Engineering And Religion

[changed]

In preparing for a class I’m teaching, I’ve come across a fascinating little piece which attempts to create and define “The Engineering Method” (as opposed to “the scientific method”) which outlines some of the differences between scientists and engineers, and attempts to address the gap between the idealistic purely analytically solvable problems scientists tend to confine themselves to (using laws, and facts, and calculations to solve problems such as "how fast will this feather fall in a vacuum?" etc.), vs. the non-ideal real-life problems with no exact analytic solution that engineers tend to solve – such as “what’s the best design for next year’s car?” (there are no absolute solutions to this, no black and white right/wrong answers, it’s subjective, and instead of just using laws/facts, engineers use rule’s of thumb, guesswork, heuristics to estimate all the subjective unprovable issues of what society wants.) 

Anyways, when I think about why some scientists seem to have issues with religion – you see the term “science vs. religion” but do not see the term “engineering vs. religion” it comes down to a fundamental philosophy of how to deal with uncertainty (scientists pretend that it doesn’t exist, while engineers just accept it, and learn to deal with it) and the willingness to go forward without all the “facts” (using heuristics instead) and judge solutions to problems on their usability and application, rather than on some debated “rightness” or “wrongness” with it. 

I would love it if anyone out there would be willing to read through this:
The “Engineering” method (Billy Vaughn Koen – American Society for Engineering Education)

and then have a discussion on the heuristic, engineering approach to religion – and everything in life, as opposed to the scientific method approach.  The paper is a little long I admit, but a very worthwhile read for anyone who is an engineer, a scientist, or for anyone who has ever tried to solve any problem, understand, or change anything in the world (so yes, I think everyone would benefit from reading it).  And before you ask, no I will not provide you with “cliff notes” on it, as I believe the full version is necessary for clearly understanding the two very different paradigms – that of the engineer, and that of the scientist.   

Edited August 20, 2013 by changed

[thesometimesaint]

Part and parcel of the Scientific Method is uncertainty. That is why we ask questions in the first place. A scientific theory is just the best explanation we have so far for any scientific fact. As such a theory is uncertain and open to change.

 

A scientist makes a theory that it is possible to trap a mouse, and proposes ways to trap that mouse. A engineer is the person whom agrees that it is possible to trap a mouse then makes the better mouse trap.

[changed]

Part and parcel of the Scientific Method is uncertainty.

You didn't read it? In the scenario of mouse trapping, I think Koen would say that a scientist would say "you can trap a mouse" but a scientist can not answer the question  "what is the correct way to trap a mouse?"  or even "should we be trapping mice?" Can you answer this question?  Can the scientific method answer this question? Is the correct way:

a.) Trap it live and release it (where it will reproduce, and wreck havoc on someone else's farm after disrupting the local mouse families where it is dropped off at)

b.) Kill it (kill it humanely, or kill it inhumanely thereby scaring other mice away from the bloody scene and reducing the overall need for killing mice)

etc. etc.

c.) partially kill it

you see, there are an infinite number of solutions - no solution is fact or right - and for the question in bold there are no "correct analytic" black and white answers.  The scientific method will not produce a solid answer - you need a different method - an "engineering" method.  science typically seeks answers that eliminate uncertainty, based on "laws" and equations - whereas engineers seek solutions that work, and are based on subjective analysis ridled with uncertainty (what do the farmers really want? will people be upset if we kill the mice? etc. etc. rather than the answer being based on things like "F=ma". 

read the article, I promise you, it's not a dry read - you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll enjoy it! 

here's a fun quote from the article to talk you into reading it:

 

 

 

"Unlike science, engineering does not seek to model reality, but society’s perception of reality, including its myths and prejudices. If a nation feels that a funeral pyre should be aligned in a north-south direction to aid the dead person’s journey to heaven, the model to be optimized will incorporate this consideration as a design criteria regardless of the truth of the claim. Similarly, the engineering model is not based on an eternal or absolute value system, but on the one thought to represent a specific society. In a society of cannibals, the engineer will try to design the most efficient kettle."

 

Some areas for discussion:

The dependency on immediate context instead of absolute truth as a standard of validity.

or we could discuss this article as it applies to religious studies:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1722019

 

Abstract:     

As reflected in the amount of controversy, few areas in psychology have undergone such dramatic conceptual changes in the past decade as the emerging science of heuristics. Heuristics are efficient cognitive processes, conscious or unconscious, that ignore part of the information. Because using heuristics saves effort, the classical view has been that heuristic decisions imply greater errors than do "rational" decisions as defined by logic or statistical models. However, for many decisions, the assumptions of rational models are not met, and it is an empirical rather than an a priori issue how well cognitive heuristics function in an uncertain world. To answer both the descriptive question ("Which heuristics do people use in which situations") and the prescriptive question ("When should people rely on a given heuristic rather than a complex strategy to make better judgments"), formal models are indispensable. We review research that tests formal models of heuristic inference, including in business organizations, health care, and legal institutions. This research indicates that (a) individuals and organizations often rely on simple heuristics in an adaptive way, and (b) ignoring part of the information can lead to more accurate judgments than weighting and adding all information, for instance for low predictability and small samples. The big future challenge is to develop a systematic theory of the building blocks of heuristics as well as the core capacities and environmental structures these exploit.

.. 

so, do you think it's perfectly fine to ignore some information out there when it comes to choosing a religious belief?  Can we agree that the issues and problems are so complex and varied that an analytic "scientific method" type of proof is not currently possible, and that a heuristic methodology should instead be implemented? In which case, the discussion changes from one of being right/wrong/laws/facts, to a relativisitc discussion of what constitutes "good enough" when justifying a religious set of beliefs. 

Edited August 20, 2013 by changed

[thesometimesaint]

Engineering is just the application of science to engieering problems. IE; Build a better mouse trap.

 

Science of dependent on results. No results no science. With the mouse trap example science does tell you it is possible to trap the mouse and even a few effective ways to do it. There is no correct way to do it apart from results. What you do with the mouse once you've caught it is a different question.

[EllenMaksoud]

In preparing for a class I’m teaching, I’ve come across a fascinating little piece which attempts to create and define “The Engineering Method” (as opposed to “the scientific method”) which outlines some of the differences between scientists and engineers, and attempts to address the gap between the idealistic purely analytically solvable problems scientists tend to confine themselves to (using laws, and facts, and calculations to solve problems such as "how fast will this feather fall in a vacuum?" etc.), vs. the non-ideal real-life problems with no exact analytic solution that engineers tend to solve – such as “what’s the best design for next year’s car?” (there are no absolute solutions to this, no black and white right/wrong answers, it’s subjective, and instead of just using laws/facts, engineers use rule’s of thumb, guesswork, heuristics to estimate all the subjective unprovable issues of what society wants.) 

Anyways, when I think about why some scientists seem to have issues with religion – you see the term “science vs. religion” but do not see the term “engineering vs. religion” it comes down to a fundamental philosophy of how to deal with uncertainty (scientists pretend that it doesn’t exist, while engineers just accept it, and learn to deal with it) and the willingness to go forward without all the “facts” (using heuristics instead) and judge solutions to problems on their usability and application, rather than on some debated “rightness” or “wrongness” with it. 

I would love it if anyone out there would be willing to read through this:

The “Engineering” method (Billy Vaughn Koen – American Society for Engineering Education)

and then have a discussion on the heuristic, engineering approach to religion – and everything in life, as opposed to the scientific method approach.  The paper is a little long I admit, but a very worthwhile read for anyone who is an engineer, a scientist, or for anyone who has ever tried to solve any problem, understand, or change anything in the world (so yes, I think everyone would benefit from reading it).  And before you ask, no I will not provide you with “cliff notes” on it, as I believe the full version is necessary for clearly understanding the two very different paradigms – that of the engineer, and that of the scientist.   

I have always believed, and have been yelled at for it, that science-engineering and religion are inseparable. Most of the athiests I have encountered have at least a tiny kernel of anger at God at their center.  God engineered the Ark. I think that what ever Ezekiel saw (I think it was a Helicopter) was engineered.

[David T]

Y'all might like this book: Parallels and Convergences: Mormon Thought and Engineering Vision. I wrote a review of it here.

[pmccombs1]

and then have a discussion on the heuristic, engineering approach to religion – and everything in life, as opposed to the scientific method approach.

 

Instead of an engineering or scientific approach to religion, why not a religious approach to religion? 

 

It seems to me that an engineering approach would make sense in the domain of engineering and a scientific approach would be ideal in the domain of science. Why not take a religious approach and apply it to that domain we call religious? What is this insistence that we must look at things through the wrong eyes?

[changed]

Instead of an engineering or scientific approach to religion, why not a religious approach to religion? 

 

It seems to me that an engineering approach would make sense in the domain of engineering and a scientific approach would be ideal in the domain of science. Why not take a religious approach and apply it to that domain we call religious? What is this insistence that we must look at things through the wrong eyes?

But now mine own eyes have beheld God; but not my natural, but my spiritual eyes... (Moses 1:11)

Yes, in the ivory-tower idealistic case we would be able to see with spiritual eyes - the problem with this is that we don't all have spiritual eyes - we have natural eyes, we don't start the process as a "new creature", we start it as the natural creature, and as such, appeals must be made to the natural creature to convince/entice/explain/coerce these obstinate creatures into further light and knowledge. 

Engineering is a middle-man, a bridge between the science of the materialistic physical world, and the needs and wants that come form the spirits in the living world.  The Engineering method described in Koen's work:

“The use of engineering heuristics to cause the best change in a poorly understood situation within the available resources.”

Is the process in which we "experiment"  (Alma 32).  Religious belief requires the use of heuristics, and it requires advancement up the equivalent of the Perry scale:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_G._Perry

ie - to be pried away form the dualist right/wrong  fact/fiction idealistic unambiguous world of science and math, into the real life - try to apply it - world of engineering. 

 

[changed]

Y'all might like this book: Parallels and Convergences: Mormon Thought and Engineering Vision. I wrote a review of it here.

Just added it to my "Christmas reading list" - thanks!