I think "theoretical" would actually be correct, there – just from my own experience, a lot of people tend to keep things running much longer than that. ;)
Well, I don't think it was as much a matter of 'Morris Cooke et al. gave up' as 'Morris Cooke et al. failed to convince universities to teach the next generation that their first responsibility was to society, not to their employers'. I mean, we still get about one lecture's worth of 'engineering ethics' in the senior design class, and we still read ASME's code of ethics, but that's barely more time than we spent on, say, scheduling.
I think engineers need their own version of the Hippocratic Oath just as badly as doctors. There is significant pressure on engineers to design products for the lowest possible cost, even in applications where lives are at stake.
Well, I don't think it's as bad as all that. If an engineer screws up on a job that gets someone killed, even if the failure couldn't be predicted by theory ... well, ex-engineer is only the beginning of the possible consequences. When there's a risk of direct harm, engineers are extremely careful for a good reason.
That doesn't stop them from shipping the labor out to Chinese sweatshops to save a nickel a part, of course. (Hey, that nickel adds up to $50,000 if you sell just a million of 'em!)
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timeasmymeasure
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Well, I don't think it was as much a matter of 'Morris Cooke et al. gave up' as 'Morris Cooke et al. failed to convince universities to teach the next generation that their first responsibility was to society, not to their employers'. I mean, we still get about one lecture's worth of 'engineering ethics' in the senior design class, and we still read ASME's code of ethics, but that's barely more time than we spent on, say, scheduling.
Well, I don't think it's as bad as all that. If an engineer screws up on a job that gets someone killed, even if the failure couldn't be predicted by theory ... well, ex-engineer is only the beginning of the possible consequences. When there's a risk of direct harm, engineers are extremely careful for a good reason.
That doesn't stop them from shipping the labor out to Chinese sweatshops to save a nickel a part, of course. (Hey, that nickel adds up to $50,000 if you sell just a million of 'em!)