Quote:
Originally Posted by tonybarry
I work with engineers and scientists and tradesman.
The scientist is involved with "truth" and so he/she elucidates the principle on which the machine is built.
The engineer applies the principle and designs the machine to put the principle into practice.
The tradesman actually cuts the steel, winds the coils etc and tunes the design so it works.
Who is better? Many scientists I work with have great ideas. They lie awake at night dreaming up better theories.
The engineers get out the Finite Element Analysis software and design the beastie. Oodles of maths, calculations, some funky methods of easily getting an answer from a mess of data ... they devise a way.
The tradies go home at 4pm, and generally have scant time for anyone who can't change a tap washer. Yet their work, the polish and the fit, makes the device do its thing.
The "invention and discovery" ecosystem needs all parts to function. We lean on each other. Respect for each other ought to be part of the mix. But I find that often it's not.
Why are many tradies contemptuous of engineers who can CAD a part but cannot cast it?
Why are many engineers skeptical of scientists whose theories appear as mathematical symbols on paper but which provide the way for their designs to actually work?
Why are many scientists dismissive of the tradies as "self-guiding tools" and the engineers as "pragmatists without appreciation of the universe"?
Regards,
Tony Barry
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Sorry for the bit of a grave dig but I thought this post was excellent and required some further discussion.
One thing I am always quick to point out is that individuals such as Nikola Tesla were not scientists, not tradesmen nor were they engineers, they were inventors.
As inventors they were theorists, engineers and tradesmen all in one package who developed their theories, tested the science and then engineered practical uses for the science they pioneered on their own.
Academic society today is about keeping those things separated and providing the theorists with a sense of arrogance that comes with a PHD and the title of 'expert' which makes them naturally hateful of engineers who tear their perfect theories to pieces to make them work in practical fashion, and neither the engineers nor the theorists feel themselves humble enough to bother involving themselves at the level of lowly tradesmen.
It is extremely rare that I have seen an engineer and a theorist interact in a positive manner without petty squabbling occurring and detracting from the purpose of their collaboration. How can one expect these individuals to advance scientific understanding if they can't even work peacefully together?
As long as there is a divide between these critical elements of discovery and advancement our progress is going to be severely hampered.
Those who have embraced all of the elements have achieved scientific advancement at levels that mystify other equally brilliant but less robust men.
From my perspective the problem with academic and scientific societies today is that mathematical theorizing, engineering and related trades-craft are viewed as being separate entities.
Though specifically in regards to the domination of theoretical mathematics the fact that many theorists today ignore physical concepts entirely and base their theories on mathematics alone is an issue for me.
If you are trying to study and understand the physical world then ignoring the physical world and starting with mathematical concepts is not a good idea; if you don't start in reality you aren't likely to end with anything close to reality.
Mathematics is meant to be used first to describe and then to expand on a physical concept. Hence the repeated mention by actual inventors like Tesla throughout the recent past that mathematics should be the slave to science and not the master.
We have failed to yield those warnings and today the more science "progresses" in regards to cosmology and astrophysics the more disconnected from reality we become.
Just look at the number of mathematical constructs today that are accepted as fact despite having no evidential bases in reality. In fact many of them are theorized to be unable to be observed by human kind, which is extremely convenient. Dark Matter, Dark Energy, Neutron Stars, Type IA Super-Nova, Black Holes, magnetic reconnection/monopolar magnetic fields... and the list goes on.
All of these constructs are the result of mathematical abstraction derived from other things we have witnessed which based on the existing expanding universe/Big Bang paradigm we attribute to being the effects of these mathematical constructs. We can't observe any of these things directly at this time(or ever) but we can see the effects they have on their surrounds so we know they are there...
The fact these things can be explained more completely and easily with theories that are derived from paradigm's other than BB theory is ignored as it doesn't fall within the paradigm that has been taught to you and thus it isn't real science. These alternative theories can attribute direct evidence with their theories rather than just indirect evidence and mathematical constructs but apparently basing a theory on evidence has become a foreign concept to modern "science" so much so that it's not considered science at all.
Believe it or not most credible alternative theories have lots of mathematics to support them as well, the reason people like myself tend to give them more credibility than conventional/mainstream theories is that those alternative theories are typically based on observational evidence first with the mathematical formulas derived to support the evidence - mainstream far too often has their theories based entirely on mathematics and the evidence is simply interpreted mathematically in a way that fits in ad-hoc fashion.
For me evidence(reality) comes first and mathematics comes second.
Note: This is an opinion piece so I'm not providing any sources, though alternative theories on those constructs I mentioned(black holes, dark matter, etc.) can be linked if requested but most if not all here would probably dismiss them simply by their sources.
Unfortunately not many mainstream sites will host these theories and the few "fringe" sites that do are viewed poorly and given no credibility, which is a rather convenient way to silence dissent - you only have credibility if the mainstream gives it to you, but they won't give it you unless you cloud the whole thing up in a political manner to prevent any respectable scientists from having their toes stepped on and in the process most of the theory is "lost" and the bits and pieces that remain are easy to attack.
If you don't want to or can't manage to do that then you are a quack, plain and simple.
I can understand why the truly "out there" ideas would not be a good idea to be given serious attention in the public domain to prevent people from being "influenced" by them but there are many alternative theories that have a credible basis and should be open to discussion in the scientific realms.
Surely intelligent scientists aren't going to be easily "influenced" by something they read or discuss a few times. NASA has remained reluctant to publicly give any credibility to the idea of non-neutral electricity in space yet they have created a 'Space Weather' division to study electrically charged particles in space and just a while back invited one of the chief proponents of The Electric Universe Theory to talk at one of their facilities.
If they can trust their people not to be unduly "influenced" by such discussions why can't such discussions be freely partaken in on scientific forums?
Growing up in a devoutly religious society with a rebellious nature free and open discussion is what I was led to believe was the hallmark of the scientific community, but all I've discovered in the mainstream community is more religion with mathematics as the supreme deity.
In my experience the only thing free and open discussion is welcomed with is proverbial pitchforks and wave after wave of ad-hom attacks and character assassinations.
I'm sorry for getting into a rant but there's been a lot of discussion on these matters across many threads that I've seen here and I decided to just add all of my thoughts on the matters into a single post here rather than spreading bits and pieces all over.
Plus it's easier for anyone who wants to disagree with me on it to have it all in one place.
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