(Obviously "Dilbert" is a psuedonym; who else could this be but Robert?)

That was a well-written essay, and does a good job describing some of the mental processes of an engineer. Yet, I think you must compartmentalize away the knowledge that there a great many engineers reading your words...even among those who disagree with you. Of course I understand that style of thinking...which is why I'm sensitive to its misapplication. People just aren't built according to sound engineering principles, can neither be understood nor managed or led by engineering principles; and get right peeved when they catch on when you're trying to apply engineering to them.

You're romanticizing the process of engineering decision making...or your experience consists entirely of working within groups suffering under a high degree of groupthink. Engineers argue! You must know that. Engineers are naturally inclined to not dispute facts, but when it comes to interpretation of facts and making decisions based on facts, we disagree as much as normal people.

Consider that it took years to make the engineering case for Lunar Orbit Rendezvous. Everybody was working from the same physics texts and the same base set of facts. But different engineers came to different conclusions about the best way to get to the Moon based on those facts. Engineers can argue over implementation and design until the cows come home.

Uh, Tom, why is engineering a never-ending process of refinement and redesign? If the facts lead automatically to the best design decisions, why can't engineers get it right the first time? Why do American rocket engineers vacilate between capsules and winged spacecraft? Why was Betamax vs. VHS even an issue? BluRay vs HD? Paper versus plastic? AC versus DC? 50 vs. 60 Hz? 110 vs. 220? Don't the facts lead to one and only one Right Way to Do Things? (Guess not, huh, not even for engineers.)

A lot of us have made technical mistakes over the years, sometimes with potentially fatal consequences. You worked with high-test rocket fuel, I worked with RDX and C4 back then, and we both made a few spectacular bangs and had close calls. It teaches us humility...or at least it should. I'm puzzled that you can relate that cautionary tale about your own fallibility amid an essay defending your infallibility. Don't you think it at least possible that your theories about human affairs based on good engineering principles might blow up in your face as spectacularly?

Understand that I sympathize, Tom, because I know the pristine beauty of engineering and its way of thinking. It's seductive to start believing that every problem can be solved if only people would just start thinking like engineers. Life teaches otherwise, though. Sounds like you've worked only in the pure engineering organizations peculiar to aerospace, and never in the realworld situation in which engineers are in the minority, even in so-called "high-tech" companies. Nothing teaches you the limitations of engineering arguments like trying to tell a Marketing VP why he was full of shit when he made the promise to the customer and that Engineering can't pull a rabbit out of its ass to save him. Real people don't care about engineering facts and engineering logic. They expect us to just solve the problems and produce miracles, not tell them why they can't have what they want.

So it is in the wider world of human affairs and most especially politics. You have to look at the entire system, even those parts which are wholly irrational, and factor them in anyway. Why should you be any different from a traffic engineer who has to account for unpredictable behavior among the motoring masses? Setting the traffic lights to work perfectly would be soooo easy if only there weren't humans driving the streets messing up all those careful timing calculations.

Aerospace engineering is only peripherally about people. Perhaps you should look to engineering disciplines that deal more directly with human needs, like traffic engineering or user interface design, for a model of engineering thinking that incorporates human behavior instead of deriding it and excluding it from consideration.