
Science vs. Engineering - luu
http://jadagul.tumblr.com/post/123631186748/ive-decided-lately-that-people-regularly-get
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moonchrome
Author makes a really good point but I think he presents it in a way that
doesn't make it obvious and sets it up as ego stroking "science vs
engineering" (which I can already see in the comments).

Science on it's own is not robust enough to build models for real-world
decision making - things we could consider in the domain of engineering. If a
scientific paper finds a correlation between red wine and heart disease this
may be interesting and important clue for scientific study but this is not
enough to develop a model of nutrition and certainly not enough to recommend
consuming red wine for hearth health. Plenty of people don't realize this and
you see articles "red wine good for your heart" \- without a robust model of
human metabolism/nutrition we just can't make claims like this. The food
pyramid is a perfect example of this flaw.

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xixi77
Definitely true about science on it's own not being robust enough -- but I
think you might be going a bit too far saying that "without a robust model of
human metabolism/nutrition we just can't make claims like this". Yes, such a
model would be awesome, but since it's not forthcoming any time soon, it is
still useful in the meantime to be able to make claims of this nature using
other evidence, such as experiments and even statistical studies, as long as
we don't take results for 100% truth (although, taking model results for 100%
truth would not be a good idea either).

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vlehto
Science is commonly defined as usage of scientific method. So science is just
trying to find truth with the best possible tools. Nothing more and nothing
less. I think here is the common and problematic misconception. Scientists are
saying "look, we used the best tools" and people are hearing "hey, we found
the truth!". But science is not about the destination, it's all about the
journey.

Engineering lacks such rigid definition. I've thought about it a lot, and I
think deep down engineering is always optimization.

If you invent a new need for people and fill it with a toy, that would be
marketing. But if you solve previously solved problem better, that's
engineering. You got closer to the optimum, even though the way you solved
might be described as "invention". So engineering inventions would be just
leaps in optimization.

Now if you optimize economical or cultural stuff, that would not be
engineering. So engineering is "optimization of technology".

I do not think "engineering" as a term should be expanded to the fields this
article suggests. The term started off as "art of building of siege engines".
And so far we don't have "sales-engineering". It's called marketing and it
works pretty good considering there is big human factor everywhere. Medicine
is good term too. These fields are just naturally more difficult to squeeze
accurate data out.

I think the best model how to deal with the human factor comes from medicine.
Rigorous meta-analysis is pretty solid. If we import the way tech or natural
science is researched, that would be: "just use better instruments and measure
more carefully". Which is pretty obvious dead. Because you will just get more
expensive studies that still disagree with each other.

~~~
Retric
I don't think it's quite that clear cut. Crash tests are focused on building
safer cars, but it also neededs to validate it's model of what happens in a
crash. So, sending human cadavers down a track is science, but what about
comparing the crumple zone deformation with computer models?

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smegel
Surely engineering is just about building stuff that works, or "meets
requirements".

Is there any kind of engineering for which that is basically not the case?

Science is about understanding the natural world by building and testing
hypothesis.

I can think of some grey areas. For example, in the 20th century it was
discovered that the harmonic modes of oscillation of large structures, like
bridges, was rather important to their structural stability. Once this was
well understood, clearly it was the engineers who built better and stronger
structures with inbuilt dampening and so forth. But who actually sat down and
figured out the math behind structural harmonic response, and showed how it
could lead to disaster? A scientist or an engineer? It seems both very sciency
and engineery.

~~~
aylons
There's a grey area, but I find your example (or the way you posed it) a bad
one. Creating a mental model is science, even if it was done to be applied in
a engineering context.

First, even the math and science behind the structural harmonic response was
made by an engineer, it was a science advance after all. They allowed people
to better understand the world, creating models of phenomena that are
observable. Of course, engineers can do science, as anybody else can, and that
does not transform science endeavours into engineering endeavours.

However, it must be noted that there is a lot of science in engineering:
people can approach engineering problems and subjects with a science mindset
so they can advance engineering. A new DSP algorithm is basically math, even
if it is math with some constraints set by engineering realities, and may be
analysed as such - more often than not, by people with engineering degrees,
who are doing science.

Both engineering and science are less about fields of knowledge and more about
process: if you are trying to understand something, and to observe things that
exist in a methodical way, aiming to create a model that can reproduce and
predict events, you are doing science. If you are trying to design something
that help you efficiently achieve some practical goal, you are doing
engineering.

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denzil_correa
If you know what you're doing, it's engineering; if not it's science. ~
Richard Hamming

~~~
batou
Apparently a number of engineers I used to work with were actually scientists!

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bane
On the crest of the wave-front of any advancements is science, followed by
research, followed by development, then engineering.

\- Science finds the new things

\- Research plays around with these things and susses out repeatable factors

\- Development sees if those repeatable factors can be turned into a product

\- Engineering builds those products

(- and sales and marketing sells them)

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randcraw
An interesting topic. I agree the two terms are usually imprecisely joined.
But I think the author's definition is too binary.

Science and engineering are a continuum. At one end is the theoretical
scientist who discovers new knowledge; at the other the engineer who applies
knowledge to serve some practical end. But between them lies the applied
scientist whose purpose is to extend scientific knowledge to make it valuable
to scientists working in other domains. And the process of doing that always
involves lots of engineering -- discovering the reproducible limits of a
phenomenon or a technique toward achieving some goal. Inevitably then, many
applied scientists and engineers share the same job.

For example: Were Salk and Sabin scientists or were they engineers when they
refined a method to inoculate against polio? Certainly they were applying
science, but what was their principal role: a) discovering new knowledge or b)
refining a technique? Once it moves from the petri dish to the human, isn't
medicine usually more like engineering than science?

As I see it, at some point the boundary between science vs engineering blurs
to an a degree that the difference is negligible.

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mjfl
While the humorous distinctions are all great, they are also sort of tiresome
to me. Maybe I'm the only one. To me it's a symptom of a world where we have
too much specialization. To do "science" a scientist will often have to do
"engineering" and I also feel like engineering expands knowledge just like
science does.

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amelius
[https://xkcd.com/242/](https://xkcd.com/242/)

~~~
silja1
Not really directly related to the OP (sorry), but I have always wondered how
the hell people manage to remember the right xkcd. Awesome :)

~~~
randallsquared
[https://relevantxkcd.appspot.com/](https://relevantxkcd.appspot.com/)

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pluma
In other words: engineering is _applied science_. Science is just _science_.

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jdiez17
The easiest way I found to describe the differences between science and
engineering (and I think about this fairly often) is by analogy with learning
how to drive a (manual) car.

There are a few key skills one needs to master to be able to drive a car
through any kind of circuit: from the basics, such as shifting up and down and
the appropriate times, to drifting at will. Given enough time and "research",
people can master this aspect effectively. That's science.

Engineering is the rest of the driving experience. The placement of traffic
lights, how to synchronise them so two perpendicular roads are not green at
the same time, and all of the signaling (stop, yield, etc) that we are used
to.

The difference is there is a bigger solution space in engineering: there is no
"one correct answer", and the factors involved in determining whether
something is a good engineering solution are much broader. For example,
reusing the signaling example above, the "stop" sign doesn't _have_ to be a
hexagonal red shape, but some early civil engineer figured that shape is the
most adequate.

~~~
derpderpdrep
I don't really know, computer science seems concerned with equipping the
student with the best tools to solve a problem, and mastery in the creation of
them. Computer engineering concerns itself with similar concepts, but at a
lower level of abstraction. It's still not EE, which is lower still.

I studied computer/electrical engineering for part of my undergrad, and
computer science for my masters. The biggest difference I recognized was the
level of abstraction. Each has it's own maths, systems of reasoning and
analysis.

~~~
efaref
"Computer science" courses are mostly misnamed. The research faculties they're
located in are usually scientific (in that they concern research into
computability and computation), however what undergraduate students mostly
learn is the primitive form of engineering that we've gleaned from that
science so far.

I have an MEng in Computing, because my alma mater is one of the few that
realises the distinction.

~~~
derpderpdrep
I'm talking from a graduate perspective, but the courses I TAd for undergrad
were not what I would call 'primitive engineering' as there is an emphasis on
analysis and rigor.

It is a science to be able to build programs and prove things about them. It
is way more abstract maths than anything in engineering (linear algebra still
has some physical grounding in reality, where category theory is more for the
organization of mind).

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larrydag
Science = questioning and understanding the natural world

Engineering = applied Science

~~~
coldcode
I would argue that programming = craft. Not engineering like a civil or
structural engineer would understand it.

~~~
iamcurious
We have the theory[1] to make it robust as civil or structural engineering. We
don't use the theory at our own peril.

[1] A good starting point
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoare_logic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoare_logic)

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zwieback
Where I work we have everything from pure science to pure engineering and it's
definitely a continuum. Sometimes it's painful to be caught in the middle but
I think that's really where the interesting engineering happens.

However, there are also some forms of engineering that are not very science
based, you get a process or product to work and you don't exactly know why.
You can still use scientific methods to get to a safer, more controlled
process but don't necessary exactly know why something works. We call that
"taking the art out of engineering" and it's an important part, especially in
large scale manufacturing.

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geekazoid
I think this is missing the point about resource management, which I think
it's one of the most important things about engineering. That is, the
difference between "effective" and "efficient"

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wangii
science is about 'why', while engineering is about 'how'.

~~~
ansgri
Generally accepted philosophy of science is positivism, which states that
'why' in general is unanswerable and we should satisfy ourselves with
descriptions. Therefore science is more about precise descriptions and their
predictive power.

~~~
wangii
it's exactly the reason scientists formulate hypotheses (and null hypotheses),
and verify them with observable data.

In short, hypotheses are the key instruments to investigate into unknown(and
hopefully, consistent) world.

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stinos
_Engineering, in contrast, is the technique of using science to produce tools
we can consistently use in the world._

Semantically, wouldn't one call a neanderthaler creating/perfecting a useful
tool an engineer as well, even though science was not really used directly?

~~~
calibraxis
Chomsky said some interesting things about science’s impact on
engineering/medicine:

 _“Until very recently engineers learned from the sciences, but most of what
they knew was craft. The crafts were so much more advanced than theoretical
understanding that the engineers worked like artists. You know, you learned
how to do it. Physics didn’t really get to contribute to engineering theory
until fairly recently. In fact, when I got to MIT not that long ago in the
1950s, it was still largely an engineering school, and physics was taught as a
service. But if engineers wanted to construct electric circuits or build a
bridge and so on, you learned for the profession and you learned some physics
– and it helped you, but now it’s changed.”_
([http://www.justresponse.net/chomsky_offers_advice.html](http://www.justresponse.net/chomsky_offers_advice.html))

Science is a social movement, with a history we can look at. Like many
movements, there’s lots misleading written about it. Often going into
religion, especially when groups try to claim its prestige for themselves. (We
might include mainstream economics here, but hilariously many capitalist
economists aim beyond science, closer to math. At least many Marxists "only"
claimed to have Scientific Truths.)

~~~
carapat_virulat
>At least many Marxists "only" claimed to have Scientific Truths.)

Marx was probably using the German word "Wissenschaft"[1] which is not the
same as modern empirical science, it's means something like structured
knowledge and it includes branches of knowledge like history or literature
that aren't called science in English.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wissenschaft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wissenschaft)

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FranOntanaya
"Imagine trying to build a device based on the information that acceleration
due to gravity is probably between 9 and 13 m/s^2"

Software engineering must be a special case. Half of it is about handling
uncertain states and preparing for unknown future uses.

~~~
BlackFly
Actually, this is where I stopped reading because in my opinion the author
gets it exactly backwards.

Engineers need to build things with safety thresholds. Most devices will
probably experience situations where it is accelerating at a greater rate than
just that due to gravity. Engineers work in a messy world without controls and
try their best to deal with non-ideal scenarios. They live in a world where a
cow often cannot be idealized as a sphere. Because of this, the precise
acceleration often doesn't matter, what matters is that the device works
exactly within some range of operating environments. Only in cases of
metrology do engineering devices need precise measures of external factors.

Meanwhile, scientists need precise measurements of environmental influences
because they seek to eliminate them from experiments. otherwise, the signal
cannot be distinguished from the noise. That is why the mass of an electron is
known to an exaggerated precision, not because an engineer needs to build a
device for it, but because (gross simplification) the precision is needed to
be able to subtract electron related signals from the Higgs boson signal.

~~~
spacecowboy_lon
err... "Only in cases of metrology do engineering devices need precise
measures of external factors." actually no

Have s look at an IC engine and the tolerances required for an engine to work.

Let alone say correctly designing nuclear rectors to handle two phase flow in
its cooling loops.

~~~
marcosdumay
Well, IC manufacturing may be the GP's perfect example.

You can't count on wafers being exactly at the same size, so you build your
machinery in a way that precise sizes aren't important, only relative measures
within a wafer is.

You can't count on alignment measurements, so you build your machines to use
the only alignment invariant available, that is the size of a single wafer
(and call it self-aligning).

You can't count on features having any specific size. They vary wildly, in
proportions that in any other specialization of engineering would be
disastrous. So, you just manufacture them, test after the fact, and throw away
the parts that do not comply.

The entire field of IC manufacturing is about how to not need measurements and
be resilient to errors.

Also, I don't know much about nuclear reactor design, but I'd be very
surprised if they used measurements with several algarisms.

~~~
spacecowboy_lon
I am not sure what your point is? what is "measurements with several
algarisms"

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kashkhan
Science covers a large range of precision. you also have things like c or α
known to much higher precision than the average engineering quantity.

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spacecowboy_lon
I was always told that Engineers are scientists with thumbs and engineers
defiantly do do scientific experiments - as we did at my first Job.

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adwn
Could someone parse the following heading for me, please?

 _" Trendy teaching as confusing science for engineering"_

(I'm not a native English speaker)

~~~
ansgri
It means teaching according to the latest (scientific) trends/discoveries as
opposed to teaching what provably works.

