Model Engineer – Citizen Scientist

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

My daughter brought up the subject of citizen science today, in the context of gamers developing a protein folding algorithm in four weeks that took protein scientists four years to develop independently.

It's odd how scientists have a positive attitude to the name 'citizen scientists' (and indeed amateur scientists across most disciplines – no one questions amateur ornithologists, lepidopterists, astronomers or geologists calling themselves such things), in contrast to the recurring debate about 'who should be allowed to call themselves an engineer'.

Neil

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

[Bob StevensonParticipant @bobstevenson13909]

I think that this is about science being perceived to be based in 'research' and engineering 'only' being about making things that we all depend on….. Also, there has traditionally and historically been a much better dovetailing of amateurs into various scientific discilines and scientists in some fields have only furthered their research by using groups of amateurs,…astronomy and ornithology both come to mind.

 

Compared to this, engineering of various flavours is a much more visual, serious and failure prone area where there is scarcely room for the pro operators at times let alone ignorant amateurs faffing about!…there's not much room for amateurs to get inviolved with bridge building or aerospace…..

Edited By Bob Stevenson on 03/07/2017 09:32:38

[MWParticipant @mw27036]

I'm glad to hear how they call them, I don't think people realize a lot of the best scientists and engineers had no paper qualifications whatsoever, that wasn't important, but what they did have was a lifetime involvement behind it.

I would like to think we could call ourselves citizen engineers! Just look at the charity remap, it doesn't go looking for professionals necessarily and that has flourished.

There was an article in MEW recently about flute manufacture and the author said the best silver tube maker he's met was an old bloke in a workshop doing it the same way it had be done for generations and it was dead accurate.

Some people have an almost cartoonish ideal of what a professional is allowed to be, I suppose.

Michael W

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

I don't think there is a contradiction, as Bob says. Amateur scientists make great contributions (not least in astronomy Neil) but by and large not in areas that depend on deep knowledge and skill, for example mathematics. Many of their contributions (but not all) are in observation and experiment.

Engineering (in the professional sense) is about designing, making, and supporting products and systems that need to be delivered in a reasonable timescale, work as expected, within reasonable cost, don't fail and don't kill people. Not something that an amateur likes to take on in general.

[MWParticipant @mw27036]

Posted by Bob Stevenson on 03/07/2017 09:27:13

there's not much room for amateurs to get inviolved with bridge building or aerospace…..

There was a news story not so long ago about a British kid finding a logical flaw in nasa's althogorims for finding habitable planets that lead to much bigger predictions than was truly possible, no expertise and the whole agency missed it.

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

…gamers developing a protein folding algorithm in four weeks that took protein scientists four years to develop independently.

Which would mean the scientists would lose 3 years and 11 months of funding which is mortgage payments, childcare, car costs etc

Official Science often has short term funding and Big Politics problems to contend with

You will get funding for "proving" that man made global warming exists, but see how far you get if you want funding for a project to try and prove it doesn't exist

The gamers just had a problem to solve, and nothing else (very well done them though)

That Wakefield MMR farce was about a tiny study which needed further investigation for proving a yes or no conclusion. It turned into a gigantic media and political circus with decades long repercussions

Official Science is a high risk job nowadays where you need to consider the Politics, the Legal issues and the Funding issues

[Geoff TheasbyParticipant @geofftheasby]

Marconi was an amateur, the Titanic was built by professionals.

Geoff

[Andy CarruthersParticipant @andycarruthers33275]

Emerging fields – such as 3D printing, software development – don't seem to get hung up on titles, it's what one can do, not the title one holds that matters, and above all, the desire to impart knowledge. Just visit a Maker Faire or Hackerspace to find out

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

Posted by Geoff Theasby on 03/07/2017 09:54:31:

Marconi was an amateur, the Titanic was built by professionals.

Geoff

What makes you think he was an amateur? He didn't qualify (but then as a member of a rich noble family he didn't need to) but attended lectures and labs at the universities of Bologna and Livorno. He went on to found the first highly successful radio company and won a Nobel Prize.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by John Haine on 03/07/2017 09:40:00:

I don't think there is a contradiction, as Bob says. Amateur scientists make great contributions (not least in astronomy Neil) but by and large not in areas that depend on deep knowledge and skill, for example mathematics. Many of their contributions (but not all) are in observation and experiment.

Engineering (in the professional sense) is about designing, making, and supporting products and systems that need to be delivered in a reasonable timescale, work as expected, within reasonable cost, don't fail and don't kill people. Not something that an amateur likes to take on in general.

I don't buy that. The study of parasites or volcanoes is life-critical, whilst horology is pretty harmless.

Neil

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Ady1 on 03/07/2017 09:53:09:

You will get funding for "proving" that man made global warming exists, but see how far you get if you want funding for a project to try and prove it doesn't exist

Ahem. The way science works is to propose a hypothesis and test it.

There's no difference between a project to 'prove global warming' and one to 'disprove global warming', you just take the probability the result is correct and subtract it from 1 to get the probability of the opposite conclusion.

Neil

[KWILParticipant @kwil]

Surely the study of volcanos is only life critical if you live on or near one?

[Bob StevensonParticipant @bobstevenson13909]

Neil,…since you have singled out 'horology' and horology is my particular area of interest I feel I should mention that horologists consider the invention of the atomic clock at the Nat.Physical Lab. Teddington in 1959 to have been extremely "life critical"………

[Carl Wilson 4Participant @carlwilson4]

It’s certainly true that most citizen science is of the observational kind. That said it is astonishing what you can learn from careful and attentive observation.

The BBC have a citizen science esque competition each year to identify a project and promote it. It us usually nature table level science, or something media friendly. For example one year someone won assistance with a project to see if there was anything in the optics of the claim that black clothes make the wearer appear slimmer. I know. But it has mass appeal and makes the science “fluffy” enough not to put the average viewer or listener off.

In terms of amateur engineering, great strides are being made in the design and construction of propulsion systems for launching cubesats and in the cubesats themselves. Amateur rocket engineering is quite a big thing in the US and mainland Europe.

[Bill PudneyParticipant @billpudney37759]

Another can of worms you've got me into!!

I always wanted to be an Engineer. That's probably why the capital "E" is so important to me. Now I'm in a group which is self titled as "model engineers", even though strictly speaking I don't agree with it. As has been said Engineers design things, with all the background to justify their design, whether it's an aeroplane, bridge, ship, or food mixer. The group of model engineers make stuff, which is admirable, citizen engineers almost certainly, but not Engineers, unless by coincidence.

Personally, I always fancied being a pastry chef, then Gordon Ramsey came along. Anyway, what's in a name!!

cheers

Bill

[Russell EberhardtParticipant @russelleberhardt48058]

Didn't a group of amateur radio enthusiasts design and build a communications satellite, UoSAT-1, decades ago and have it launched into orbit? It led to the formation of Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd so became professional.

Russell.

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

Posted by Bill Pudney on 03/07/2017 11:09:33:…

…As has been said Engineers design things, with all the background to justify their design, whether it's an aeroplane, bridge, ship, or food mixer.

I don't think engineers necessarily design stuff. Many stick with making or repairing stuff, or operating stuff, hence maintenance engineers, plant operating engineers, construction engineers and so forth.

Casey Jones was an engineer. But he never went near a university in his life.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Ady1 on 03/07/2017 09:53:09:

… but see how far you get if you want funding for a project to try and prove it doesn't exist

…

+1 for Neil's comment about probability, but also be aware it is impossible to prove that something doesn't exist. (The Loch Ness Monster may have an undiscovered hiding place.)

A project that "proved" a negative would be incredible, most likely inspired by a motive such as politics, self-interest or fraud. Avoid!

Dave

[John CoatesParticipant @johncoates48577]

Einstein was a clerk when he published his general theory of relativity

I'm an amateur bodger. I have a need to make something that fits to do a job and I use the skills I have acquired (metal working, wood working, welding, electrical circuits) to design and make the thing. Sometimes it even fits and works first time! (but not always)

My professional skills are in none of the above. I developed these skills after my dad left home when I was 17 and someone had to keep the house we lived in maintained. At 23 I found motorcycles and after I got bored just riding and cleaning them I bought a bit of a wreck to strip it down to see how an engine worked. After that my enthusiastic amateurishness just grew and grew into other areas.

I consider the "model" bit of our hobby to mean we can make things really accurately at a small size

[Martin ConnellyParticipant @martinconnelly55370]

I believe the word engineer is derived from the same root as ingenious. So someone who is ingenious is an engineer. This is different though from someone who is a qualified engineer who can put letters after their name to let people know how qualified they are in their ingenuity.

Martin C

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

The word 'engineer' has two roots. In Middle English around 1300 it meant "seduce, trick, deceive" and "put to torture." Hence slowly to ingenuity.

The other meaning is French and comes from the building of siege machines and fortifications, perhaps being closer to civil engineering, and becoming a maker or user of machines.

[KWILParticipant @kwil]

Martin Connelly has got it right, Engineers are the ones who can righhtly claim the right to be called Engineers and have the qualifications (usually placed after their name) to prove it.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

But in the UK there is no exclusive "right to be called Engineer", it's terms like 'chartered engineer' that have protected status, which is where the issue arises. In they absence of a protected status for the term engineer, we have no meaningful alternative term. Machinist isn't enough as most of us design things as well as part of our hobbies.

I suppose an interesting analogy is 'musician'; should you have to pass grade 8 to call yourself a musician?

Neil

[choochoo_balooParticipant @choochoo_baloo]

I the term "engineer" is used more readily because:

It's unambiguous when one is called a physicist/mathematician/volcanologist [i.e. a 'scientist'], it's implcit they have at least a bachelor's degree in the subject. Was told recently by a physicist that it's strongly discouraged to call yourself a scientist by the professional bodies e.g. Institute of Physics (though not illegal as it is with a solicitor) without a degree in a 'proper' discipline.

KNowing current epmloyed 'engineers', without a BEng etc makes me think that the more relaxed practise to using "engineer" in a title rather than "scientist" proably arose from the larger number sof men and women in these fields. (chaps in the bicycle workshop of a local bicycle shop are styled "bike engineers&quot and also a misconception that a professional scientist is only accessible with certain higher level qualifications, realistically a PhD now-a-days.

Before any critics come wading in; I am NOT suggesting that either discipline is superior to the other; just my thoughts as to why there is a more relaxed useage of the term "engineer"

Edited By choochoo_baloo on 03/07/2017 16:57:17

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