This might come across as a very strange question but is it uncommon to find engineers who did not enjoy school or think highly of the schools that they attended? I have encountered numerous computing and IT types over the years who did not enjoy school or had bad experiences at school but very few electrical or mechanical engineers.
I quite agree it can be looked at that way, the point I was - perhaps badly - trying to make is that the apple would have fallen anyway, whereas a machine to pick apples only exists because we make it - and you can't do that without thinking about why you want an apple picking machine (which will be for human reasons) and how it will interact with the operator, and end consumer of the apple - and all people in between (ditto). So (I think this was my point) it would have been possible for Newton to successfully study gravity without thinking about how that study would effect people or vice versa - and to some extent (because of his particular personality) I suspect he did, but I may be wrong in that specific example.
And where I very very strongly agree with you is that today scientific research can very rarely (perhaps never) effectively be successfully carried out by individuals - so again it is really useful if potential scientific researchers are also good team players with good social skills! So maybe it was an unhelpful point for me to introduce to this particular discussion. Or perhaps I just put it badly.
Cheers,
Andy
P.S. Having read my OP again I think that is my point, I believe you can (in theory) study science without considering its societal impact, but I don't believe you can practice engineering in the same way. But this is putting a very complex argument very simplistically - I expect a whole PhD could be done on that subject - so I'm very happy for that to be put to one side as the main thrust of this thread is more important. Cheers, Andy
I quite agree it can be looked at that way, the point I was - perhaps badly - trying to make is that the apple would have fallen anyway, whereas a machine to pick apples only exists because we make it - and you can't do that without thinking about why you want an apple picking machine (which will be for human reasons) and how it will interact with the operator, and end consumer of the apple - and all people in between (ditto). So (I think this was my point) it would have been possible for Newton to successfully study gravity without thinking about how that study would effect people or vice versa - and to some extent (because of his particular personality) I suspect he did, but I may be wrong in that specific example.
And where I very very strongly agree with you is that today scientific research can very rarely (perhaps never) effectively be successfully carried out by individuals - so again it is really useful if potential scientific researchers are also good team players with good social skills! So maybe it was an unhelpful point for me to introduce to this particular discussion. Or perhaps I just put it badly.
Cheers,
Andy
P.S. Having read my OP again I think that is my point, I believe you can (in theory) study science without considering its societal impact, but I don't believe you can practice engineering in the same way. But this is putting a very complex argument very simplistically - I expect a whole PhD could be done on that subject - so I'm very happy for that to be put to one side as the main thrust of this thread is more important. Cheers, Andy
