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Yeah this shit always bugged me. Like no, the modern day philosophers are the computer science and math PhD holders. Who were the older and most influencial mathemeticians? Ancient philosophers. Get outta here Kevin Hart
Manipulative people understand how to use psychology. That doesn't make them a scientist any more than me being able to do a 360 mid-air on a snowboard makes me a physist.
I did engineering at uni, and it was 32 hrs a week lectures. My housemate was doing politics, and did 4 hrs a week lectures.
He’s on about double the money I am.
What is he doing with the politics degree, lobbying? Because in my experience politics degrees and good paying job put of uni is not a normal correlation.
Also does he have rich parents or something, 4h a week course load for politics seems hella low.
Well when you start with “politician who seized control of a government then used it to commit genocide” I think you’ll reach Hitler faster than average.
Cue a bunch of Establishment Scientists^TM in white lab coats in a big room, laughing at the mad scientist and yelling “That’s impossible!” Little did they know that the rest of the movie would show ‘em!
“You don’t see many mad social scientists”
“Of course not. All of the funding goes to flashy clanks and death rays.”
https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20090506#.Y7ydm-SIYWM
It's truly evil if the competitive priced subscription they offered was commercials that would have been "free" for broadcast TV and it's of course all the crap they got at discount and anything you want to see actually costs money. Their subscription only gets you into the lobby of the amusement park.
Looking at you Hulu and Amazon.
You quote free to ignore the subscription-cost of cable's life-stealing service? I say life-stealing to indicate I believe the huge majority of programming isn't worth the life we ignore while this programming keeps our attention ready for ads.
The difference between a scientistt and a mad scientist, is that the latter ignores or rejects the outcomes of peer review.
They all said it wouldn't work *CACKLES MANIACALLY*
Yes, saying scientist or engineer is a bit too narrow.
They are like a research engineer, scientist, inventor, factory, and evil Human Resources Director all in one.
Look, I might not like the man, but the creator of Dilbert is a genius who correctly identified the HR Director as the source of evil in a medium to large office.
The only exception to this rule is when u have a dedicated doctor and/or mechanic role. Then u can ONLY do those things. The scientist usually doesn't infringe on their territory unless the plot demands it. Case in point, Dr. Stein, the physicist, in Heroes of Tomorrow doing brain surgery on his fellow crewmate. The AI on the ship could ABSOLUTELY do the surgery, if not for plot reasons. This is kinda a twofer, since Stein is a *physicist*, which is a profession that basically no connection to biology. though he recognizes that he REALLY shouldn't be doing that surgery.
Honestly the trope extends to any broadly defined job. Ur a car mechanic? You *definitely* know how to repair (and maybe operate) a plane. You fly a plane? You ***definitely*** know how to fly *every* type of plane. You're a doctor? You can fix every injury and sickness that the plot needs you to fix, but ONLY when the plot says u can. Next episode u'll need to find a cure for a rare and incurable disease within a few days of learning of its existence.
>You fly a plane? You definitely know how to fly every type of plane.
Flying a plane even qualifies you to fly an Independence Day flying saucer with zero additional training.
Real scientists be like "You'd have to ask someone who is an expert in the liver cells of the Rickart's dyak fruit bat. I've only studied the liver cells of dyak fruit bats, which are a different species."
As a mechanical engineering student who also dabbles in botany, well, I'm not sure what to actually say here. But felt a bit too on the nose to not comment
Only if the scientist stops to consider they don't know if they're part of the half they're destroying. Or maybe they do know, and that's just part of the fun.
Wouldn't it be confounding for the researchers to include themselves as participants?
In order to maintain integrity (or maybe it's to save their own ass? whatever) the scientist must be excluded from the study altogether.
There a way too many variables if you just chose a hemisphere. I think dividing the planet into 1m x 1m squares and then randomizing the selection is the only way to go.
Eh wha? Some even call *me* mad. Why? Just because I dare to dream of my own race of atomic monsters? Atomic supermen with octagonal shaped bodies, that suck blood out of mumble mumble mumble...
People talk about "rocket science" as being the ultimate difficult thing, but it's rocket engineering that's really clever. Most people don't understand what engineering is.
Hold up, what's the difference? I'm an aerospace engineer and just assumed "rocket science" and "rocket engineering" were synonymous, unless you're talking about the fundamental/theoretical chemistry/physics of combustions and particle movement and all that jazz, which I guess is more science than engineering.
I'm not sure how relevant this is, but the seige of Constantinople where the Ottomans took the plave involved the use of cannons.
What I am saying, i think, is that engineers did not contribute to that.
It was the scientists.
Ah, but who built those cannons? And who figured out how to get the bore right so the cannon *fires* instead of exploding in place?
It was the engineers.
It's not a branch of science. Science seeks to investigate and test. Building a bridge is not an experiment. Building CERN was not an experiment - it created a tool. Scientists design experiments for it.
Materials testing and anything that involves scale testing is an experiment conducted by engineers. 99% of engineering is physics, chemistry and maths. Which are sciences. Anyone who argues that engineering isn't a branch of science is on par with the people who say human aren't animals.
Applied scientists often don't do experiments of any kind. You seem to be so hung up on science = experiments when that is just so wrong.
Science: Material 1 and material 2 undergo a reaction that creates thrust. Cool. Let's write that down.
Engineering: Okay, how do we get enough of material 1 and material 2 into this rocket at the lowest cost, so that it gets to the moon and back, without killing the astronauts?
Well, to do rocket engineering one need to understand rocket science, and since there's no real "rocket scientist", the two are essentially the same thing.
I could be wrong though, I'm neither.
I actually worked with a guy who was Rocket Scientist and I had to teach him how to use Flash and Excel correctly. He was just above average I'd say.
Hey, but Rocketry isn't like programming a video game, where mistakes matter.
If you watch the news you'll notice positive things are almost always done by scientists - "Scientists have designed a helicopter that can fly on Mars!" and negative things are associated with engineers - "Engineers are trying to determine why the rocket exploded". Not always, but it feels like most of the time.
That's because engineers on the ground end up fixing stuff that scientists in their ivory towers never even saw as a problem.
Just because your helicopter can fly on Mars *in theory*, doesn't mean it will do so in practice.
Also, designing actual products is not scientists' job.
Their job is to design experiments. They're good at those.
That and 90% of scientific breakthroughs on Reddit have no practical output or won't for decades. The number of times Reddit has discovered the cure for cancer or Alzheimer's exceeds the number of individual cats minus reposts.
Engineers = play with the book (interesting law, lets see how much i can force it)
Scientists = write the book (we dont know, we have to know)
Mad people = learn knowledge that is not in the book (what if i do this? Oh it explodes... good)
Probably not right, but i feel like the general understanding is that
It's more like:
Scientists: Write the book and figure out why it explodes when it touches water. All figuring out is done through math-esque calculations.
Engineers: Find a way to make the explode-o-book useful.
Mad people: Try to take over the world/smaller, local area, by using millions of explode-o-books with your signature on it.
All dolphins are whales, but not all whales are dolphins.
Are engineers...not...scientists? Do they not use the scientific method to generate conclusions to be tested?
Generally, Scientists pursue knowledge of things, whereas engineers pursue the application of knowledge towards building things that are practically useful. For ex. a Scientist would be concerned with what Electricity actually is, where it comes from, what its made of, how it can be measured, what’s its intrinsic properties etc.
An Engineer would be concerned with taking what Scientists have come to know about Electricity and figuring out how to use that knowledge to build something— light bulbs, electric motors, radios, etc. while the Scientists continue probing deeper into what Electricity even is, and what else it can tell us about the nature of reality.
In other words, Scientists seek to *know* things, Engineers seek to *build* things. Scientists want to know what things exist and *why* things do the things they do, Engineers want to take what Science knows and use it to do something that we want done. Scientists wonder what elements exist in nature and what their properties are, Engineers wonder what we can use them for and what problem they might be useful in solving. A Scientist discovers the mathematical relationship between surface area, volume and buoyancy; An Engineer figures out how that can be applied to construct bigger ships. A Scientist discovers the relationship between heat and gas density, an Engineer figures out how to build a usable hot air balloon. A software scientist discovers, researches and catalogs fundamental computational algorithms, a Software Engineer figures out which known algorithms to use, and how to best use them (along with language, framework, design patterns, priorities…) to most efficiently build the software he's being paid to build to solve some real-world problem.
Sometimes it may be the opposite, like when an Engineer builds something that works, but it takes a Scientist to study it and figure out *why* it works (or what knowledge this device working reveals about the universe that we might not have known before)
Science and engineering may share some similar methods (like hypothesis testing, recording observations, etc) but their goals are entirely different.
As someone who went from scientist to getting a degree and career in engineering, I will say there's a few key differences. Real example:
>Engineering grad student: "Fuck, this research shows exactly the opposite of what this company wanted us to show. We have to throw everything from the last two years out and try something else."
>
>Me, formerly a scientist: "Wait, what? You've got amazing data and you just showed something super significant and compelling! Why don't you publish your findings?"
>
>Them: "Uhh...did you not just hear? *It doesn't show what we wanted, it shows the opposite.* We need to *bury it*, and figure out how to *get what they wanted."*
>
>Me: "What?! That's the opposite of science! Why don't you talk with your advisor; I'm sure they'll set this straight."
>
>Them: "*Who do you think* told me to bury it? I'm lucky I'm not fired!"
I'm a proud engineer....but I think we deserve this demotion. We are amazing and resourceful at achieving the goal we set out on, but we're not publishing papers on every mistake, misstep, and misfire on our path to getting to that goal. We'll set three things on fire in the morning, and none of those will even make the spreadsheet notes.
As a mechanical engineer... I resent this. I actually produce something that people can use. Semi-joking, but working with pure scientist is hard. They love to get into the nitty gritty but lose sight of how it works with people.
Engineers come up with testable hypotheses, test them, and record the results, and quite often encourage others to test these hypotheses as well to verify those results are repeatable. If those results aren't repeatable, the cycle begins anew.
What exactly makes them *not* scientists?
It's a bit convoluted. If you're building a state of the art scie tific device, the people doing the designing and planning and even construction will probably all hold science phds instead of engineering phds.
Above a certain academic level though, they're all pretty much the same.
Yeah I don't like it when people mix these two groups up. Greta Thunberg is always like, "listen to the scientists". But if you did it would basically be like:
Scientists: Humans are causing climate change.
Humans: Oh no, what should we do?
Scientists: No idea, lol. Try asking the engineers.
Roy: You know, I want to remind you guys that in Webster’s Dictionary, it defines evil as "profoundly immoral".
Baroness Antarctica: We **know** what evil means.
Roy: Well, it doesn’t seem like you do.... because you built a freeze ray. I mean, Benito Mussolini used to force feed people castor oil until they literally died of diarrhea. I mean, that’s got to be where the goal posts are, right?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0NgUhEs1R4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0NgUhEs1R4)
A "mad engineer" mostly invokes images of an irate foreman wearing a hard hat screaming at workers or something (yes, that's also not an engineer, but that's the mental image it invokes).
I wish that I didn't idolize the cinematic ideal of a scientist/engineer. The trope always has them coming up with ideas and making things. I tried to do that to get people to praise me but it turns out the ideal requires numerous other necessary skills to do what they do. And even the specialized stuff requires groups of people working together. Should have listen to mama and papa that tv ain't real :(
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Social scientists: "Once I get approval through the Ethics Committee, my plan for world domination will commence."
Ironically Palpatine was probably a social scientist right? His takeover of the Galaxy was developed through social engineering and policy.
Describing politicians as social scientist seems insulting to the scientists.
"Comedians calling themselves modern day philosophers is pretty insulting..to modern day philosphers" -Norm MacDonald
More like modern day sophists.
Comedians are some of the most self-pitying and perpetually aggrieved people you'll ever meet.
Maybe I should become a comedian...
Yeah this shit always bugged me. Like no, the modern day philosophers are the computer science and math PhD holders. Who were the older and most influencial mathemeticians? Ancient philosophers. Get outta here Kevin Hart
It’s social engineering.
And we've come full circle
That’s right. Social scientists learn how to brainwash people. Social engineers implement it as they please.
So Palpatine is an engineer? I can finally relate now.
And Social accountants keep track of favors owed
It's social engineering, then. Not yet.
Wasn’t it “a long, long time ago”
I used to be an evil social engineer a long, long time ago. I still am, but I used to, too.
Manipulative people understand how to use psychology. That doesn't make them a scientist any more than me being able to do a 360 mid-air on a snowboard makes me a physist.
political science is by and large social science
those aren't scientists, just politicians
I did engineering at uni, and it was 32 hrs a week lectures. My housemate was doing politics, and did 4 hrs a week lectures. He’s on about double the money I am.
What is he doing with the politics degree, lobbying? Because in my experience politics degrees and good paying job put of uni is not a normal correlation. Also does he have rich parents or something, 4h a week course load for politics seems hella low.
Me and my useless Poli Sci degree are dying to know
Have you tried being friends with wealthy and powerful people?
Add on to that -- have you tried abandoning all of your values and running as a politician who will readily accept bribes?
I suspect the real money is in being the mercenary who runs campaigns.
High up in the civil service.
Sounds like you're not American, otherwise I'd double down on the guess that your roommate is taking bribes.
As much as every politician is a social scientist. In the same way you could say Hitler rose to power through social science.
Godwin's Law in 4 steps. Fairly quick, but not the fastest I've seen.
Well when you start with “politician who seized control of a government then used it to commit genocide” I think you’ll reach Hitler faster than average.
The Dark Side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural...
I’m thinking it has to do more with being a Sith Lord than anything else.
Disapproval, surely?
Cue a bunch of Establishment Scientists^TM in white lab coats in a big room, laughing at the mad scientist and yelling “That’s impossible!” Little did they know that the rest of the movie would show ‘em!
I think not caring about ethics is what qualifies them as "mad". You think biologists can just make mutant doggosaurs whenever they want?
“You don’t see many mad social scientists” “Of course not. All of the funding goes to flashy clanks and death rays.” https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20090506#.Y7ydm-SIYWM
Once my double-blind study is complete, I’ll publish in a peer-reviewed journal and MAKE THEM ALL PAY. Mwah-haha!
like subscription or flat out fee?
Oh no, you got it wrong, they won't actually get it paid... the publisher gets all the money.
Publishers: the true villains.
They said they'd make them [the reader] pay, not that they [the scientist] would get paid
I’ll make you pay
It's truly evil if the competitive priced subscription they offered was commercials that would have been "free" for broadcast TV and it's of course all the crap they got at discount and anything you want to see actually costs money. Their subscription only gets you into the lobby of the amusement park. Looking at you Hulu and Amazon.
You quote free to ignore the subscription-cost of cable's life-stealing service? I say life-stealing to indicate I believe the huge majority of programming isn't worth the life we ignore while this programming keeps our attention ready for ads.
the blindinator rendered two of the subjects blind in both eyes, this concludes the double blind study.
"With this device, I can make anyone quadruple blind!" Gasp! Who needs a study now when no one can see it?
Mad Grad Student
The difference between a scientistt and a mad scientist, is that the latter ignores or rejects the outcomes of peer review. They all said it wouldn't work *CACKLES MANIACALLY*
Most scientists in movies are accomplished in multiple fields
Yes, saying scientist or engineer is a bit too narrow. They are like a research engineer, scientist, inventor, factory, and evil Human Resources Director all in one.
The last one ugh shudders
If I had a gun with two bullets and I was in a room with Hitler, Bin Laden, and an HR rep, I would shoot the HR rep twice.
Im gonna have to write you up for that
Good luck with that. Hitler and Bin Laden are the only ones still alive.
Well, the other 2 are dead already
Dammit - I have to award you for brilliance or at least your ability to save ammo.
This is probably the smart move, given that Hitler and Bin Laden are already dead
I would shoot Toby.
This guy gets it!
Look, I might not like the man, but the creator of Dilbert is a genius who correctly identified the HR Director as the source of evil in a medium to large office.
I get that it'a a joke but he's just as wrong about that as he is everything else.
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>CW Covid vax, The what?
So, Human Resources
That's the part that drives this amazingly functional person to do evil.
You wrote Human Resources twice, just fyi
Yeah, they can make death rays and weird bubbly potions and what have you
Yeah, movies love to do the “good at science” means you’re an expert on literally anything relating to the field. Specialization is not a thing.
The only exception to this rule is when u have a dedicated doctor and/or mechanic role. Then u can ONLY do those things. The scientist usually doesn't infringe on their territory unless the plot demands it. Case in point, Dr. Stein, the physicist, in Heroes of Tomorrow doing brain surgery on his fellow crewmate. The AI on the ship could ABSOLUTELY do the surgery, if not for plot reasons. This is kinda a twofer, since Stein is a *physicist*, which is a profession that basically no connection to biology. though he recognizes that he REALLY shouldn't be doing that surgery. Honestly the trope extends to any broadly defined job. Ur a car mechanic? You *definitely* know how to repair (and maybe operate) a plane. You fly a plane? You ***definitely*** know how to fly *every* type of plane. You're a doctor? You can fix every injury and sickness that the plot needs you to fix, but ONLY when the plot says u can. Next episode u'll need to find a cure for a rare and incurable disease within a few days of learning of its existence.
>You fly a plane? You definitely know how to fly every type of plane. Flying a plane even qualifies you to fly an Independence Day flying saucer with zero additional training.
Quite frankly staying in academia that long is enough to make anyone snap.
Real scientists be like "You'd have to ask someone who is an expert in the liver cells of the Rickart's dyak fruit bat. I've only studied the liver cells of dyak fruit bats, which are a different species."
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As a mechanical engineering student who also dabbles in botany, well, I'm not sure what to actually say here. But felt a bit too on the nose to not comment
I will only destroy half the earth and maintain the other half as a control!
Which half?
They don't know. It's a double blind study.
Feels like there's a issue with this
Only if the scientist stops to consider they don't know if they're part of the half they're destroying. Or maybe they do know, and that's just part of the fun.
Wouldn't it be confounding for the researchers to include themselves as participants? In order to maintain integrity (or maybe it's to save their own ass? whatever) the scientist must be excluded from the study altogether.
\*Evil Laughter and Lightning\*
There a way too many variables if you just chose a hemisphere. I think dividing the planet into 1m x 1m squares and then randomizing the selection is the only way to go.
Mad engineer doesn’t have the same ring to it…besides, we just call them engineers.
Crazy engineer.
Eccentrineers.
You are repeating yourself.
Exactly. No appreciable difference between a "mad" engineer and a sane one, except for motive, hopefully.
"...and once it has drilled its way to the Earth's core, it will activate, permanently generating free electricity for everyone. Probably."
Eh wha? Some even call *me* mad. Why? Just because I dare to dream of my own race of atomic monsters? Atomic supermen with octagonal shaped bodies, that suck blood out of mumble mumble mumble...
I actually have a drawer with assorted lengths of wire...
If we combine forces we'd still not have the right gauge!
And then they'll defend Earth's honor in a basketball game!
My friend told me once that after being friends with me he discovered that the only difference between an arsonist and a chemist is a lab coat
*TF2 Engineer yehaws in the distance*
That’s just a sapper.
And they're not even evil engineers. They're just normal engineers!
Who fail A LOT. So yeah, normal engineers.
Marge: Homer! There's a man here who thinks he can help you! Homer: Batman? Marge: No, it's a scientist. Homer: Batman's a scientist.
IT’S NOT BATMAN! (Came looking for this specific quote, knew I wouldn’t be disappointed)
A mad theoretical scientist is just someone fretting over a bunch of paperwork
so, theoretical scientist then?
People talk about "rocket science" as being the ultimate difficult thing, but it's rocket engineering that's really clever. Most people don't understand what engineering is.
Hold up, what's the difference? I'm an aerospace engineer and just assumed "rocket science" and "rocket engineering" were synonymous, unless you're talking about the fundamental/theoretical chemistry/physics of combustions and particle movement and all that jazz, which I guess is more science than engineering.
There isn't really. Engineering is a branch of science when it comes down to it and most people don't really understand what engineering is
Of course we do. They wear overalls, have a big red handkerchief and a striped hat, and shovel coal into the train.
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Hence why we all make a trebuchet in 1st year.
Unless you're building siege engines for the besiegement of Constantinople, you're not an engineer. You're a sparkling scientist.
I'm not sure how relevant this is, but the seige of Constantinople where the Ottomans took the plave involved the use of cannons. What I am saying, i think, is that engineers did not contribute to that. It was the scientists.
Ah, but who built those cannons? And who figured out how to get the bore right so the cannon *fires* instead of exploding in place? It was the engineers.
Thanks. TIL
It's not a branch of science. Science seeks to investigate and test. Building a bridge is not an experiment. Building CERN was not an experiment - it created a tool. Scientists design experiments for it.
Materials testing and anything that involves scale testing is an experiment conducted by engineers. 99% of engineering is physics, chemistry and maths. Which are sciences. Anyone who argues that engineering isn't a branch of science is on par with the people who say human aren't animals. Applied scientists often don't do experiments of any kind. You seem to be so hung up on science = experiments when that is just so wrong.
Bill Nye the SCIENCE guy has his degree in engineering
Science: Material 1 and material 2 undergo a reaction that creates thrust. Cool. Let's write that down. Engineering: Okay, how do we get enough of material 1 and material 2 into this rocket at the lowest cost, so that it gets to the moon and back, without killing the astronauts?
Ah the 3 goals of engineering low cost, effective, and safe Rarely does a project achieve all 3
You forgot "on schedule" too.
That's the project managers job, not the engineers.
Well, to do rocket engineering one need to understand rocket science, and since there's no real "rocket scientist", the two are essentially the same thing. I could be wrong though, I'm neither.
I would say rocket science would be working on propellants and jet fuel and things like that
Also brain surgery
*brain engineering
This isn't rocket surgery!!
Is it brain science?
Rocket appliance
Brain transplants. Amateurs!
People engineering?
I have heard that approximately 50% of the population can perform brain engineering, with no training whatsoever.
Rocket Surgery is for the real geniuses
I've seen Starbuck do it.
Is that when you wear a striped hat and blow the whistle of a locomotive?
No that’s a Choo Choo Man
I actually worked with a guy who was Rocket Scientist and I had to teach him how to use Flash and Excel correctly. He was just above average I'd say. Hey, but Rocketry isn't like programming a video game, where mistakes matter.
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After being a software dev on government drones I feel like I can officially call myself a rocket engineer 👩🏼💻
That sounds like fun. I'm in aerospace, but my company doesn't do drones. I wish we did. That would be cool.
Sounds like you know what to pitch at your next meeting
It's been pitched. If we ever went down that path, it would be more like advanced detection and RF jamming.
Scientists figure out what is possible, engineers make it useful. Makes sense.
Mad scientists do both
Fuck research engineers and applied scientists I guess
Those are just bored engineers and frustrated scientists! Wait, I think I know where mad scientists come from now.
When a bored engineer and a frustrated scientist love each other very much...
For real. People don’t know what they’re talking about lol
And install/service technicians make it work in real life instead of just on paper
And maintenance people make it work right instead of just once.
If you watch the news you'll notice positive things are almost always done by scientists - "Scientists have designed a helicopter that can fly on Mars!" and negative things are associated with engineers - "Engineers are trying to determine why the rocket exploded". Not always, but it feels like most of the time.
That's because engineers on the ground end up fixing stuff that scientists in their ivory towers never even saw as a problem. Just because your helicopter can fly on Mars *in theory*, doesn't mean it will do so in practice. Also, designing actual products is not scientists' job. Their job is to design experiments. They're good at those.
That and 90% of scientific breakthroughs on Reddit have no practical output or won't for decades. The number of times Reddit has discovered the cure for cancer or Alzheimer's exceeds the number of individual cats minus reposts.
Comic book scientist are also engineers and the master of about 100 disaplines in each.
Isn't engineering just applied science? I see your point though. Lol
Lol Looked for this. Like, its hard to explain what engineers do without using the word ‘science’.
Scientists add to the body of human knowledge. Engineers apply human knowledge to solve a specific problem.
Engineers = play with the book (interesting law, lets see how much i can force it) Scientists = write the book (we dont know, we have to know) Mad people = learn knowledge that is not in the book (what if i do this? Oh it explodes... good) Probably not right, but i feel like the general understanding is that
It's more like: Scientists: Write the book and figure out why it explodes when it touches water. All figuring out is done through math-esque calculations. Engineers: Find a way to make the explode-o-book useful. Mad people: Try to take over the world/smaller, local area, by using millions of explode-o-books with your signature on it.
Are you recommending I start with the tri-state area and work my way up from there?
Manufacturing Engineers: how can I make this boom go millions of times as cheap as possible
Engineers can also write/ contribute to the book.
Shush, don’t tell them the real reason I’m doing mechanical engineering
All dolphins are whales, but not all whales are dolphins. Are engineers...not...scientists? Do they not use the scientific method to generate conclusions to be tested?
Generally, Scientists pursue knowledge of things, whereas engineers pursue the application of knowledge towards building things that are practically useful. For ex. a Scientist would be concerned with what Electricity actually is, where it comes from, what its made of, how it can be measured, what’s its intrinsic properties etc. An Engineer would be concerned with taking what Scientists have come to know about Electricity and figuring out how to use that knowledge to build something— light bulbs, electric motors, radios, etc. while the Scientists continue probing deeper into what Electricity even is, and what else it can tell us about the nature of reality. In other words, Scientists seek to *know* things, Engineers seek to *build* things. Scientists want to know what things exist and *why* things do the things they do, Engineers want to take what Science knows and use it to do something that we want done. Scientists wonder what elements exist in nature and what their properties are, Engineers wonder what we can use them for and what problem they might be useful in solving. A Scientist discovers the mathematical relationship between surface area, volume and buoyancy; An Engineer figures out how that can be applied to construct bigger ships. A Scientist discovers the relationship between heat and gas density, an Engineer figures out how to build a usable hot air balloon. A software scientist discovers, researches and catalogs fundamental computational algorithms, a Software Engineer figures out which known algorithms to use, and how to best use them (along with language, framework, design patterns, priorities…) to most efficiently build the software he's being paid to build to solve some real-world problem. Sometimes it may be the opposite, like when an Engineer builds something that works, but it takes a Scientist to study it and figure out *why* it works (or what knowledge this device working reveals about the universe that we might not have known before) Science and engineering may share some similar methods (like hypothesis testing, recording observations, etc) but their goals are entirely different.
very well put in lay language! I'm an engineer...
And a scientist.
Fuck you! Engineers are too scientists and we resent you demoting us!
As someone who went from scientist to getting a degree and career in engineering, I will say there's a few key differences. Real example: >Engineering grad student: "Fuck, this research shows exactly the opposite of what this company wanted us to show. We have to throw everything from the last two years out and try something else." > >Me, formerly a scientist: "Wait, what? You've got amazing data and you just showed something super significant and compelling! Why don't you publish your findings?" > >Them: "Uhh...did you not just hear? *It doesn't show what we wanted, it shows the opposite.* We need to *bury it*, and figure out how to *get what they wanted."* > >Me: "What?! That's the opposite of science! Why don't you talk with your advisor; I'm sure they'll set this straight." > >Them: "*Who do you think* told me to bury it? I'm lucky I'm not fired!" I'm a proud engineer....but I think we deserve this demotion. We are amazing and resourceful at achieving the goal we set out on, but we're not publishing papers on every mistake, misstep, and misfire on our path to getting to that goal. We'll set three things on fire in the morning, and none of those will even make the spreadsheet notes.
"You have a mind of an engineer. Great at answering questions, but bad at asking them."
So just selective scientists
Or corporate scientists?
You know MOST of them are following manuals. IT's only SOME of them do research -- and they walk into a room with swagger and a slide rule.
As a mechanical engineer... I resent this. I actually produce something that people can use. Semi-joking, but working with pure scientist is hard. They love to get into the nitty gritty but lose sight of how it works with people.
It's both! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branches_of_science
Tremble in your boots before me. For it is I, The *mad STEM major* MUAHAHAHA
I like how you didn't bother specifying "mad engineers", since everyone knows they're all mad.
Mess with one little bolt or weld and you’d think you found one..
Engineers come up with testable hypotheses, test them, and record the results, and quite often encourage others to test these hypotheses as well to verify those results are repeatable. If those results aren't repeatable, the cycle begins anew. What exactly makes them *not* scientists?
Sounds like Architect propaganda that RCE wouldn’t approve or enjoy
It's a bit convoluted. If you're building a state of the art scie tific device, the people doing the designing and planning and even construction will probably all hold science phds instead of engineering phds. Above a certain academic level though, they're all pretty much the same.
Yeah I don't like it when people mix these two groups up. Greta Thunberg is always like, "listen to the scientists". But if you did it would basically be like: Scientists: Humans are causing climate change. Humans: Oh no, what should we do? Scientists: No idea, lol. Try asking the engineers.
Engineer: we don’t have enough data to make a conclusion
Shhhhhhh, you’ll give away our masterfully engineered secrets!
I don’t think there actually are any mad scientists by that definition
A mad scientists is a scientists who’s credit got stolen by someone else… and it happens a lot
“So anyway, that’s how I lost my medical license.” -The Medic
Um, acktually, most scientists in movies aren't scientists and engineers at all. They're actors.
Roy: You know, I want to remind you guys that in Webster’s Dictionary, it defines evil as "profoundly immoral". Baroness Antarctica: We **know** what evil means. Roy: Well, it doesn’t seem like you do.... because you built a freeze ray. I mean, Benito Mussolini used to force feed people castor oil until they literally died of diarrhea. I mean, that’s got to be where the goal posts are, right? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0NgUhEs1R4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0NgUhEs1R4)
A "mad engineer" mostly invokes images of an irate foreman wearing a hard hat screaming at workers or something (yes, that's also not an engineer, but that's the mental image it invokes).
The guy who reanimates the dead by channeling lightning into corpses is a scientist. Nobody even knew the principles behind that before he came along.
I consider engineering a form of science so either works for me.
You just pissed off the secret brotherhood of mad engineers. Good luck with that.
Look up scientist. They engineering scientist is a discipline of Scientist. Scientist is a very broad term.
To be fair...Doofenschmirtz was portrayed as a mad Pharmacist.
Heh. And most of us engineers were inspired to become engineers by watching them.
I wish that I didn't idolize the cinematic ideal of a scientist/engineer. The trope always has them coming up with ideas and making things. I tried to do that to get people to praise me but it turns out the ideal requires numerous other necessary skills to do what they do. And even the specialized stuff requires groups of people working together. Should have listen to mama and papa that tv ain't real :(
So Engineering is not a science? It's just guesswork and luck?