Successful Engineers and Indifferent Economists

The relative confidence the public displays in the activities of engineers (“success”), as contrasted with the skepticism (“indifference”) it displays towards economists, is explored in this paper. It uses the descriptions of engineering activities provided by authors such as Petroski and Bucciarelli, and particularly the detailed history of aviation engineering of Vincenti. The “separability” of problems, combined with the ability to get ones hands “dirty” on a given problem, are seen as the critical differences between engineering and economics.