Illustration by DALL-E
ApoorvKatoch
CTLC Fellow, Plaksha University
‘Science can amuse and fascinate us all, but it is engineering that changes the world’ – Isaac Asimov.
The above quote by the Russian born writer and professor of biochemistry, Isaac Asimov, can be construed in many ways. One might be tempted to ask, does science not change the world? What kind of change does engineering bring which science is incapable of? Or is changing the world essential to engineering? If we were to raise questions related to the nature of engineering, we however might stumble upon a paradox. On the one hand, engineering has unleashed such productive forces which afford us the numerous luxuries including the enormous structures that we inhabit. On the other hand, these same productive forces have also led to massive damage to the environment, hampering our well-being. There are defensible claims for both these sides and need to be assessed for their merits. My attempt with this reflection is to reconcile both these positions, with a view to bridge the gap between the two sides.
Although the term engineering is a part of our everyday discourse, it is often confused with terms such as science, design, and technology. In simple terms, science concerns itself with understanding and determining universal laws of natural phenomena, through rigorous observation and experimentation. On the flip side, engineering deals with the transformation of the physical world to serve human needs. Thus, immanent in every engineering endeavour is the process of synthesis, which brings about changes in the world. The difference is not trivial. To paraphrase Taft Boome Jr., a civil engineer and philosopher, while science is a theory that is concerned with forming a correct view of reality (epistemology i.e., theory of knowledge,), engineering is a theory that deals with constructing a new reality (praxeology i.e., the theory of human action).
For analytical purposes, one can discern two dimensions of engineering: one deals with the physical world i.e., transformation of physical reality, and the other with nature. For an effective transformation of physical reality, a mastery of natural laws is essential. Here science provides the necessary help. It is in reference to the former dimension that engineers such as Alfred Sloan could write, “the engineer typifies the twentieth century”. This he said, while ruminating on the vast contributions of engineering to what he called the ‘material side of existence’. It is beyond doubt that engineering has been the cornerstone for building the modern world. All this is and has always been with the goal of making lives easier for humans.
Not all transformations are equally desirable. One of the direct consequences of the transformation of the physical world is the transformation of nature. Nature rather than being perceived as a totality (interconnected whole), comes to be seen as a resource, to extract value. In this light, many, including eminent philosophers like Lewis Mumford and Jacques Ellul, have argued that the modern world is also plagued by problems of engineers’ making. Engineering has been accused of polluting the natural world with toxic chemicals and greenhouse gases while also inundating the human world (rather post-human) in displeasing structures and pointless consumer products. Even more concerning is what earth scientists call the Anthropocene: era of Earth’s history when human activity has become a dominant geological force. This is evident in the significant impact that human activity has had on climate and ecosystem.
This presents a paradox: the process, which is supposed to deal with synthesis, also threatens to destroy what it has built. This is only possible if the process of synthesis ignores the totality of impact it has on the world. Hence, one can safely argue that in its operation engineering has been ignoring the latter dimensions i.e., one that deals with nature and attending only to physical transformation of the world. To bridge the gap between these two dimensions, an engineer will have to embody a different kind of orientation to the world. I propose to call this new engineer a public engineer, to borrow this adjectival usage from one of the most eminent Sociologists C.W. Mills.
Conventionally, adding public to engineers would frame them as public servants, that their service is for the people. However, in this sense, the engineers, as specialists are imagined as separate from the society as they only ‘innovates-for’ the people. We must extend this imagination of the engineer to include ‘innovating-with’ the people. This would demand the engineers to step out of their protected academic and laboratory environment and enter into unmediated dialogue with the public - to make people a part of the solution process by listening to their problems, aspirations, and how they live.
In the main, public engineers, as I propose, will have two distinct qualities in terms of their orientation to the world. First goes by the term interdisciplinarity, and the other in the form of communication capacities. A lot has been said for the need of interdisciplinarity for all professions in the academic as well as public discourse. There is a tendency in these discourses to frame interdisciplinarity as something new which may change the business as usual. However, we need go back no further than the renaissance. However, we need go back no further than the Renaissance when Leonardo Da Vinci with his fervent curiosity and a ceaselessly inventive imagination enquired and produced works of art with as much gusto as works on mechanics and physiology. Several examples from Enlightenment also showed prowess in more than one discipline. Case in point Goethe, who wrote Faust with as much rigour as his enquiries into botany and geology. Such examples are available close to home, with people such as Rabindranath Tagore, who was a polymath. One then must recognise that siloed forms of disciplinary enquiries are only recent practices and with sustained effort one can do much more than work in their specialisation alone.
Examples are replete in the field of engineering as well, with the example of VergheseKurien who as a trained dairy engineer was able to bring about a dairy revolution with Amul, making India one of the largest producers of milk and changing the Indian diet forever. In order to go from ‘innovation-for’ to ‘innovation-with’, the engineers not only have to be better collaborators within their teams, in solving problems, but also better collaborators with the people for whom they are trying to solve the problems. This will require the engineer to have greater social sensibility, and better communication capabilities.
Current social, economic, political, environmental, and even medical challenges are complex, open-ended, and therefore ill-defined. This warrants an answer to a simple question - can the current education, and current and responsibilities of engineers deliver solutions for today’s world. The answer, I think, is a resounding no. The innovations will not have to be produced just for the people, but with the people. This is in many ways being fulfilled at Plaksha University with a focus on interdisciplinary education and grand challenges: to hone the skills required to solve problems of the twenty-first century.
This article only expresses the author’s personal views
