We might also add a category for some famous failures like the Babage calculator or diference engine.

JMW
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I  prefer to "accentuate the positive".
The subjects are massive already.
jimbo

Buy a dictionary, keep it nearby and USE it. Webster's New World Dictionary of American English is recommended, and Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.

Personally. I don't think engineering is a science. I think it is the application of science. And one thing which annoys me is that computer programmers and engineers often call themselves "computer scientists", which I think is a misuse of the term. I'm not saying that many scientists don't actually spend most of their time doing engineering, or that some of what engineers sometimes do is actually science - only that the terms are not clearly understood, or used correctly by the public. The content of the magazine "popular science" is actually nearly all technology of one kind or another. But if enough people define science and engineering to be the same thing, I can't really argue, since the dictionary definition will gradually change over time to reflect the fact. That is the case with everything, unfortunately.

Overall, it's a very thin distinction.  Most dictionary definitions of "science" do not preclude engineering outright.  Only http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=science*1+0&dict=A gives:

Quote:

(knowledge obtained from) the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the natural and physical world, by observation and experiment

Thus, the main distinction is "the natural.. world."  Beyond that, they're at least kissing cousins if not fraternal twins.

TTFN

Of engineering we already expressed our opinion. Computer science is a branch of knowledge concerned with information processes, the structures and procedures representing these processes, and their implementation in information-processing systems.

What is so esoteric about science that neither engineering nor computing can be considered branches, out of many others ? Is it possible that there is a confusion with technology ? Technology is the application of systematic knowledge to processes, mainly industrial, thus being connected with engineering and science in general.

I was once told that any endevour that calls itself a "science" isn't.  "Computer Science" is the most blatent of all these.  I have no problem with "Software Engineer", but a computer science ciruculum is a perversion of the language.

Back to the thread.  I think "science" is "the collection of efforts aimed at discovering the nature of any portion of the universe" and "engineering" is the "systematic application of scientific knowledge to modify some portion of the universe".  These aren't Webster's definitions, but they are where I draw the line in my mind.  

While the folks did a lot of science at Oak Ridge and Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project, those emminent scientists certainly modified the world.  Oak Ridge was more an engineering and plumbing accomplishment than a scientific one.

David

Most people speak of "natural" sciences, but what about theology, phylosophy, and the like. Are these also sciences, or should they be clasified a science fiction ?

zdas,

I can not agree. Computer science is as much science as is rocket science or biology or any other science.

Of course, the classes that teach MS application programs should not be labeled computer science - I agree there.

But the organisation and operation of a computer, its peripherals and its operating system IS science. So is the science of computer languages, compiler design and several related disciplines.

It is such a pity that Gary Killdal didn't answer (the tradition says so) the phone when IBM rang him about a new OS for their little Personal Computer. If Gary and his folks at Digital Research had produced the PC DOS, I am convinced that there would have been less objections to the term "computer science".

Bill Gates did answer and gave IBM a crippled amateur system. It has taken a lot of effort and lots and lots of user agony before it evolved into the XP of today. The process has been a lot more ad hoc and trial and error than scientific. But that does not, in my opinion, disqualify computer science as a science.

Well, all this goes to show just how how confused the issues are, when there seems to be no general agreement about what diferentiates science and engineering. People have written whole books about what science and engineering actually are, and some have gone so far as to claim that they are one and the same. But unless one can come to an agreement on a definition ahead of time, however arbitrary or controversial it may be, all further discussion is fruitless. In my opinion, one is not doing science unless one is discovering some new fact about natural phenomena. So in the case of so called "computer science", there might be instances where one discovered something about a natural process such as evolution because of a computer simulation or something  of that kind, but the majority of "computer science" is simply engineering, or in other words the application of known science to create something which hitherto did not exist.

skogsgurra,
EnglishMuffin answered for me, but let me add my own spin.  

My first 10 years out of college I managed software-development projects and the "computer science" grads working for me (hundreds over the decade) were either "programmers" who were generally incapable of translating real-world problems into code (i.e., you had to synthesize the problems into the programmer's format or the results were unpredictable and usually worthless) or "software engineers" who could translate often very difficult processes into a format the programmers could successfully convert to code.  

Many of both groups were very competent, but the best among them fit much more cleanly into the "application of knowledge" category than the "discovery of knowledge" category.

Your operating system example may be absolutely accurate, but it is also absolutely irrelevant.  The efforts by either group were the application of knowledge to a supremely difficult task and in my mind was clearly engineering - the result was pretty useful in and of itself.

The end result of the best of the Biologists, Chemists, or Physicists is information that engineers can eventually turn into a product or process.

I stand by my statement that "Computer Science ain't Science"

David Simpson, PE
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Muffin and Zdas,

I take your points - and I think that I understand them. I already said that classes teaching programming techniques should not be confused with computer science. What I was thinking about is the kind of computer science that explores unknown mathematical and logical structures and discovers new ways of solving problems or make good use of them otherwise.

To me, that is science. Just as much as mathematics is science. I even think that mathematics was called "Queen of sciences" by Gauss (or was it Leibnitz?)

As an engineer in the electric field (no pun) I have a very shallow knowledge about this subject. But I cannot help thinking that I am right and that you have a much too narrow view of what computer science really is.

Well, if you mean by "computer science" the sort of things to be found in Stephen Wolfram's "A new kind of science", I would agree with you. But to most people, computer science is simply synonymous with programming or computer design, and that is what I am objecting to. And in similar vein, I think as far as most people were concerned, the Apollo program was thought of as a scientific achievement, not an engineering one. But of course, Challenger and Columbia were "engineering failures".

We have some sort of an understanding. I like that.

I'm on board.  The really wonderful breakthrough's in computer theory have come from mathmetician's, physicists, and really amazing hobbyists.  I can't come up with a single theoretical advance that has come from a "computer science" ciruculum.  I can come up with many advances in the explaination of why computers work from other fields.

David

Apollo and the rest of the space program's goals were science, since field study is at the core of most natural sciences.  

However, Apollo, itself, was an engineering achievement, not a scientific achievement.  There is nothing natural about putting 3 people at the end of Roman candle and tossing them into space.

As a analogy, one can consider the exploration of the Amazon to be a natural science endeavor, but the plane that got them there was an engineering endeavor.

TTFN

The "Devils Data Processing Dictionary" defines "Computer Science" as follows;

"Computer Science is to Science as Plumbing is to Hydrodynamics"

"Science investigates what is. Engineering creates that that has never existed."

Cheers

Greg Locock

There must be some underlying misunderstanding here. I do not think that I am a dumb and badly informed person. And I do not think that people like Muffin, zdas, IRstuff, sreid and GregLocock are either.

If I take one step backward and look at what we are discussing, I think that there must be some cultural or linguistic differences between your science and my science.

The Swedish word for "science" is actually "vetenskap" which can be translated to "knowledgeship". And I think that a lot of "knowledgeship" is needed in computer science. But I also understand that you need very few bunsen burners and test tubes, and those attributes seem to be an important part of science if you look the word up in illustrated US dictionaries.

White coats seem to be important in both sciences - more so in computer science in the earlier days. Less so nowadays  

That quote is probably a little hard to decipher unless you know english very well.

Perhaps it would be better to paraphrase it as

"Science investigates what already exists. Engineering creates things that have never existed before."

I don't know who came up with that one, I don't really agree with it in some ways, but it's a fun one to throw back at the scientists, who often claim that engineering is merely the practical implementation of science.

Cheers

Greg Locock

It is perhaps a little easier if written "knowledge-ship". Is there any good olde English word that fits better?

Go back to when it was all philosophy. Science is a modern word.

JMW
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I was listening to an NPR program a few days ago, and they were doing a retrospective on the late Alistair Cooke -  like me, a naturalized expatriate. They had a recording of a phone-in program from back in the sixties where an English guy phoned in and said Americans were ruining the English language .. blah  blah blah etc. And Cooke replied that a lot of people don't realize how many words Americans have invented - words like "awful" and "scientist" for example (and a bunch of others I that can't remember). Assuming he was right about "scientist", and he usually was right, that may account for why Americans use the term a little more broadly than I think other English speakers do.

Makes a lot of sense to me, Muffin.

I am glad we got off the topic of "software engineering", because I believe that I will NEVER comprehend how anyone can "engineer" software.
jimbo

Buy a dictionary, keep it nearby and USE it. Webster's New World Dictionary of American English is recommended, and Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.

jimbo : You don't think it's engineering, and I don't think it's science (usually). I wonder what it is ? A racket, probably.  Presumably, this thread is supposed to be about a wider field than Thread769-94507 - ie not just engineering discoveries. Do I understand it correctly ?

If I'm allowed to ask. What are medicine, biology, forensics, bionics, ergonomics, mineralogy, physics, and the like ? Are they sciences, arts, technologies, or what ? What would a university call them ?

If engineering is not a science, why then are academic degrees as B.Sc., M.S. or M.Sc. conferred to engineers ? PhD would complicate matters even more. Comments welcomed.
Is the accepted answer: chacun a son gout ?

25362,
I am terribly language challenged so I have no idea what your "accepted answer" might be.  Sorry.

My experience is that the awarding of specific degrees is a jealously guarded prerogative of university faculties that has much more to do with maintaining a pecking order than any logic.  Some schools try to make it appear logical by saying a BA or MA require fewer hours than a BS or MS.  I think this is simply a retrofit to a fundamental illogic.

Your question about the "sciences" is really at the heart of this discussion.  If a biologist discovers a new Amazonian tree frog with an excretion that (in its unadulterated form) can cure AIDS, is that science or engineering?  In either case it is a wonderful accomplishment, but what category would you place it in for this discussion?

I think many of the definitions for "engineering" above would serve, if folks would pick one and move on.

David

To zdas04, sorry. The translation: everyone to his taste.

It's all very confused and contentious. In some countries, such as the US, you can apparently patent existing DNA sequences - in some you can't.

25362: My view would be that in fact the designation is quite logical, since when one studies engineering at university, one is actually (most of the time) not studying engineering, or even how to be an engineer. Instead, one is studying "engineering science" ie physics, chemistry etc. Many university engineering professors are not really engineers, but teachers, researchers and students of engineering science.

Not at my school.   6 quarters of physics, 6 quarters of chemistry, 9 quarters of math, something like 30 quarters of engineering.

TTFN

What do you classify as "engineering"? I classify things like strength of materials and fluid mechanics, for example, not as engineering but as engineering science. The only thing I would classify as engineering would be things like projects and design exercises. But perhaps you were more fortunate than I.

Circuit design
Communcation system design
Logic design
Semiconductor design
Integrated circuit design
Power supply design
etc.

TTFN

That sure is a lot of "design". You were fortunate indeed. Although I have spent my whole career as a mechanical designer, I have never had a single formal lesson in it.

In my opinion, engineering starts with science and the discovery process.  The difference comes in that the engineer takes the science and makes it practical for use.  The scientist will publish findings and defend/refine them if necessary but will continue to search for new discoveries.  A scientist is not necessarily concerned with the practical application of a discovery.

Regards,

I do not think that this thread needs another torch, but here goes:

What do economists do? Science? It is not engineering, I am sure about that.

There are theories in economics that seem to be supported by observations and sometimes can be verified by experiments. So it could be labeled "science" - but is it?

My (somewhat jaded) experience is that economists do much the same thing as clergy - try to make the unknowable into something concrete for the masses.  I've had 12 hours of undergraduate and graduate level economics courses and came away from all of them thinking they should have been taught at Hogwarts.

David

One manual I saw defines "economics" as a social science that deals chiefly with production, distribution, and consumption of goods, services, or wealth, and the theory and operation of financial systems.

Social science: the study of society, its institutions, and of individual relationships in and to society, generally regarded as including sociology, psychology, anthropology, economics, political science, and history.

I still say (not to restart that discussion) that if it calls itself "science" in its name, then it ain't.

David

According to the late Richard Feynman, things like social "science" and psychology are pseudosciences. They are not rigorous enough to be called sciences - strong on theory but virtually no testing and verification.

An altogether more disturbing term I've heard in the UK with increasing frequency:

'Social Engineering' - presumably the application of social science??

It's not something dear to my heart. Lots of rhetoric and doctrine, lots of opinionated people and few hard facts. Common sense and reason are rare visitors indeed to this quasi-science.

-----------------------------------

"Never look down any at anybody, unless you are helping them up."

Jesse Jackson.

Back in the '60s my engineering professor summed up the difference between science and engineering very neatly (and quite accurately)

Science is studying things for the sake of discovering the unknown - Engineering is for turning theory into MONEY

He also recognised the reason that engineers got an 'academic' degree - it's because Universities know that it's industry (and engineers in industry) that actually generate the wealth that allows them the luxury of Academy

Good Luck
johnwm
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When speaking on whether computer science is indeed a science, I feel obliged to quote Alan P. Rossiter in his Waste Minimization Through Process Design when speaking of artificial intelligence (AI): "AI is based on the concept that computers can be programmed to assume capabilities thought to be like human intelligence such as learning, reasoning, adaptation and self-correction. It is an extensive branch of computer science embracing robotics, pattern recognition, knowledge-based systems, scene analysis, language processing, computer vision, and mechanical theorem proving, with more areas being added all the time." In view of the above aren't we entitled to call this branch of knowledge a science ?

How many computers are there in the world?
How much of each wroking day do they sit, power on but idle?
The lateral thinker who realised the potential to use screen savers to harness all this computer power for such experiments as climate modelling programs is at least worth a mention.
PS the increasing tendancy of the PC to self-utilise this time for defragging etc, does this impact on these programs?

JMW
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25362,
The only part of that quote that is "science" is actually "Physics", "Psychiatry", or "Anthropology".  The rest is programming or engineering.  Notice that none of these "sciences" needs a second word.

David

David Simpson, PE
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