Engineering

Science and Engineering

One of the first distinctions that must be
made is between science and engineering. It is not a simple
distinction because the two are so interdependent and intertwined,
but whatever difference there is needs to be considered.

Science is the study of “natural” phenomena.
It is the collection of theories, models, laws, and facts about the
physical world and the methods used to create this collection.
Physics, chemistry, biology, geology, etc. try to understand,
describe, and explain the physical world that would exist even if
there were no humans. It is creative in building theories, models,
and explanations, but not in creating the phenomena that it
studies. Science has its own philosophy with an epistemology,
esthetics, and logic. It has its own technology in order to carry
out its investigations, build its tools, and pursue its goals.
Science has its organizations, culture, and methods of inquiry. It
has its "scientific method" which has served as a model (for better
or for worse) in many other disciplines.

Science is old. It was part of the original
makeup of a university or college in the form of natural
philosophy. It came out of antiquity, developed in the middle ages,
blossomed in the renaissance, was the tool of the enlightenment,
and came into its present maturity in modernity. Indeed, the
history of science is, in some ways, a history of intellectual
development. This is certainly only true in conjunction with many
other strains of philosophical, economical, theological, and
technological development, but science is a central player in that
story. Science is often paired with the arts (and Humanities and
Social Sciences) in the “College of Arts and Science” of a
traditional university.

Engineering is the creation, maintenance, and
development of things that have not existed in the natural world
and that satisfy some human desire or need. A television set does
not grow on a tree. It is the creation of human ingenuity that
first fulfilled a fantasy of a human need and then went on to
change the very society that created it. I use the term "things"
because one should include computer programs, organizational
paradigms, and mathematical algorithms in addition to cars, radios,
plastics, and bridges.

Science is the study of what is and
engineering is the creation of can be. Only recently has
engineering developed the set of characteristics that make it a
legitimate academic discipline. Earlier, engineering often was
viewed only as the application of natural science. Now, engineering
has developed its own engineering science for the study of human
made things to supplement natural science which was developed to
study natural phenomena. Parts of computer science are wonderful
examples of that. Engineering has its own philosophy and
methodology and its own economics. It even has its own National
Academy.

We differentiate science and engineering, not
because their difference is great, but because, in many ways, it is
small. Science could not progress without technology, and
engineering certainly could not flourish without science and
mathematics.

A more illuminating comparison might be
between the humanities and engineering. One might find more
similarity in style (not content) between English literature and
engineering than between science and engineering. Both literature
and engineering are the study of human created artifacts. Both
teach creation in the form of creative writing and engineering
design. Both teach analysis in the form of literary criticism and
engineering analysis. Both are intimately connected with the needs
and desires of individuals and society. A similar analogy could be
made between art and engineering looking at studio art, art
criticism, and art history.

Most scientists (but not all) feel there is
some unique objective truth behind the physical phenomena they are
studying. Their goal is to find it and describe and explain it, and
this truth is unique although the approaches and approximations to
it are certainly not. In literature and engineering, the designed
entity is not unique to the situation, but it is a creation of the
particular writer or designer and perhaps unique to the
creator.

The distinctions of this section are not as
clean or clear as have been presented here. The boundary between
science and engineering can be and often is murky. Many items of
study in science are influenced if not literally created by people.
This is obviously true in biology and the life sciences but also
true in physics where certain elements in the periodic table do not
exist in nature. Perhaps, therefore, the areas of pure science are
very limited. On the other hand, since people are members of our
natural system, an argument can be made that their products are as
natural as anything else and, therefore, the areas of pure
scientific study are very broad. Clearly engineering is constrained
in what it can create by the laws of science as everything is.
Nevertheless, there is a difference in spirit in the two
disciplines worth trying to delineate.