Science is not engineering

Interesting perspective. I sometimes feel the same way about the relationship between teaching and research on teaching. I generally have a pretty good idea about what works in the particular context where I work but research results are often inconclusive as they are generalized but my class is waiting for me…

“Scientists might argue that the government needs to invest in basic scientific research that will lead to unspecified discoveries about energy, water, and waste. Although a good deal is already known about those things, it certainly would not hurt to know more, but what would really move things forward would be investments in engineering.

Throughout history, a full scientific understanding has been neither necessary nor sufficient for great technological advances: The era of the steam engine, notably, was well into its second century before a fully formed science of thermodynamics had been developed. Indeed, sometimes science has impeded progress. Had Marconi believed his physicist contemporaries, he would have “known” that wireless telegraphy signals could not be sent across the ocean, around Earth’s curvature.

Engineers welcome any and all available scientific knowledge, but they needn’t wait for scientists to give them the go-ahead to invent, design, or develop the machinery to advance technology or to check it when it runs out of control. Without understanding this, we will continue to underfund the engineering needed to solve our greatest problems.”

http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/tech-careers/engineering-is-not-science

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