Science vs. Engineering
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Science vs. Engineering
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Re: Science vs. Engineering
#2Science covers a large range of precision. you also have things like c or α known to much higher precision than the average engineering quantity.
Re: Science vs. Engineering
#3Engineering, in contrast, is the technique of using science to produce tools we can consistently use in the world.
Semantically, wouldn't one call a neanderthaler creating/perfecting a useful tool an engineer as well, even though science was not really used directly?
Re: Science vs. Engineering
#4Engineering, in contrast, is the technique of using science to produce tools we can consistently use in the world. Semantically, wouldn't one call a neanderthaler creating/perfecting a useful tool an engineer as well, even though science was not really used directly?
They'd have to rely on intuition or their understanding of how the world works. If it's the latter, it sounds like (an informal) science was used.
Re: Science vs. Engineering
#5Engineering, in contrast, is the technique of using science to produce tools we can consistently use in the world. Semantically, wouldn't one call a neanderthaler creating/perfecting a useful tool an engineer as well, even though science was not really used directly?
Chomsky said some interesting things about science’s impact on engineering/medicine:
“Until very recently engineers learned from the sciences, but most of what they knew was craft. The crafts were so much more advanced than theoretical understanding that the engineers worked like artists. You know, you learned how to do it. Physics didn’t really get to contribute to engineering theory until fairly recently. In fact, when I got to MIT not that long ago in the 1950s, it was still largely an engineering school, and physics was taught as a service. But if engineers wanted to construct electric circuits or build a bridge and so on, you learned for the profession and you learned some physics – and it helped you, but now it’s changed.” (http://www.justresponse.net/chomsky_offers_advice.html)
Science is a social movement, with a history we can look at. Like many movements, there’s lots misleading written about it. Often going into religion, especially when groups try to claim its prestige for themselves. (We might include mainstream economics here, but hilariously many capitalist economists aim beyond science, closer to math. At least many Marxists "only" claimed to have Scientific Truths.)
Re: Science vs. Engineering
#6"Imagine trying to build a device based on the information that acceleration due to gravity is probably between 9 and 13 m/s^2"
Software engineering must be a special case. Half of it is about handling uncertain states and preparing for unknown future uses.
Re: Science vs. Engineering
#7Engineering, in contrast, is the technique of using science to produce tools we can consistently use in the world. Semantically, wouldn't one call a neanderthaler creating/perfecting a useful tool an engineer as well, even though science was not really used directly?
Chomsky said some interesting things about science’s impact on engineering/medicine: “Until very recently engineers learned from the sciences, but most of what they knew was craft. The crafts were so much more advanced than theoretical understanding that the engineers worked like artists. You know, you learned how to do it. Physics didn’t really get to contribute to engineering theory until fairly recently. In fact,…
>At least many Marxists "only" claimed to have Scientific Truths.)
Marx was probably using the German word "Wissenschaft"[1] which is not the same as modern empirical science, it's means something like structured knowledge and it includes branches of knowledge like history or literature that aren't called science in English.
Re: Science vs. Engineering
#8Engineering, in contrast, is the technique of using science to produce tools we can consistently use in the world. Semantically, wouldn't one call a neanderthaler creating/perfecting a useful tool an engineer as well, even though science was not really used directly?
For all we know, our current version of science could be as off the mark to some possible formulation as neanderthal's version of the world is to us.
Engineering works on top of what 'model' is available. Engineering even works when the model is incomplete but made irrelevant (not knowing the correct model of quantum mechanics didn't slow down the industrial revolution.)
Re: Science vs. Engineering
#9The easiest way I found to describe the differences between science and engineering (and I think about this fairly often) is by analogy with learning how to drive a (manual) car.
There are a few key skills one needs to master to be able to drive a car through any kind of circuit: from the basics, such as shifting up and down and the appropriate times, to drifting at will. Given enough time and "research", people can master this aspect effectively. That's science.
Engineering is the rest of the driving experience. The placement of traffic lights, how to synchronise them so two perpendicular roads are not green at the same time, and all of the signaling (stop, yield, etc) that we are used to.
The difference is there is a bigger solution space in engineering: there is no "one correct answer", and the factors involved in determining whether something is a good engineering solution are much broader. For example, reusing the signaling example above, the "stop" sign doesn't have to be a hexagonal red shape, but some early civil engineer figured that shape is the most adequate.
Re: Science vs. Engineering
#10Could someone parse the following heading for me, please?
"Trendy teaching as confusing science for engineering"
(I'm not a native English speaker)