The Essential Engineer' book review: Scientists, engineers: Not rivals

The line between science and engineering is not fine but fuzzy, asserts the prolific Henry Petroski in his collection of essays titled “The Essential Engineer” (Alfred A. Knopf, 288 pp., $26.95).
Many engineers today, from those immersed in aeronautics to those in chemical engineering, are deeply engaged in discovery. And many scientists, from geneticists to agricultural biotechnologists, are heavily involved in engineering.

The idea that scientists work with ideas while engineers interact with things, while true to a certain extent, is overly simplistic, says Petroski. The professor of civil engineering and history at Duke University also resents the notion that an engagement with ideas is somehow more admirable than a preoccupation with things. He contends that the Manhattan Project, the World War II-era effort that produced the atom bomb, was far more of an engineering program than a scientific one.

Petroski argues that it will be far more conducive to progress if the public begins to understand and appreciate the value of engineering and all that it promises for betterment.