radio, the TV, the satellite, the robot, the aeroplane, the rocket, the cervical smear scanning machine, the IC machine, the MRI scanner, the CAT scan, cryonics," etc. is not science. These technologies are based on science, but their development is not science. The application of scientific principles to technologies is what I think of as an engineer's primary skill. In contrast, a biologist (or physicist, or chemist) is generally trained primarily to do science in their particular field. Neither is in any way "better" than the other, but they tend to concentrate on different areas.

Peez

simian

I am an Agricultural Engineer (primarily - have an additional BS).

Back in 1999, after Kansas had adopted the "revised" (creationism) standards, I went on a letter writing fury. I wrote to the magazines of a couple of professional societies to which I belong, essentially calling for a boycot of the state until it got the science standards to include, well, science. One (the one to the engineering magazine) was published. The other was not. Three letters to the editor were printed in response to mine. Two claimed that evolution would break the second law of thermodynamics (one of the two had his Professional Engineer's liscence), one said all species were independantly created (over a long period of time). NOBODY wrote in to correct the lie over the thermodynamics. It is possible that the remaining readers of the magazine fall for the creationist crud, but more likely, they are just not speaking up. That is a huge problem, in my opinion.

If we engineers as a group don't speak up when we know somebody is stretching the truth or outright telling falsehoods, we have an ethical and creditability problems.

Just my opinion, based on my experiences.

Any spelling errors merely reflect the fact I am an engineer.

DireStraits

Well, I don't think anyone who uses a medium such as this are going to bash engineers as engineers. Certainly not the authos of this, because I are one myself.

Now engineers certainly do research, but it is of sourse different to some degree from the research that pure scientists do. Scientists are far more concerned with finding out about the universe for the sake of the knowledge. Engineers have more practical concerns in mind. There's a great deal of overlap, of course, such as medical researchers who certainly do pure research in the way that I mention above, but their primary concern is alleviation of human suffering. By the same token, serendipity is evident in both, but the two types of research can be reasonably differentiated.

Why do engineers take the flak that you mention? Well, they have a very high regard for design, since they do so much of it, and apply so much of it. It may be that they have too much regard for the subject, and some may guffaw that impersonal forces could have brought about the complexity we see in biota.

And now a story. A mathematician and an engineer are both given a problem to solve. They are placed at one end of a room, and at the other is a gorgeous female. Whoever solves the problem gets the female. They are told that they can only cross half the distance of the room, wait ten seconds, cross half of the remaining distance, wait ten seconds, and so forth.

The mathematician says that it is not worth trying since he will never get there.

The engineer starts walking immediately. The mathematician smiles a superior smile. "Obviously you have never heard of Zeno's paradox." he says.

The engineer stops for his first ten-second sohourn. "Oh, I've heard of it all right. But in five minutes I'll be close enough..."

Peez

I believe that engineers are in an excellent position to challenge many of the distortions of creationists, in part because they enjoy a (deserved) respect, and in part because they deal with real-world applications of science that may be more relevant to the lay public than theory would be. That being said, it is everyone's responsibility to expose ignorance and bias in our societies, as we will all share the bounty (one way or another).

Peez

simian

Peez:

Ignore the formatting error if it is wrong, I am just trying the quote.

Yes, I agree that all people have a responsibility to correct statements they know are incorrect, even if they are not the one making them. I critized many denominations in Kansas for not speaking up when the only view coming across was that one had to be a YEC to be Christian.

Keep in mind I had written to an engineering magazine. Two people (one with his PE) stated life/evolution breaks the laws of thermodynamics. Of the entire readership NOT ONE person stepped forward to correct that statement. NOT ONE. That is a major ethical issue in my viewpoint.

tronvillain

Biology is much closer to engineering than any other science. That said, I have noticed a tendency for engineers I know to go in for intelligent design.

DireStraits: That's not a very good story - anyone worth calling mathematician would know that Zeno's Paradox isn't one.

Peez

I agree. The engineering whining about the 2LoT just shows how some people can compartmentalize their thinking. It's scarey. Is it possible that some wrote in to correct the statement, but did not get printed? suppose that is unlikely. More likely readers thought it so egregious that it was not worth responding to. s you point out, that is a poor choice of action.

Peez

DireStraits

Biology is much closer to engineering than any other science.

DS: How?

That said, I have noticed a tendency for engineers I know to go in for intelligent design.
DireStraits: That's not a very good story - anyone worth calling mathematician would know that Zeno's Paradox isn't one.

DS: Dead wrong, I'm afraid. It IS a paradox. It's been resolved, but it is still a paradox. If it is not a paradox, why did you just call it one, and then say it wasn't? That sounds like a meta-paradox to me ;-)

Besides, the whole point of the story is that if limitations were placed upon movement that exactly parallel Zeno's Thingy, the mathematician would tend to think in terms of perfect solutions, whereas the engineer would be happy with a solution that was close enough to meet a specification.