Petroski: Want to engineer real change? Then don't ask a scientist

[Winehole23]

Petroski: Want to engineer real change? Then don't ask a scientist (http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/01/27/0127petroski_edit.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=45)


Tuesday, January 27, 2009

'We will restore science to its rightful place," President Barack Obama declared in his inaugural address. That certainly sounds like a worthy goal. But frankly, it has me worried. If we want to "harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories," as Obama has decreed, we shouldn't look to science. What we need is engineering.
To be fair, Obama's misconception is a common one. Most people who aren't scientists or engineers seem to think that science and engineering are the same. They're not. Science seeks to understand the world as it is; only engineering can change it.



That's not what most high-school teachers or even college professors tell their science students. But the truth is that full scientific understanding isn't always necessary for technological advancement. Take steam engines: They were pumping water out of mines long before a science of thermodynamics was developed to explain how they worked. The engines were what prompted researchers to look into the nature of steam power in the first place.



This may make me a heretic, but I'll take the argument a step farther: Science can actually get in the way of technology. In the 19th century, some scientists were convinced that even the largest steamship couldn't carry enough coal for transatlantic trips. Only when skeptical engineers designed ships that made this supposedly impossible task possible were the naysaying scientists forced to reconsider.



And think about the Wright brothers, who refused to believe that only birds were meant to fly. If Wilbur and Orville had waited for the publication of a sophisticated textbook on aerodynamics, they might never have left their bicycle shop in Dayton for the dunes of Kitty Hawk. Engineering, not science, enabled them to develop propellers that worked in the air the way a ship's propeller spins through water.



Steamships and flying machines may seem like things of the past, but the ingenuity behind them couldn't be more relevant today. Some of our greatest energy challenges require engineering breakthroughs, not scientific discoveries. The principles that explain how a battery works, for example, are old news. But a lightweight and cost-effective battery pack with enough juice to power a car over long distances remains an elusive goal.
The same is true of fuel and solar cells. Scientists established long ago that natural processes involving chemicals and sunlight can produce electricity. We need engineers to make the cells lean enough to compete with coal and oil.



Science alone is never enough.



The president and his green team — particularly Energy Secretary Steven Chu — appear to understand the urgency of the world's energy problems. I'm not so convinced that they accept that science, for all its beauty, is not the best place to seek practical fixes. Obama should keep his promise to "restore science to its rightful place" — and put engineering on at least an equal footing.


Petroski is a professor of civil engineering and history at Duke University.

[LnGrrrR]

Nice post/article. I agree with the majority of what he says. Most scientists are OPPOSED to change... it frankly goes against science (don't accept something until it's been tested). It's the engineer's job to challenge that thinking.

[Winehole23]

ASCE 2009 infrastructure report card:

http://www.asce.org/reportcard/2009/index.html

[CubanMustGo]

Engineering is a science. One that has practical application, but the same can be said about many sciences.

[RandomGuy]

(puts on conservative hack hat)

Just goes to show you yet another way in which Obama sucks.

(takes off conservative hack hat)

The article makes a good point about engineering. :toast

Our saving grace has been our ability to attract talented foreign engineers, but hopefully the research money will find its way into the next Orville and Wilbur's hands.

[Winehole23]

The decrepit state of the nation's infrastructure will knock more than $3 trillion off the nation's gross domestic product (http://www.cnbc.com/id/44505017) through the end of the decade if more money isn't spent to upgrade the country's roads, bridges, airports and ports, according to a new report from the American Society of Civil Engineers.

––



Based on current trends in the U.S., ASCE estimates the infrastructure investment needs will total $2.7 trillion, and yet they estimate only $1.6 trillion will be spent, leading to an investment gap of $1.1 trillion.




(Read More: The Great Regression of America's Infrastructure (http://www.cnbc.com/id/44876150).)


The biggest gap in funding is in surface transportation, in other words roads and bridges, which will need a whopping $846 billion. Airports will need $39 billion, and marine ports and waterways will need $16 billion. The costs are measured in terms of such things as unreliable transportation services, and less reliable water and electricity.


The impact from not filling that investment gap means $484 billion fewer in exports, and $1.1 trillion in lost total trade. That, in turn, leads to 3.5 million fewer jobs than would otherwise be created, the report said.


http://www.cnbc.com/id/100381132

[Agloco]

Engineering sux tbh.

[DMC]

Engineering is easy. It's those people who interpret abstract art, that's hard.

[ElNono]

Engineering is easy. It's those people who interpret abstract art, that's hard.

Couldn't agree more.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Bashing science isn't going to get funding for the work that needs to be done. Euhler wasn't an engineer, neither were LaPlace or Fourier yet the entire engineering community owes it's existence to those mathematicians.

People don't give a damn. All these bridges collapse, they survey the problem and indicate that the older infrastructure is near a precipice because of how loads were engineered 50 years ago and yet pukes want to make sure they only have to wait a week for a hip replacement rather than a month. That's the priority oh that and not having to pay an extra $50 a month in taxes.

We deserve what we get.

And is dredging engineering? Hydrology?

[baseline bum]

Engineering is easy. It's those people who interpret abstract art, that's hard.

No it isn't; you just make it up as you go along and throw out lots of buzzwords like organic. Works especially well if your date is in her 30s and serves coffee career-wise.

[symple19]

California is a great example of what I'm guessing goes (has gone) on in many states. They used to raid infrastructure funds on the reg, resulting in prop 22 http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/California_Proposition_22,_Ban_on_State_Borrowing_ from_Local_Governments_(2010)

The Cali road network used to be the envy of the world. Now it's decaying at a rapid rate. Seems to be the norm as I travel about the country.

Maybe public/private partnerships are an answer? http://www.ocregister.com/articles/infrastructure-380794-california-public.html


The Little Hoover Commission, a state watchdog agency, released a report two years ago on the infrastructure crisis. It recommended creating more state and local public-private partnerships to finance, design, build and operate infrastructure projects when doing so would increase efficiency, reduce costs and speed delivery.
"The decisions California's leaders make now in how the state invests in its infrastructure can help California and its people recover from the worst recession since the Great Depression and lay a foundation for a competitive, world-class economy for decades to come," the commission report states. "The way California currently spends its infrastructure dollars lacks a long-term vision and a systematic process for prioritizing projects. ... California's pattern of borrowing money through general obligation bonds and repaying debt through the General Fund to pay for infrastructure investments will force further spending cuts in healthcare, social services, education and public safety programs."

[symple19]

"Historical experience shows that a public-private partnership methodology will normally save about 15-30 percent for the government over the cost of doing that through traditional government procurement methods. A lot of that comes by the greater speed of delivery. The risk of delivering that infrastructure on time and on budget is shifted to the private sector. A lot of the cost of infrastructure is the cost of run-ups, late delivery, over-budget. Historical experience shows in other places that public-private partnership projects are almost always delivered on time or ahead of schedule, on budget or even below budget."

[Wild Cobra]

(puts on conservative hack hat)

Just goes to show you yet another way in which Obama sucks.

He just doesn't understand that engineering is a discipline of science.


(takes off conservative hack hat)

The article makes a good point about engineering. :toast

The point is that you don't have to over analyze everything. You don't have to understand everything at root levels.


Our saving grace has been our ability to attract talented foreign engineers, but hopefully the research money will find its way into the next Orville and Wilbur's hands.

Saving grace? I would say it shows our education is sub-standard.

[Wild Cobra]

Engineering is easy. It's those people who interpret abstract art, that's hard.
Sure, any college educated idiot with an engineering degree can make things. i look at some of the things engineers do, and make work, and shake my head at how stupid they were. Some of the stuff is so hard to work on when it needs repairs. Some of the stuff is unreliable for simple causes.

In reality, only a very small percentage of engineers are good at their job.

[DMC]

No it isn't; you just make it up as you go along and throw out lots of buzzwords like organic. Works especially well if your date is in her 30s and serves coffee career-wise.

I should have used blue.

[coyotes_geek]

California is a great example of what I'm guessing goes (has gone) on in many states. They used to raid infrastructure funds on the reg, resulting in prop 22 http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/California_Proposition_22,_Ban_on_State_Borrowing_ from_Local_Governments_(2010)

The Cali road network used to be the envy of the world. Now it's decaying at a rapid rate. Seems to be the norm as I travel about the country.

Maybe public/private partnerships are an answer? http://www.ocregister.com/articles/infrastructure-380794-california-public.html

Similar story here in Texas. People keep moving into the state at such a rapid rate that we just can't keep up with the increased traffic demand placed on the system.

Public-private partnerships (PPP) are a good idea, I've worked on several such projects, but it's not a complete solution. A project has to be a certain size for it to be worth it. In Texas, we also get a lot of political opposition to such projects because there's usually a tolling component involved and a lot of people in this state are still anti-toll. The bigger PPP projects also usually end up requiring involvment of a foreign concessionaire because the U.S. never built infrastructure projects this way while the rest of the world has been, and Texans don't like the idea of some foreign company owning a road they want to drive on. There simply aren't too many U.S. companies with the financial capability to build a billion dollar project on their nickel and then get paid back over 30-50 years.

[DMC]

Sure, any college educated idiot with an engineering degree can make things. i look at some of the things engineers do, and make work, and shake my head at how stupid they were. Some of the stuff is so hard to work on when it needs repairs. Some of the stuff is unreliable for simple causes.

In reality, only a very small percentage of engineers are good at their job.

In reality, a very small percentage of people are good at their jobs.

[symple19]

Interesting. Thanks for shedding some light on that CG :tu

[Winehole23]

Inspectors taking the first-ever inventory of flood control systems overseen by the federal government have found hundreds of structures at risk of failing and endangering people and property in 37 states.Levees deemed in unacceptable condition span the breadth of America. They are in every region, in cities and towns big and small: Washington, D.C., and Sacramento Calif., Cleveland and Dallas, Augusta, Ga., and Brookport, Ill.


The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has yet to issue ratings for a little more than 40 percent of the 2,487 structures, which protect about 10 million people. Of those it has rated, however, 326 levees covering more than 2,000 miles were found in urgent need of repair.


The problems are myriad: earthen walls weakened by trees, shrubs and burrowing animal holes; houses built dangerously close to or even on top of levees; decayed pipes and pumping stations.


The Associated Press requested, under the Freedom of Information Act, details on why certain levees were judged unacceptable and how many people would be affected in a flood. The Corps declined on grounds that such information could heighten risks of terrorism and sabotage.


Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/01/17/3136480/ap-impact-deficient-levees-found.html#storylink=cpy

[Wild Cobra]

In reality, a very small percentage of people are good at their jobs.
Agreed.

[MannyIsGod]

Thats one of the dumbest OP's I've had the (dis)pleasure of reading. Hey let me take a couple of anecdotes from the 19th and early 20th century to prove that science isn't actually advancing us. Oh, and while I do that I'll just go ahead and ignore that engineers have an extensive background in science and are basically applied scientists. What WH posted was basically an engineering professor who's standing on the shoulders of the research scientists who came before in some weird effort to discount researchers today.

Because WH hates scientists, he jumped all over it. Its a bunch of piss poor semantics.

[MannyIsGod]

Engineering sux tbh.

:lol

Perfect retort. Pretty much what OP was.

[Agloco]

I should have used blue.

Here too? Else, BB should have used blue in his retort.

[baseline bum]

Here too? Else, BB should have used blue in his retort.

:cry Post got redshifted in the expansion of the thread :cry

[MannyIsGod]

:cry Post got redshifted in the expansion of the thread :cry

Its actually the forum thats expanding.

[mouse]

All this advance Science is overwhelming and remarkable.....................meanwhile we still have the flu virus.

[baseline bum]

Its actually the forum thats expanding.

You're right. This thread is comoving.

[Winehole23]

:lol

Perfect retort. Pretty much what OP was.actually, you got it exactly backwards. OP said engineers rule, and scientists suck.

[MannyIsGod]

actually, you got it exactly backwards. OP said engineers rule, and scientists suck.

Pretty sure thats what I meant but thanks.

[Winehole23]

well then, I got it backwards. my bad.

[RandomGuy]

He just doesn't understand that engineering is a discipline of science.

The point is that you don't have to over analyze everything. You don't have to understand everything at root levels.

Saving grace? I would say it shows our education is sub-standard.

Higher education is not a faucet that can be turned on and off at need. If one suddenly needs something it takes about 4-10 years to respond to market conditions.

Understanding things at root levels is a very important thing, because quite a bit of science is counter-intuitive. Without a proper framework of understanding, you end up with all sorts of bad outcomes.

Our educational system isn't all that bad, but we do have to deal with a lot that other industrialized countries don't.

I think we do often fail to teach good critical thinking skills. The large number of people who still think conservative ideologies work in the real world is proof enough of that.

[Winehole23]

hey, we got a D+ !

http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/

[rjv]

i can tell you this much-you can get a bunch of theoretical physicists and applied physicists in a room together and they will most certainly not be on the same page about a myriad of topics

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

Engineering is easy. It's those people who interpret abstract art, that's hard.

They're culturally richer than you'll ever be.

[DMC]

Wow DoK going waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back.