The Engineer Meets CT

[coberst]

The Engineer Meets CT (Critical Thinking)

An engineer is taught in college to “do”. S/he can “do” math, analysis, and design. Primarily the job is to trouble-shoot, which means doing analysis and fixing. An engineer might well spend six months designing and twenty-four months trouble-shooting. An engineer is trained to do but is not trained to understand.

An engineer is good at instrumental rationality, which is used to determine the best means to reach a determined goal. When an engineer is ordered to build a dam s/he designs the most efficient way to build that dam. The people who give the command to build the dam may or may not be engineers depending upon whether the dam is a proximate end or an ultimate end. God made engineers to determine means and proximate ends—which are really means to some further ends.

CT is about analyzing and understanding.

One thing I have learned about playing chess is that for almost every move there is a bad judgment a good judgment and a better judgment. And I also learned that one pays a price for each bad judgment.

In life we are constantly making judgments. There is an art and science for judgment making and it is called Critical Thinking. Our schools and colleges have prepared us to make good judgments about special matters as it might pertain to our job but have done little to prepare us for the constant judgment making. CT is about learning how to think.

[koan]

Got something against engineers?

I know a few of them that most certainly are capable of critical thinking.

"God made engineers..." ?:wah:

that they get ordered to do things like build dams was rather amusing as well.

[Benjamin]

Not a whole lot of critical thinking went into that post about critical thinking. :wah:

[Bez]

Ummmm...Critical Thinking...a bit of a buzz word at the moment. The engineers where I work certainly have to do everything you describe, including CT.

[coberst]

I went to school at Oklahoma State University in the late 50s. A favorite bumper sticker was "Before I went to college I couldn't even spell engineer and now I are one." I can speak thus about engineers because I too are one (Retired). I suspect not one engineer I ever met knew CT from ET.

[koan]

My father is an engineer. He uses CT on a regular basis. He got a chuckle out of your post as well though.