HPS282S - Introduction

HPS282S - HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY AND ENGINEERING

Spring 1998

Introduction

6 January 1998

I. Basic Subject Matter of Course

II. Engineering as a Profession

1. Gillispie: "A profession ... is, in the first place something more than an occupation, in that its practice presupposes mastery of a body of knowledge and thereby qualifies the practitioner for the prestige that from classical antiquity to the present has attached to the theoretical and cognitive when contrasted to the crafty and commercial. In the second place, however, a profession does share the economic attribute of an occupation. It is legitimately followed for gain and is not a status held by right. For reasons of dignity, the words "profit" and "wages" are not applied to a profesional man's rewards, but he does live from the fees or other honoraria that the direct employment of his knowledge brings him. Finallly and most distinctively, a profession is self-governing in that it exercises jurisdiction over the education, qualifications, and conduct of its members. In accordance with an actual or tacit delegation of regulating power by the authorities, justified by the public interest, it undertakes to police itself, claims to police all who would deal with its subject matter, and secures its members partial shelter from the interplay of external scrutiny, economic sanction, and political accountability that governs the behaviour of laymen in their occupations". (pp. 84-85)

III. Technology and Engineering

(1) "Highly skilled mechanics who are able to perform manual work through acquired dexerity much better than the engineers could perform it, although they have not had formal scientific or professional training. They are not competent to design, plan, or originate, except in the case of simple structures, devices, tools, jigs, fixtures, processes, or methods of working".(p.4)

(1) "Those functioning at a level requiring rigorous scientific educational preparation, but not involving duties that are sufficiently distributed or comprehensive to lie within the pracdtice of engineering ..." . The technologist is fully trained in the theory and practice pertaining to a specialized field and is competent to design and to originate at a high level of achievement therein. Within his specialty he may, indeed, be a master, possessing profound scientific knowledge, as distinguished, on the one hand, from the practical resourcefulness and competence of the technician or skilled manual worker, and, on the other hand, from the broad, overall, co-ordinating, managerial grasp of the engineer. ... The technologist assumes no responsibility for the general sufficiency of the completed work and ordinarily exhitbits little interest in the organizational, managerial, economic, legal, administrative, social, or public aspects of the enterprise as a whole". (pp. 5-6)

(1) "The engineer, proceeding in the professional spirit, assumes responsibility in serving his employer or client in every way that a skilled and alert adviser may serve, even to the extent of point out possible complications, embarrassment, or danger in features of the enterprise with respect to which he himself may not be competent to give final advice. The professional relation implies a trusteeship, a duty to serve the full and long-range interests of the employer as if they were the interests of the engineer himself, and an obligation to advise nothing and to concur in nothing that appears to be antipatheetic to the interests of either the client or the public. To render such services the engineer must possess a breadth of training that qualifies him to appraise the true needs both of his employer and of society. That training should be based on the principle that while serving his employer in honourable and considerate relationship with all those with whom he has to deal or who may be affected by his work, he must assume in no small measure the public duties of citizenship. He cannot withdraw into technological seclusion, interested onluy in achieving a greater proficiency in the solution of problems associated exclusively with materials, structures, mechanisms, or processes. The value of such specialized services may be great, but they do not in themselves establish any greater right to the professional designation than does the work of a skilled watchmaker, or navigator, or a computer in a statistician's office It is only when his interests, responsibilities, and services transcend conformity to a rigorous and narrow scientific or operational routine that the worker is fully and fairly entitled to the designation of professional engineer". (pp. 7-8)

IV. Course Requirements and Procedures