The conservative credo: "Find out what worked. Do it again."
That's not engineering, Tom. Unless you mean the kind of engineer who drives the train, whom I would want to be conservative. Do you seriously think companies hire engineers to do the same thing over and over again instead of innovate?
That's not what Frank's talking about, as I read him. He specifically wants a different answer. That's why I keep wondering if you're even reading what he's posting.
A few minutes after I skimmed your post and determined you were following your own advice and merely repeating yourself, I was reading a BBC article about the discovery of 43,000 year old musical instruments in Europe. I thought of you instantly when I read this:
Music could have played a role in the maintenance of larger social networks, which may have helped our species expand their territory at the expense of the more conservative Neanderthals.
The newcomer homo sapiens sapiens had a better social organization (a precondition for a technology of government) based on a technical innovation useful both for signaling and for social bonding. H.sap kicked h.neandertalensis's butt with a new idea.
Oog: homo sapiens coming!
Ugg: [furrows brow ridge] We must think!...In time before, we do nothing about homo saps, no homo saps come around. We do nothing now and homo sapiens no come around!
Oog: You brilliant, Ugg!
Ugg: No, is just engineering.