lpetrich

Over in GRD, I have a review of Steve Bruce's book God is Dead: Secularization in the West. It has a lot of very interesting stuff in it, most of it off-topic for this forum. However, in his discussion of science and religion, SB makes some comments that are very relevant to the creationism question, and in particular, to the abundance of creationist engineers.

He suggests that we go beyond specific doctrines and look for similarities in thought processes. And he finds that there are some similarities between the "hard" sciences and the more conservative and fundie sorts of religion. Those sects have their own brand of rigorous rationalism, however perverted it may seem to outsiders.

This manifests itself in a taste for precision, especially numerical precision. Thus, predicting when the next eclipses will happen is much like predicting when Jesus Christ will make his Second Coming.

Steve Bruce also distinguishes between "advanced science", which is exploratory, and "mundane science", which is mainly the application of established paradigms. And engineering is clearly "mundane science". The latter one is more like conservative/fundie religion than the former; the paradigms used may almost be called the sacred books of a field.

Also, in engineering, it's not too difficult to tiptoe around doctrinally troublesome results of science.

This happens not only in Xtianity; students from Islamic countries generally prefer to go into the "hard" sciences and engineering.

And the medical profession may be interpreted as a branch of engineering; this may account for creationist doctors.

Kevbo

Another possible reason why there are very few creationists directly involved in the natural sciences:

These disciplines require an excellent grasp on the scientific method in order to perfrom well. Most creationists do not have this, or they would not be creationists. Their fundamentalism is like a mental roadblock that interferes with thought processes and incoming data. If they would rather believe that miracles happen in the world, they likely aren't going to be experts at applying the methodological naturalism of science.

Kevbo

Another thought just came to mind: very few psychologists are religious, and even fewer and fundamentally so. Perhaps this says something about understanding the thought processes which lead to religious thinking.

emotional

Engineers and graphics designers. Designers of all sorts believe there must be an intelligent designer like them for living organisms. The hammer sees everything as nails.

Conversely, having a background in linguistics makes it easier for me to see the possibility of evolution producing the illusion of intelligent design. I was a young-earth creationist once but I didn't stay so for long.

Undercurrent

There's probably a simpler explanation -- the plebes see engineers as near-equvalents of scientists, so the pastors trot them out as "smart people who believe in YEC" to impress their congregations.

Roland98

That's what I've seen before too. As ones who work daily with the "nuts and bolts" of design, I can see why, if they only knew the very basics of evolution, it might seem counter-intuitive to ones in their line of work. But that's no excuse not to delve deeper into evolutionary theory before dismissing it in favor of something like ID.

As a side note, on other forums, a few evolutionist engineers seem almost ashamed to admit what they do for a living--they're so embarrassed by their creationist brethren that have given engineers a bad name in many scientific circles.

Albion

I wonder if these engineers also look at something like evolution - a natural process for creating design - as a threat to their professions and to their own professional worth. Especially now there are all these computer simulations that use natural selection algorithms to come up with design solutions.

Worldtraveller

Yes, it's true, there are engineers who are creationists/fundies. But my experience in the aircraft industry has been that they are definitely in the minority.

I think it's just about the same as one of my high school physics teachers who was very religious, maybe even fundy. It's probably a bit unusual, but they tend to stand out. I think partly because the leaders do trot them out like show horses, as mentioned by undercurrent, and partly because to most of us who are engineers, living in the rational world as we are likely to do in our profession, it seems to entail a fair bit of cognitive dissonance.

Just my $.02.

Cheers,
Lane

hyzer

I wonder if the appearance of an overabundance creationists/fundies who are engineers is actually a result of other aspects of the engineering mindset. Perhaps engineering, as an occupation, is over represented because engineers, being engineers, like to figure things out and once they believe they have something figured out, want to pass it on (in the form of visits to II and so forth). In other words, it appears that engineers are over representing creationism not because there are more fundy engineers per se, but because fundy engineers are more likely to enter into debates, publish, and seek public forums for their views.

simian

Hey, hey, hey! I am an engineer (and have my Professional Engineer's certification). Yes, there are loud YEC engineers. There are also vocal engineers defending the sciences.

And, as genetic algorithms catch on (computer design based on random changes and the "fittest" changes survive to the next iteration of design, as I understand it - based evolutionary principles), the YECs will be harder and harder to be in engineering.

Simian