Something just occurred to me. Specifically, the difference between science and engineering and how that relates to our current moment in society.
One time, there was a propane fired kiln I was in charge of. It wasn't coming up to temperature.
I had a number of men of science look at it, and they all said the same thing: We needed more gas. We needed more gas, we definitely needed more gas. Problem was, there was no more gas to give, the gas was maxxed out. They wrote papers and all sorts of things saying we needed to give more gas regardless. The kiln needed more heat so it was self-evident that we needed to add more gas to get more heat. The scientists had a consensus and wouldn't accept any other answer.
Later on, I had an engineer look at it, and he said something completely different: We needed less air.
When we reduced the air, we also reduced the gas at the same time because there was way too much gas, and something incredible happened: The kiln was suddenly easily coming up to temperature.
I've been thinking about the difference between science and engineering. They're adjacent, but not the same. Science describes the world and makes predictions about the world based on prior data. Engineering is about trade-offs between different choices and their impact on different elements of the whole, about looking at what's happening to entire systems, and managing risks beyond the narrow thing you're looking at.
It seems to me that many of the obvious policy mistakes we see fit if we're mistaking scientists for engineers and letting them design things. They'd solve the problem, but without regard for the systems they'd be breaking along the way because that's not how that discipline necessarily works.
One time, there was a propane fired kiln I was in charge of. It wasn't coming up to temperature.
I had a number of men of science look at it, and they all said the same thing: We needed more gas. We needed more gas, we definitely needed more gas. Problem was, there was no more gas to give, the gas was maxxed out. They wrote papers and all sorts of things saying we needed to give more gas regardless. The kiln needed more heat so it was self-evident that we needed to add more gas to get more heat. The scientists had a consensus and wouldn't accept any other answer.
Later on, I had an engineer look at it, and he said something completely different: We needed less air.
When we reduced the air, we also reduced the gas at the same time because there was way too much gas, and something incredible happened: The kiln was suddenly easily coming up to temperature.
I've been thinking about the difference between science and engineering. They're adjacent, but not the same. Science describes the world and makes predictions about the world based on prior data. Engineering is about trade-offs between different choices and their impact on different elements of the whole, about looking at what's happening to entire systems, and managing risks beyond the narrow thing you're looking at.
It seems to me that many of the obvious policy mistakes we see fit if we're mistaking scientists for engineers and letting them design things. They'd solve the problem, but without regard for the systems they'd be breaking along the way because that's not how that discipline necessarily works.
- replies
- 2
- announces
- 2
- likes
- 6