IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2020 - 96

unveil the great enigmas of the natural world. Hence,
they produce technology. It is becoming common to
read that drones, artificial intelligence, or surgical
robotics are becoming part of the latest advances in
science. Affirmations such as these are even published in quality newspapers, which illustrate how the
confusion between science and technology has permeated to include the general public. Paul Forman has
made a scholarly status to that claim, relating it to postmodernity [6].
In this context, one main question arises: would it be
possible to adapt the rules, which have been devised to
fulfil curiosity, to fit another main objective, such as that
of utility, without these rules being deeply adulterated?
The norms of engineers and scientists have been created over the centuries in terms of the radically different
goals sought by each of these two groups. These goals
underline the clearly different skills that are required in
each case, and hence the way of evaluating the attainments in one domain or the other also differs.
Nevertheless, the spectrum of Figure 1 successively
covers, from left to right, professional engineers,
research engineers, applied scientists, and basic scientists. Throughout the spectrum, both engineers and scientists use common concepts and make similar
calculations. The extremes are clearly determined, but
in the intermediate zones, which have a progressive
implantation today, it is often insufficiently discerned
whether the priority is to obtain the utility or to satisfy
curiosity. In this respect, an overlap can be conceived in

U>C

C>U

FIGURE 1. Spectrum from engineering (E) to science (S). On
the left, utility predominates over curiosity (U>C), while on the
right, curiosity predominates over utility (C>U).

P
Engineer

P
Scientist

FIGURE 2. Specular images of defining tasks of the engineer
and the scientist.

which engineers and scientists carry out joint work
whereby their labour may remain undistinguished,
although the different way of acting in each domain is
always present. In this overlap, although they affect a
minority, there can be substantial developments of
great repercussion, since research therein could lay the
foundations for future advances in technology. These
advances will always be carried out by those who are on
the left of the spectrum, in the field of engineers, who
are specialists in the search for utility. These are the
experts who will make effective the main achievements
of potential utility, obtained in the middle band. Notwithstanding, outside this strip are the commonly recognised engineers and scientists. The proper teaching
of both these professions according to the tasks that
define each one of them should be the main concern of
the corresponding higher education institutions.
Furthermore, certain scientists work fully as engineers, and vice-versa, because their training enables
this transfer. To this end, these experts have only to
adopt the corresponding main rules that define each
domain. Moreover, it often happens that a scientific discovery may give rise to a patent which is subsequently
purchased and exploited by a company, although in
this case, the traditional objectives of the scientist
remain unaltered.
In order to provide another approach to the different
ways engineers and scientists carry out their work, consider Figure 2, in which two specular schemes are
shown to illustrate how both perform their labor L,
which appears at the top of each triangle: on the left for
the engineer, and on the right for the scientist. For the
engineer, the work focuses on solutions to specific practical problems, which produce artefacts A, or similar, as
a priority. If these A are sufficiently relevant, they
enclose new knowledge (technological) and may be the
subject of publications P that describe and extol its benefits, as well as the procedures that have enabled the
artefacts to be built.
In contrast, the work of the scientist generates knowledge about the world that is reported primarily in publications P. Some applications A may be attained from
what is published in P, but these applications are of secondary importance with respect to the work considered
as fundamental for the scientist, which is included in P.
The foregoing also highlights the different role played by
publications in each domain, engineering and science,
and the questionable evaluation of academic engineers
mainly through their publications.
Lastly, it should be remembered that engineers have
also traditionally been trained to become leaders of corporations, where they steer technology for social progress. In this respect, two main features clearly show the
exclusiveness of engineering: its relationship with the

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SEPTEMBER 2020

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2020

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