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May 21, 1998
Who wins and loses in the science-versus-engineering dilemma?
Bill Schweber, Technical Editor
Why don't engineers and scientists get the same respect and attention?
A lengthy article in The New York Times Magazine (Reference
1), regarding the role of the Silicon Valley as a breeding ground for
technology companies and entrepreneurs, included an anecdote involving Jim Clark of
Silicon Graphics and Netscape. Clark attended a seminar at Princeton University in New
Jersey about how to create a local new-technology boom around the university. There,
university faculty and leaders spoke about the prime role of pure research. After several
hours of listening to them, Clark said, "You're doomed to mediocrity. You still think
the finest thing is to be a physicist or a mathematician. You will never believe that the
finest thing to be is an engineer or a computer scientist or anyone who does anything of
practical value."
Clark's blunt words really got me thinking. There's always been a
love/hate relationship between scientists and engineers. Engineers often resent the glory
that scientists get--after all, people always talk about "rocket science" and
"scientists getting us to the moon," but when is the last time you heard anyone
mention the tremendous role of the "rocket engineers" (Reference
2)? Scientists even get better movie roles--though not necessarily as good
guys. Meanwhile, if an engineer is cast at all, the character is bland and
stereotypical--and never the hero.
Yet, scientists need engineers, and vice versa. Each group builds on the
advances of the other, in a continuous game of leapfrog. Engineers often apply the
research results of scientists in totally unexpected ways or combine the results with
other developments and disciplines to invent something entirely new, a practice James
Burke illustrates in Connections (Reference 3).
Employers sometimes accuse engineering-school graduates of knowing too much science and
re-search and not enough practical engineering issues. Schools respond that they emphasize
science and research be-cause they are fundamental to engineering, and, once learned, they
last the student and the engineer a lifetime.
Knowing how important engineering is to science, why don't engineers and
scientists get the same respect and attention? Why, when sponsoring major conferences on
science, does the government ask for input from scientists and not from engineers? Does it
matter? Or is it actually a blessing that engineers are usually left alone, without the
spotlight shining on them?
- Lewis, Michael, "The Little Creepy Crawlers Who Will Eat You in the
Night," The New York Times Magazine, March 1, 1998.
- Murray, Charles, and Catherine Bly Cox, Apollo: The Race to
the Moon, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1989.
- Burke, James, Connections,
Little, Brown, and Co, 1995.
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