Engineering & Society
Faith in Engineering
Engineering and science have become increasingly at odds with religion, or so it seems. On Tuesday, John E. Jones III, a federal judge, ruled that it was unconstitutional for a Pennsylvania school district to teach intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in high school biology courses, citing that it is a religious viewpoint that promotes “a particular version of Christianity.” He argues that “To be sure, Darwin’s theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions.” The entire ruling can be found here.
While people may not settle the heated debate over Intelligent Design versus Darwinism any time soon, there are those who find quite meaningful and peaceful ways of incorporating faith into science and engineering. Armed with a master’s degree in divinity and Ph.D. in electrical engineering, W. Kent Fuchs, Dean of Cornell University’s College of Engineering has found many similarities between his two fields of study. Both engineering and religion, he says, are designed to provide assistance, albeit in very different ways- one tangible and the other spiritual. To improve the relation between the two subjects, he suggests that “we have lost track of the human component of what we do. We have focused on the technology, not on the good that it can do.” Read more about Fuchs’ philosophy on the links between engineering and religion in PRISM.
