8 / DISCUSSION OF THE METHOD

THE ENGINEER

Part I
Most people think of the engineer in terms of his artifacts instead of his art.
As a result they see diversity where they should see unity and find it hard to
accept the identity of man and engineer. The question, "'What is an
engineer?" is usually answered by "a person who makes chemicals,
airplanes, bridges, or roads." From the chemicals, the layperson infers the
chemical engineer; from the airplanes, the aeronautical engineer; and from
the bridges and roads, the civil engineer. Not only the layperson, but also
the engineer, makes this mistake. Because the connection of the engineer
with his completed design is so enduring and the connection with his use
of method so fleeting, a person insists he is an engineer based on what he
produces, irrespective of how he goes about it, instead of insisting that he is
an engineer based on how he goes about it, irrespective of what he
produces. In a similar fashion, the historian uses the existence of dams on
the Nile, irrigation canals in various parts of the ancient world, gunpowder,
and pottery to infer the existence of engineers and craftspersons in past
civilizations. But behind each chemical, each road, each pot hides the
common activity that brought it into being. It is to this unity of method that
we must look to see the engineer in every man.

Activity Part I: What is not the definition of an engineer according to

the first part?
According to the text the non definition of engineer is the one that
limits itself to define a professional by means of what he creates or
builds, that is, the one that shows him as the product of his work.
Usually the profession of engineer is relegated to creator, builder or
maker of things, but it is not only that.

Part II
Activity Part II: Find up in the dictionary the following verbs: To Plot,
To Plan, To Design, To Create, and To Discover.

Complete the sentences using the previous verbs.

1. A reigning prince _________ the divorce of his daughter,

2. The clergy in Iran _________ the firing of the president,
3. Doctors have ___________a better bacterial host,
 4. On the game of chess, White has _________ a perfect counter to
black's opening.
5. Don't _______ a problem; just keep silent about past.

To be sure, we occasionally see an emphasis on method instead of object,

ironically most frequently in the writings of the nonengineer. We read in the
Sunday newspaper supplement that a reigning prince engineered the divorce
of his daughter, in the daily newspaper that the clergy in Iran engineered the
firing of the president, in a medical report that doctors have engineered a
better bacterial host, and in a book on the game of chess that white has
engineered a perfect counter to black's opening. Even the headline of one of
Dear Abby's newspaper columns offers the advice, "Don't engineer a
problem; just keep silent about past." Similar statements using the word
engineering in the sense of creating a desirable change in an uncertain
situation within the available resources are found daily in novels, reviews,
and newspapers and heard on radio and television.

Part III
Activity Part III: Read and underline the unknown words.

In each of these cases we sense that the word is being correctly used, and
we are right. According to one of England's most noted nineteenth-century
engineers, Sir William Fairbairn, quoted in Technology and Change (ed. by
Burke and Eakin),

The term engineer comes more directly from an Old French word in the form
of a verb—s'ingénier . . . and thus we arrive at the interesting and certainly
little known fact, that an engineer is . . . anyone who seeks in his mind, who
sets his mental powers in action, in order to discover or devise some means of
succeeding in a difficult task he may have to perform.

The dictionary concurs by authorizing the verb to engineer as "to

contrive or plan usually with more or less subtle skill or craft" and by
giving as an example "'to engineer a daring jailbreak." It also gives a second
definition: "to guide, manage, or supervise during production or
development," including the example "engineering a bill through congress."
But despite these frequent examples to the contrary, when a definition of
engineering is sought, the usual tendency is to look to concrete objects such
as chemicals, airplanes, bridges, or roads instead of to the method that
brought each of these engineering devices into existence.

Activity Part III: What is To Engineer?

To Synonym 1:______________
Engineer
Synonym 2:______________

Definition 1: Synonym 3:______________

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Synonym 4:______________
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 ________________________ Synonym 5:______________
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Part IV
This same confusion between art and artifact exists in efforts to date the
birth of humankind. Most anthropologists define the human by his use of
tools, none as eloquently as Loren Eiseley in his book The Firmament of
Time:

Massive flint-hardened hands had shaped a sepulcher and placed flat stones
to guard the dead man's head. A haunch of meat had been left to aid the dead
man's journey. Worked flints, a little treasure of the human dawn had been
poured lovingly into the grave. And down the untold centuries the message
had come without words: '"We too were human, we too suffered, we too
believed that the grave is not the end. We too, whose faces affright you now,
knew human agony and human love."

In this miniature drama we see a problem born of the most human

craving to create an appropriate resting place for a loved one and a solution
pitifully constrained by severe limits in knowledge and resources. Recalling
the definition of engineering method as the strategy for causing the best
change in a poorly understood situation within the available resources, can
we doubt that at least as early as Neanderthal man we find engineers?

Activity Part IV: Answer the following questions

1. What was the problem that Neanderthal faced in the past?
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2. What was the solution that the Neanderthal engineered?
3. Use drawings to create a picture of the paragraph that has been
underlined (Massive flint … [] …human love).
 Part V
In dating the birth of humankind, other scholars argue that it is more
important that "primitive man stuck feathers in his hair" than that he worked
in flint. We are told that our error in defining humans by their use of tools
results from society's present preoccupation with materialism and
technology on the one hand and the lack of traces Of early myths, customs,
and literature in the physical record on the other. "If only we could still see
the pictures of earliest man and hear him sing," the humanist laments, "we
would define him by his arts instead of his tools." Again the emphasis is on
an object such as a glyph or a song, but in this case it is just a more
ephemeral one.
Each of these views is too narrow and self-serving to be a proper
definition of humankind. For behind the earliest crude flint, behind the
earliest artistic scrawl lies a common process that brought it into being. We
do not see this method because its earliest use, like the earliest picture or
song, left no traces. But a common sense of method—of desirable change in
an unknown, resourcelimited world—pervades and certainly predates both
the tools we find and the arts we infer. Throughout history, differences may
have been observed in how well humans have used the engineering method
or in the subject matter they have treated, but the use of the engineering
method is coterminous with any reasonable definition Of the human
species. The engineering method, like a midwife, was present at the birth of
humankind.

Activity Part V: Read the whole text again and

Question: Who is an engineer, according to the text? Explain the
relation between: method, engineer, and artifact. In your answer.
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