Engineers[i] think of themselves as “applied scientists,”[ii] as opposed to those who embed intelligence into matter/energy, and, as a result, are a link between the realms of science and philosophy. Therefore, this theorem is logically true:

Theorem:  Engineering merges the realms of science and philosophy. 

An alternative definition of an engineer could be: those who perform intelligent work to create entities that natural causes either cannot or cannot in the quantity, time or speed desired.

The experience of doing this work leaves an engineer with some valuable lessons.

All designs must have a mechanism,[iii] defined broadly to mean the methodology that determines the outcome of any action.  Engineers design mechanisms as they are the means of creating functionalities.  To work, mechanisms must follow the laws of physics and at the same time, overcome the limitations of materials, sources of useable energy, and other logical limitations. 

An engineer quickly realizes not all outcomes that do not violate the laws of physics are possible, for many reasons.  In addition to design, an engineer builds prototypes and tests them.  Each is an unpublished experiment and an education regarding the difficulty of making complex systems work.   There are thousands of mistakes that can be made, and any one of them can result in failure making engineers keenly aware of limitations that restrict outcomes.

Complex systems have many components and subsystems that share information and cooperate with each other.  This produces the need for standards, specifications, protocols, and languages to achieve the coherence necessary for all the pieces to work together.  One impact is that the information needed for any given functionality will be intertwined with others and therefore is dispersed.  This fact also means that the idea of evolution by singular changes in a system is, in most cases, impossible due to information being required in multiple locations.

Natural causes and time are enemies of engineers.  Metals corrode.  Plastics age and change properties.  Sealed areas are breached.  Fluids become contaminated. And the list goes on.  The second law of thermodynamics tends to degrade engineered entities by reducing the specifitivity of the embedded information.

There is no such thing as perfection.  Everything is a trade-off.  Virtually all designs must balance performance, cost, reliability, appearance, longevity, size and weight, capabilities not possible by natural causes. 

Perhaps the most valuable lesson is the realization of the difficulty of finding and inventing designs that work and finding the fine balance that is usually needed to achieve the desired result.  Many physicists marvel at the “fine tuning” required to create a universe that could support our life. Engineers routinely deal with this problem. We are surrounded by marvels of complex design and mistakenly take them for granted.[iv]

Tools – All Static Things Embedded With Information

The discussion to this point has been about engineered machines. But there is a whole different category of intelligent work creations which are not machines.  For the purposes of this paper all such entities will be called tools.  Therefore, the definition for the term tool will be: an object created by intelligent work that does not perform intelligent work.  This is a very broad definition because it includes everything created by life except for machines.  This includes things we think of as tools (hammer, saw, wrench) but also art (paintings, literature, music, sculpture), medicines, buildings and other structures, telescopes, batteries, makeup, birds nest, bee hive, etc. 

Tools are made by intelligent machines, that is, living things plus machines designed and built by engineers.  Tools have embedded information, but not embedded intelligence like machines.  A logical distinction is that there is a statistical probability that natural causes could create some tools.  In this sense, the ID argument “where does the information come from” is treating life as a tool instead of a machine; both massive understatement because life is so much more than either!

Natural Causes can create objects that can be used as tools.  An example is a rock that has a shape that makes it convenient to use as a hammer.  Or a human can shape a rock to do the same thing.  Other tools, such as an adjustable (Crescent) wrench, must be engineered, i.e., designed and fabricated using intelligent work.

[i] Author’s Definition, Engineer:

Noun 1. a person who designs and builds machines and objects for a specified purpose.

Verb  1. Design and build a machine or object for a specified purpose.

Note: This definition is included to distinguish the design aspect with actualization as it seems they are often conflated and to exclude maintenance which is typically the role of a technician.

See other definitions here.

[ii] Princeton University calls their engineering department “School of Engineering and Applied Science”, see:  https://engineering.princeton.edu/

[iii] Author’s Definition, Mechanism:

1. a methodology including components, elements, parts and the associated energy and information flows enabling a machine, process or system that has demonstrated the ability to achieve its intended result.

Note: This definition is tweaked to include only proven methodologies.  See additional definitions here.

[iv] The reality of the gross disconnect of the complexity of complex systems is expanded in this post:  https://cs21c.com/marvels-taken-for-granted/.