all patent attorneys are also engineers or have BS degreees. Many have advanced engineering degrees. You have to be able to understand science, math and engineering in order to study inventions. My husband is a EE, Masters in Physics. He also has many graduate hours in mathematics but did not complete the masters. He worked as an engineer for several years and then went to law school. He couldn't draw or paint to save his life.

we know that the only way to increase real per capita income is to increase your level of technology. that is not done by financiers selling govt paper or middlemen marketing teams pushing certain tech benefits. the wealthiest in the world are people who control their govts, that doesn't mean they created any wealth.
no one is suggesting that engineers should be in charge of every aspect of business. However, their contributions should be accounted for accurately in a business. Inventors create the most wealth for the world. period.

do you have a statistically valid poll to say otherwise? my husband is an engineer who has worked with hundreds of engineers over the years.
My husband would also say that he has worked with lots of engineers who are some of the most creative people we have ever met and many of whom are brilliant.

Coming to a future near you: "Nerds rule."
See
http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2012/...
and
http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2011/...
and
http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2012/...

Oh, come on!
"... the reality is, many engineers try not to learn more than they have to..."
Do you have a statistically valid poll or are you just pontificating?

Someone needing and intermediary to understand the value of the a product or investment is not a bad thing. It's no worse than needing an intermediary in a supply chain to handle small orders. And being a catalyst that can everyone on the same page and feeling like the path they're on is right has huge value. It tempting but simplistic to think the world would be better if it were only nerds like me.

to your last statement-more to do with the market and maybe interviewing skills

the reality is, many engineers try not to learn more than they have to, to get past the tests. more so once you are in a job. we have all has seen Phds who have learned one thing really well-the only thing they will work on and provide no new insights past their field of expertise or even in their area of expertise. Their willingness to apply science and reason outside of their area of expertise is lower.
In fairness, employers encourage that attitude.
There are plenty of engineers who are not working with 19th century physics but of course plenty who do. paths of least resistance

Cogent point! Thanks.

I saw the same effects in other "operating" departments, especially shipping and receiving. I figure that the loading dock should be considered buyers and sellers, actual entities, not a mere cost to be limited.

Well, yeah, they have the Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged Howard Roark assumption that being right ought to be enough.

For most of humanity, it is not.

Thus, the market rewards those who cater to the lowest common denominator.

An open and unregulated market will reward others, also.

But no one ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the average person.

Having had three undergraduate semesters in Civil Engineering, I must disagree. "Plug and chug" is held in low regard. Professors and the better students know that if you UNDERSTAND THE PROBLEM and can think for yourself, you do less work than "plug and chug" methods.

Many problems - from statics (why a bridge holds) and dynamics (forces on turbines) to fluid mechanics and thermodynamics are written in such a way that the student who falls back on "plug and chug" does more work than the one who understands the problem.

Thinking for yourself means finding an elegant solution. It does not mean launching a libertarian tirade against the Keynesian assumptions of Engineering Finance and Economics -- though that kind of understanding about the material consequences of inflation might help the actual
practitioner.

Most of engineering is applied 19th century physics. Even electrical engineering - which does apply field theory - and even electronics - which does apply quantum mechanics - are direct applications of objective science. In that, the undergraduate studies must of necessity reward intelligence and devalue "plug and chug."

I had a couple of criminology classes with a guy whose sister could not find a job in aeronautical engineering. "What?? Why not??" I asked. He replied "C-plus average."

Plug and chug just does not cut the mustard in engineering.

Engineers similarly don't see the value created in bringing things together, bringing together a team, leading them in a way that makes it feel fun an "on the right track", finding investors and explaining the value to them, finding customers and showing them the value. Engineers subconsciously buy the myth that if you build a better mousetrap the world will beat a path to your door.

one reason the managers are likely to be less intelligent than the engineers is that our accounting systems show no revenue associated with inventing. It is considered an expense. There is nothing on the balance sheet showing it as an asset-just expense. Thus, our main tool in understanding what's going on in our business, shows engineers inventing providing no value.
hmm-on the outsider thing. I always thought of it as exceptional. I only dated engineers in college. lol

The point of the study should not be to find out what ideology people who are good at science support and then follow that. People have to follow what makes sense to them.

MM had the same thought I had. If you compare any activist group centered around an ideology, you may find the group is better at science than the general population.

You have a powerful point about maybe being good at plugging and chugging could be correlate with ideology. My guess is people who like rote learning would be drawn to the authoritarian elements in either left or right ideology.

I find a disproportional number of engineers lean libertarian. I suspect the libertarian streak comes from engineers being used to being outsiders. Tthose of us who have worked in large corporations see a lot of chest thumping, histrionics, and general political baloney. I have the seen engineers become jaded and basically make the chest thumping managers _beg_ the engineer to make something work b/c the engineer is angry someone less intelligent is running things. Engineers look at politicians, see Dilbert's pointy-haired boss, and think, "you guys are fighting over the who gets to be the coolest kid in the world, while we're doing the actual work that makes things run."

Our comrades at MOTHER JONES have nice summary:
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/10/...

The variances are small. Mother Jones allows that libertarians are better at mathematics than most people.

Why do these studies if you aren't going to change your mind. Even though he now admits TEA party members are smarter than he thought he still discounts everything they stand for. He should do a follow up on his own intelligence.

Actually, I was surprised also. Furthermore, if you read his original statements on his own blog, you will find that Conservatives (in general) score below Liberals (in general). Tea Party people are often intellectual activists: they care about the issues. So, this might also separate far left Greens and actual Marxists from the liberal mainstream, but no one has tested that, apparently.

I note that in accordance with the canon of science, he admitted that the results were not what he expected.

Finally, two aspects must be brought out. First, if the Ivy Leaguers are a bunch of slack-brained communists and post modernists, why would we care what any one of them said. Second, if you applaud the work, then the assumption of intellectual bankruptcy in the Ivies must then be questioned.

I agree with intellectual bankruptcy. If you take a polarizing issue such as environmentalism or religion you have to take into account the shared variable of belief. AS long as the "science" speaks to the belief, the belief is re-enforced for those individuals who are scientifically "more literate."
I used to to scratch my head over statistics showing the more left leaning the more scientifically literate. The conclusion I come to is the IB you talk about-this idea of science and engineering as "plug and chug." That's the way we teach math in schools after all. Don't learn to think for yourself. Plenty of scientists can do their job everyday, no more philosophically self-aware than someone who sits in front of the TV all day. As well, one tends to support policies that elevates their industry, whatever that may be.

They are not smarter; they only score higher on general scientific knowledge. And, as above, Liberals score higher than Conservatives. More to the point NO ONE SCORES WELL. We are talking of ranges like 20% with deltas of a few points either way.

“A slightly higher proportion of American adults qualify as scientifically literate than European or Japanese adults, but the truth is that no major industrial nation in the world today has a sufficient number of scientifically literate adults,” he said. “We should take no pride in a finding that 70 percent of Americans cannot read and understand the science section of the New York Times.”
Approximately 28 percent of American adults currently qualify as scientifically literate, an increase from around 10 percent in the late 1980s and early 1990s, according to Miller's research."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/200...

Just to note, the differences in scores (28% here and 20% from Kahan) are because of different test standards. Kahan used an NSF metric, I believe.