Re: Minnesota: Tension percolates at U of M over Intelligent Design

On Wed, 28 Dec 2005 08:23:42 +0000, Bobby D. Bryant wrote:

> On Wed, 28 Dec 2005, "Kari Tikkanen" <ktikkane@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> I think there are many factors why many engineers hooked on
>> creationism:
>> -analogy and own experiences, engineer's hammer fallacy (give a hammer
>> to engineer and he starts to see nails everywhere)
>> -rivalry and jealously ("blind natural selection and mutations are
>> better and cleverer than I ?? HmBbhhbhh.. BULLSHIIIT !")
>> -engineering is applied science, not same criteria and methods than in
>> (natural) sciences, lack of evolution education and thinking.("Why apes
>> still exist if we would have evolved from apes ?")
>
> At the risk of stepping on friendly toes I'll add:
>
> - mindset that led to a career in engineering rather than the empirical
> sciences in the first place

As someone who lives in a city full of engineers (I swear, Huntsville must
have one of the highest per-capita population of engineers in the country,
if not the world) I suspect that engineering is the career choice of a
whole lot of people who are simply looking for a well-paying career, and
who are at least passably good in math. The same way those who are good
with language go to law school, and those who are good with biology go
into medicine. Science, unfortunately, doesn't pay very well and requires
a large educational commitment.

I should add that computer science majors also tend to fall into the
"engineer" paradigm, but fortunately the more abstract concepts involved
tend to blunt the edge of the worst aspects of "engineerism".

--
Get it in libraries. Let the public decide.
--Daniel "engaged to a CS major" Harper
danielharper.blogspot.com

(Change terra to earth to email)

.

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