Case Study: Science and Engineering
K. Eric Drexler wrote a seminal work about nanotechnology in the 1980s called Engines of Creation. He has recently followed this up with a new book called Radical Abundance, although he is now distinguishing atomically precise manufacturing (APM) from the many other unrelated fields that have jumped on the coattails of nanotechnology.
In Radical Abundance, he discusses the difference between Science and Engineering. When we talk about engineering, we are talking about technology, so everything he says about engineering highlights the difference between science and technology.
Drexler has his own particular ax to grind with regards to nanotechnology, but here were less interested in that than in the difference between science and technology.
Questions-
1. Drexler presents two parables, the elephantologists and the automobilists. The parable of elephantologists shows a successful field but the automobilists were unsuccessful. Both approached their field in the same manner. Why did this approach work for one field but not the other? Explain.
2. He also described two successful endeavors from the real world, mapping the human genome and putting a man on the moon. Which of these is most like the failed automobilists of the parable, and why was it successful while the automobilists were not? What was the difference in the approach?
3. What does he mean when he says that engineering is top down? Why does this not work for science?
4. Why are engineers not interested in experiments? Explain.
5. Drexler says that if several scientific theories try to explain one phenomenon, only one can be correct. Why would that be the case? Does that mean that only one engineering solution to a particular problem can be correct? Why or why not?