“Engineering,” in G. McDonogh, R. Gregg, and C. Wong, eds., Encyclopedia of Contemporary
American Culture. New York: Routledge, 2001.
Engineering is the practice of organizing the design, production, and operation of devices,
systems, or processes to meet recognized needs. The engineering profession is typically
characterized as applied science. Though engineers do apply scientific knowledge when
necessary, the technological artifacts they produce are not derived from science in any straightforward manner. Engineering knowledge is autonomous and identifiably different form scientific
knowledge. Consequently, engineering is not merely applied science.
Congruent with the “applied-science” myth is the equally misguided belief that technical
applications emerge naturally from basic research in the pure sciences. This has led to an
emphasis on funding for basic research and an attendant failure to champion support for
applications research. The gradual weakening of US industrial hegemony over the last fifty years
and its shift from trade surpluses to chronic deficits is partly due to ineffective application of
scientific knowledge.
The technological knowledge and artifacts produced by engineers affect virtually every
aspect of society. Technological determinism embodies the widely held belief that technology is
the driving force behind social change. However, while the impact of airplanes, automobiles,
computers, megacities, telecommunications, and more all bear witness to the social
transformations made possible by engineering technology, technological determinism trades on a
misrepresentation of engineering practice and its relationship to society.
Much of the force of technological determinism derives from histories of technology
which focus explicitly on scientific and technical details. This “internal approach” portrays the
emergence of technological systems as essentially value neutral. This purported neutrality
insulates from criticism the social factors driving technological advances and masks the
symbiotic relationship between engineering and society. The deficiencies of this analysis are
nowhere more evident than when considering engineering design.
Since WWII engineering design has increasingly been accepted as the defining
characteristic of true engineering practice. It distinguishes the engineer, qua engineer, from the
engineering technician or mechanic who merely produces or operates technological artifacts. The
design process encompasses everything from initial conceptualization to production of artifacts.
Various non-technical factors influence and constrain the design process including engineering
styles, social determination of engineering goals, and the need to optimize designs.
Optimization is essential to engineering design. It seeks to adapt engineering artifacts to
particular goals and values, maximizing intended benefits and minimizing undesirable
consequences. Prior to WWII optimization was often confused with efficiency – the
maximization of output with respect to input – and treated as an inevitable consequence of proper
application of the design process. Methods were developed and deployed for maximizing
efficiency, but optimization was not treated explicitly. After WWII it became clear that optimal
designs were not necessarily the most efficient, and engineers searched for mathematical methods
to objectively establish optimal systems.
It was discovered that mathematical models of engineering systems cannot ignore values.
Engineering designs are expressed as “criterion functions.” These functions represent design
parameters as variables multiplied by weighting coefficients. The coefficients provide
quantitative measures of the value of each design parameter thus revealing the extent to which
engineering artifacts and systems are shaped by and explicitly incorporate human values.
Value judgments permeate every branch of engineering. Civil engineers design roads,
bridges, dams, airports, and more. Though concerned more with utility and efficiency than
aesthetic or symbolic expression, civil engineering designs are still imbued with social values.
For instance, early waste disposal systems where almost solely concerned with quick and
efficient removal of refuse from population centers. In designing waste disposal systems today
civil engineers must consider environmental impacts. This is a clear reflection of society’s
growing anxieties over environmental pollution. The work of mechanical engineers, who design
dynamical systems like machines and engines, has been similarly effected. With the increasing
complexity of specialized machines and their integrated utilization in manufacturing processes
various physical and mental health problems have arisen for operating personnel. US
Government health and safety standards respond to public concerns over such issues by in effect
legislating incorporation of certain values into engineering designs. Nuclear engineering is
likewise affected. US nuclear power plants are optimized with human and environmental safety
considerations in mind. Such designs may not be the most efficient in terms of energy output, but
they do reflect the importance society places on safety.
Awareness of the value-ladeness of engineering design is particularly evident in the
impact women have had on the marketplace over the last few decades of the twentieth century.
As women have acquired financial independence and power, industry has been made to realized
that designs optimized for males cannot be expected to serve best all consumers. Engineering
artifacts increasingly have been optimized for women. As one of the major industrial forces in
the US economy, automotive engineering illustrates this shift. Automobiles were traditionally
designed for males. However, women tend to be shorter than men and thus had trouble reaching
steering wheels, brakes pedals, and seeing over instrument control panels. Automobile designs
have been altered to address these issues. Women are also more concerned with functional safety
features such as delayed interior lighting, airbags, and antilock brakes; and they have led the
drive to make such features standard on all cars.
Nevertheless, US engineering remains dominated by a rigorous professionalism that
emphasizes the purely technical. US Engineers are trained and generally function as specialists
who provide solutions to technological and commercial problems which emerge out of existing
social systems. Though responding well to such challenges, US engineers are not trained to place
society’s needs in broader contexts. This serves to buttress fundamentally flawed systems.
Despite curriculum reform efforts to raise awareness of their social responsibilities, young
engineers remain ill-prepared to address the most pernicious problems facing contemporary
American society such as poverty, environmental degradation, and the impact of consumerism on
energy and environmental resources.
Bibliography
Paul T. Durbin. (ed) (1991) Critical Perspectives on Nonacademic Science and Engineering.
Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press.
National Academy of Engineering. (1999) Frontiers of Engineering: Report on Leading-Edge
Engineering from the 1998 NAE Symposium on Frontiers of Engineering. Washington DC:
National Academy Press.
Sladovich, Hedy E. (ed) (1991) Engineering as a Social Enterprise. Washington DC: National
Academy Press.