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NancyLebovitz comments on Confusion about science and technology - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (36)
To my mind, that's the interesting one. Does the lore ever get fed back into science?
I would say there is not a sharp dividing line. There is engineering practice, there is research and development into incremental modifications and improvements of existing engineering practice having varying degrees of novelty, and way at the other end of the spectrum is pure research into the mass of neutrinos and whatnot. In between there is an infinite range of degrees.
In some sense engineers are always doing "science." Pilot projects and prototypes are a common way of experimentally demonstrating the feasibility of a new engineering design or process. One might say that this is "science" but not "Science." Some seem to feel that it isn't Science without peer review. I've been part of the peer review process numerous times from both sides of the table and it's nothing like what you would think if you gleaned your impression of peer review from reading about it on lesswrong. In short, the process barely serves to filter out the obviously wrong.
The market provides a continuous and generally valid test of engineering principles. I think it's more scientific than peer review, in the most meaningful sense of the word "science".
Not all engineering is about developing products to sell to consumers. Engineers also design bridges and rockets. I don't think these are subject to the open marker in any meaningful sense.
Rockets (until recently) had only one buyer, true, but bridges are certainly subject to the open market. When, say, a government entity wants to build a bridge it writes down the specs and invites people to submit designs and expected costs -- there's your open market.
Some of the best science has come out of the engineering industry, actually, and this is widely recognized (look at how many nobel prizes in physics were awarded to people who did work in the electronics industry; the 1956 prize for transistors stands out in particular).
In industry the stakes are higher and there is a higher penalty for being wrong about the world. This drives a lot of good science.