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Asked by DrProfessorKit on 22 Dec 2014.
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Andy Hearn answered on 22 Dec 2014:
That’s a difficult question! Apart from working on boats, there were so many things I’d have liked to try out; graphic design and animation probably. I even think I could do roadsweeping – waking up early and taking pride in cleaning roads and paths for everyone else.
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Peter Green answered on 22 Dec 2014:
For many years I have enjoyed walking in the Peak District National Park, and I have always thought that it would be great to be a Park Ranger – working with nature and the visitors to the Park. I suspect that I had this thought on a nice summer’s day, and that I would be less enthusiastic on a cold, rainy day in late autumn 🙂
More realistically, if not an engineer I would have probably been a primary school teacher. As it happens, my job at the University allows me to be both an engineer and a teacher. It is a great job!
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Fiona Dickinson answered on 31 Dec 2014:
I’m not an engineer I’m a scientist (chemist), and if I wasn’t a scientist I’d probably be an engineer!
For me a scientist does fundamental research, an engineer takes that research and makes it work in the real world. Both engineers and scientists work on the same problem, and just like in the song ‘love and marriage’, ‘you can’t have one without the other’. Together scientists and engineers have made the modern world.
My dad was an engineer (he designed tools for the rubber industry), as was my uncle (civil engineer, at one point he was in charge of maintaining all of the west midlands roads), and my brother is an engineer (he designs ventilation systems), so I’d be an engineer, probably a civil engineer because then I could say playing with lego was work.
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Wallace Viguier answered on 5 Jan 2015:
Hi,
For my part if I was not an engineer I would be a doctor. I guess the common denominator is doing things to make life of humans better 🙂
Comments
ramakrishna nandyala commented on :
I am successful engineer from last 10 yrs. This happened because of my engineering degree. Education changed my life and my next generation too.
If not engineer, I could have started Grocery shop at my native place-small village. Not sure about success.
DrProfessorKit commented on :
Although the things that engineers and doctors do are very useful, they take away the point of evolution-although evolution would take longer, so there is a point- essentially engineering is like evolution, but sped up, and sometimes better than the “natural” alternative.
But do you ever consider how by helping us you are taking away the point of the evolution?
Andy commented on :
Your observation is brilliant.
I think “we” already began to interfere with evolution by discovering fire all these thousands of years ago. Once humans harnessed fire, we passed a point of no return.
We could argue that our brains evolved to deal with abstract thought, and symbols, triggering more of the same, a feedback loop if you like, so it was a matter of time before it “interfered” with evolution itself. That was inevitable.
Engineering in the sense of modifying our tools and surroundings are what makes us ‘human’. I think the question perhaps could be along the lines of ;”what kinds of engineering could be harmful either directly or indirectly?”. What do you reckon?
DrProfessorKit commented on :
Thank you very much, I agree!
The only question I have left (which is a question I ask about everything) is, why? However, I’m no longer questioning engineering, I’m questioning the point of life! So, I’ll stop here and find “I’m A Philosopher Get Me Out Of Here” 😀
Unless you have a view, in which case I would very much like to know!
Wallace commented on :
Hi,
I would like to propose another point of view on the matter and this as I had many talks about evolution wiht anthropologists in the recent past. I think that the idea that because we know about evolution we are not part of it anymore is a not a valid hypothesis. Yes indeed, we started understanding a (small) part of the laws that make our universe behave as it does but this does not mean we can not be affected by it. In the same way we are still evolving.
I guess what can make it difficult to realise is that the speed of physical evolution is very slow relative to our lifespans. It takes 10′ or 100’s of thousands of year to see physical changes happen.
Finally, and to answer @Andy yes engineering can potentially have harmful side effects but I guess this is a separate topic.
Best,
W.
DrProfessorKit commented on :
Thank you for your reply!
However, I would like to point out to you that I never mentioned anything of our knowledge of evolution affecting us as people, or for that matter that because of our knowledge of evolution we were no longer part of it. As well as this I never mentioned that we can not be affected by things we know. We can not avoid nature! Nor can we permanently control it.
What I did say was that our engineering and our medical studies may render evolution pointless, this doesn’t mean we won’t be effected! It just means we may not get any better than we are if we continue making things and, of course this may have adverse effects.
Wallace commented on :
Hi,
Thanks for the clarification of your point of view as it wasn’t clear from your first post.
I do agree agrre very much that we cant avoid nature for the reason we are part of it. It is not because an object has been made by humans that it is less natural, after all, this is all about how we transform what is in the universe rather than adding anything to it.
Finally about your hypothesis that “we may not get any better than we are if we continue making things”, I must say that I am pretty sure I disagree. I guess it would help for you to explain what better means here but if you, as I presume, mean it on a physical level then I am pretty convinced we are evolving to adapt your our ever changing environment. Agreed, if we were to live in a similar environment for a very long time, like for shark in the last millions of year, then we would likely not evolve much because we would be nearly-perfectly matched to our environment. Seeing the rate at which we create new way of living and that this rate is exponentially increasing in the last 200 years or so, I would say it is unlikley we gonna stop evolving anytime soon. Of course the evolution mechanisms are usually quite slow and so not easy to witness. But saying that because we are creating objects we do not evolve is simply not true. I hope this explains well the situation and answer your questionnings.
W.
DrProfessorKit commented on :
I think this will explain a bit more in depth about what I was thinking, I apologise for lack of clarity on my part; I’m not the best at explaining!
I think that because we are using technology to help us survive (no longer in a small way) we won’t be getting any better and in fact we will be being shaped around our technology-as well as shaping it.
Of course, we can not be the only ones evolving around our technology, so of course organisms are as well. Take for example the ‘super bug’ caused by antibiotics.
So, as we advance our technology to defend ourselves they can adapt around this and, due to us not changing (and there being limits in what we can create to defend us) we would be left in danger.
Wallace commented on :
Hi,
It seems I am not the best at explaining neither as the answers to your questions were detailled in the last paragraph of my message. Let me rephrase the ideas here.
Yes we are using technology as it greatly help us survive. And this technology is part of the nature, part of our world and having it makes us much stronger. For having lived with hunter-gatherers in the Jungle I can tell how how worst of we are without technology. Amongst the peole I lived with, 50% of the kids do not make it to 5 and the life expectancy is one the worst in the world: around 40 years. Not using and making technology is for me similar of deciding to forbid using our two hands simultaneously by risk of using too much energy.
The antibiotics are a great example. Yes, bacterias adapt to it and they are less and less effective. That being said the world witout antibiotic was a grim one where one could die of a minor cut. The advent of antibiotics lead to great improvements in life span and health in general. For me the technology is a catalyser giving the possibility to improve much faster than by only natural selection. If we left it to this we would probably evolve at some point to resist some bacteries, which would at their turn evolve to attack us in a different way. So, yes we are in an ever changing world where humanity must, as always, fight for its survival and so far we are doing pretty well.
And no I do not believe there is limit in what we can create for the same reason there is no limit to what can be created to attack us. At the end of the day and because of the scale of the world there is no ultimate molecular composition which would trump all others.
Technology is by no mean un-natural and I think we must make use of all means available to us to help humanity survive, expand, and lead towards and better understanding of itself and the world. The only scary side of humanity is its propensity toward self-harm.
DrProfessorKit commented on :
Thank you very much, I think we are finally at an understanding!
Your argument will be added to the many others I have in my head-I have arguments with myself to work out my opinions on things, I think your point of view will be a great help! So thank you very much!
Fi commented on :
I don’t think you have the same understanding of evolution as I do, evolution ‘by natural selection’ happens regardless of the technology we have, we perhaps just go down a different route. On the timescale of evolutionary change our industrialisation is just a blip. I don’t know what you mean by the ‘point of evolution’ one way of looking at the world is we are the least suited (we have had to evolve the most) to fit into our environment, we haven’t yet found a niche where we are unchanged for millions of years and perhaps technology will provide that, when we can change the environment we can populate otherwise unhihabitable environments, we are the only species which cooks its food and our teeth have evolved to match this, are we less because of this?
DrProfessorKit commented on :
What I mean is, because of the extremes our technology can help us survive the less need there is for us to evolve, we have technology to do it for us! Humanity is getting lazier it appears!
No we aren’t any less because we have evolved, we need to evolve, what I am saying is our technology could be “stunting our growth” because of the lack of need to get better. We’re getting stronger technologically, but physically are we improving?