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From: gordon@uw-june (Gordon Davisson)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Sorry Dan, but I don't have my barfbags handy
Message-ID: <93@uw-june>
Date: Tue, 23-Jul-85 02:51:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: uw-june.93
Posted: Tue Jul 23 02:51:54 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 26-Jul-85 03:25:20 EDT
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Organization: U of Washington Computer Science
Lines: 45

>> [Yosi Hoshen]
>> It is quite clear that many leading creationists are engineers
>> rather than scientists.  These engineers  understand  the mathematics
>> of science which does not seem to conflict with their religion.  Yet, they
>> are unable to comprehend the underlying scientific theory which they perceive
>      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> to contradict their religion. 
>> -- 

>[Terry Morse]
>Do I detect a bit of scientific snoberry?  As an engineer, I take offense
>at the idea that I might be unable to comprehend scientific theory.

Firstly:  Yosi's comment doesn't include *all* engineers, just some.  The
point is that to become an engineer, you don't have to know anything of
the methods of science, just some of the results of those methods.  (You
can, but you don't have to)

Secondly:  I've known quite a few undergraduate physics majors here at the
UW, and a disturbing number of them seem to fit Yosi's description.  They
memorize equations and apply them mindlessly to solve numeric problems.
Give them anything out of their experience (what they've seen in the book
or in lecture), and they don't know what's going on.  I've seen similar
stuff on the net: in a discussion in net.flame and net.cooks about whether
dark or light objects gave off more heat radiation, one person quoted the
Stefan-Boltzmann law as giving the heat radiation of an object independent
of its color.  What he didn't realize is that that law only applies to
perfectly black objects.  These people seem mostly to flunk out of physics,
and go on to something else.  Like engineering.

>Theory is all an engineer gets in his curriculum: theory of elasticity,
>theory of compressible flow, boundary layer theory, etc.

You get the fully-formed theories, without knowing how they were formed.

>I charge that I know as much about my specialty as any "scientist".  I just
>earn more money :-)

Exactly:  you know all about your specialty, but not necessarily anything
outside of it.  Only a very small number of creationists are biologists.

--
Human:    Gordon Davisson
ARPA:     gordon@uw-june.ARPA
UUCP:     {ihnp4,decvax,tektronix}!uw-beaver!uw-june!gordon