ON SCIENCE : Who Leads the Parade of Invention, Scientist or Engineer?
Galileo is credited with creating the Copernican view that forever changed mankind’s perception of the human race; it showed that the Earth was not the center of the universe--heresy in those days--but was instead just a planet, revolving around a sun that we now know is just an ordinary star in an extraordinary sky.
Any textbook will tell you that Galileo gave us the Copernican revolution--but did he really?
Some would argue that the obscure lens maker who invented the first telescope to be used for for astronomical purposes deserves at least as much credit as Galileo. That lensmaker, whoever he was, created the tool that allowed the scientist to discover great truths that have withstood the tests of four centuries.
That simple claim strikes at the very core of science today, because it raises the basic question of who should be in the driver’s seat: the engineers, who create the tools, or the scientists, who use those tools to unlock the mysteries of the universe.
Scientists and engineers are as different as they are alike. They endure each other’s company because they share common dreams, and they are mutually dependent. But each believes the other’s role should be subservient.
A number of years ago, when Caltech planetary scientist Bruce Murray was the director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, he is said to have told his colleague, engineer John Casani, that scientists do the work of God; engineers do the work of man. The remark was supposedly made in jest, although no one who knows Murray can be sure. And while scientists have embraced the claim publicly with mirth and self-effacing humor, many admit privately that they believe there is more than a little truth in it. Scientists, not always noted for their humility, do tend to see themselves in a messianic role.
A true scientist is obsessed with the desire to know, to learn something today that no one knew yesterday. An engineer is obsessed with the desire to build something, to create a new, functional device.
An engineer, for instance, is not likely to build a better hammer just to pound nails more efficiently. The engineer wants to build a better hammer just to build a better hammer. The goal is the goal itself, more than its application. If you doubt that, look in any engineer’s garage. Chances are there isn’t enough room left in there for a bicycle, much less a car. Instead, you will find tools, all kinds of tools, even tools that have never been used. But when they are used, the engineer will tell you, it is a thing of beauty.
Chances are you will find a few tools in the scientist’s garage as well, but don’t even try to get into the room where the computers are kept and nursed as though they were gifts from heaven. The scientist, more than the engineer, will keep those toys because of what they can do, not because they are things of beauty in themselves.
None of that is as frivolous as it sounds. The difference between scientists and engineers rages behind the scene in many debates today.
Many scientists, for example, are cool to NASA’s plans to build a space station; it is not clear just what the station will be used for, and they believe the science should dictate the design. Many engineers embrace the station, regardless of its purpose, because they see it as a “technological driver” that will lead to the development of new gadgets. More often than not, both scientists and engineers embrace a major project because it serves both their needs. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the federal government’s plans to build a super-collider in Texas at a cost of well over $8 billion. The super-collider will smash subatomic particles together with such force that they will shatter into debris that has not existed since the birth of the universe. That, the scientists argue, will help them explain the origin of matter and how we got to where we are today.
Engineers also want to build the super-collider because its sheer size and enormous demands will mean they will have to build new tools that no one has ever built before.
Engineers and scientists maintain friendly relations because neither can survive without the other. Engineers never see a problem they cannot solve, given enough money, and scientists never see a question they can’t at least try to answer, given the tools they will need. So it is a mutually dependent relationship, but in the end, the scientists, not the engineers, usually win the public accolades.
When the twin Voyager spacecraft visited the outer planets, they gave scientists enough data to rewrite the textbooks, and the astonishing accomplishments of the spacecraft have been hailed as among the great triumphs of modern science.
But it was the unsung engineers in the engineering rooms of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory who got the Voyagers through the back yard of the solar system, not the scientists.
Yet it was the scientists who explained the wondrous discoveries, telling in their own way of the work of God.
