Critical Engineering 4

Tenet number 4 urges the critical engineer to not only look at how one creates a work, but more importantly how the work changes the world around. What is interesting about this tenet is that it implores the critical engineer to understand that the work is not something that exists in a realm all its own, but shares space in a whole world of other works and people. As such, works created by the engineer are more significantly considered in what they do, rather than how they are built. Like the Machiavellian way of thinking, critical engineers must be equally if not more concerned with the ends of a work, rather than the means.

I know of no better example to this tenet than the plot of Jurassic Park (1993 film). The genetic engineers were brilliant at their craft, having resurrected creatures dead for over 65 million years, but they failed to consider the implications of doing so. One simply does not know how creatures from such a radically different environment would react to being brought into a modern world, and the result was ultimately disaster. As Ian Malcolm (played by Jeff Goldblum) put it, “Your scientists were so worried about whether they could, they didn’t stop to think whether they should.”