What did I tell you

Engineers aren’t scientists and they don’t do science. Except, of course, when scientists want to claim credit for something brilliant that engineers have done. From the comments at Pharyngula:

Engineers aren’t scientists. TECHNOLOGY isn’t SCIENCE. And when engineers try to act like scientists, they are apt to pull off howlers like this recent example reported in NewScientist: “Mars rover finds “puddles” on the planet’s surface”.

Those guys thought they could do planetary geology. They wrote a paper that was ACCEPTED by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (since retracted, but THOSE guys acted as if they could peer review GEOLOGY!).

Some other quotes that amused me in the discussion about the contempt which scientists (physicists) have been known to hold for butterfly collectors… that is to say, biologists.

“I should finally point out that as a mathematician I am neutral in the debates between soft sciences light biology and physics.”

“You’re either a scientist or a biologist.”

“Physical objects ‘run’ on physics itself, you twit.”

The interesting thing is that with the current advances in artificial intelligence, economists will finally be able to begin doing the sort of scientific experiments that have been impractical until now without the full support of a totalitarian dictator. I think it would be a very good thing to see much more strenuous testing of economic hypotheses, as this would hopefully allow us to destroy whatever shards of credibility still cling to socialism and Keynesianism.