The Nature of Engineering

We live in an age of the specialist: an age in which specialised activity is pursued by specialists for the applause of specialists. Even within each relatively narrow branch of knowledge, whether it be English literature, Christian theology, physical science or mechanical engineering, the specialists can seldom talk meaningfully to one another. The Anglo-Saxon scholar has just as much difficulty in communicating with the critic of the modern novel as the thermodynamicist has in conveying his ideas to the stress analyst. It is not a matter of ‘two cultures’ but of a myriad of cultures, all of which are incomprehensible to the majority of mankind.

Craft 10 000 BC to AD 500; natural philosophy 3000 BC to AD 1400; science 1400 to 1700; technics 500 to 1850; science 1700 to 1850; development of engineering education; some characteristics of science and technology.

What is meant by explanation?; scientific explanation; historical explanation; technological explanation; engineering, technology and engineering science.

Engineering as an art?; the creative process; engineering design.

Ethical problems arlslng from technological activity; a code of ethics for engineers?; broad categories of technology (advanced technology, alternative technology, why advanced technology will prevail).

Technological decision-making; risk assessment; social control of technology.

Although in this book we have been trying to make explicit the distinctions between engineering and other forms of knowledge, one must beware of thinking that there are necessarily any hard-and-fast distinctions. Real life cannot be pigeon-holed neatly. It is more correct to think of a continuous spectrum of any particular characteristic over the range: art, craft, technics, technology, engineering science, science, and so on. This is why the reader will from time to time have said to himself; ‘Surely this is also true of some sciences’ or ‘That surely applies also to some technologies’. But the fact that we know light to be a continuous spectrum of frequencies does not prevent us from finding the crude concepts of red, blue and green very useful. Making distinctions is what we do from birth: our sight separates out colours and shapes, and our ears isolate sounds, in what the electronic engineer would call the ‘noise’ of the world around us. Furthermore, we coin words to express these distinctions so that we can communicate our experiences to each other. This is what the development of language is all about. With this warning out of the way, let us try to summarise the important distinctions we have found.