Moral Mechanics

[Resha Caner]

Being in the center of a controversy isn't always fun, but I expect there is a sense in which people enjoy the opportunity to discuss their profession with the lay public - the chance to share with others what it is they enjoy about being a scientist. So, due to evolution, biologists get to talk biology. Due to things like the "God particle" physicists get to talk about physics.

So, is there some moral objection to the theoretical basis of mechanics so that I can have fun talking about engineering in this forum?

 

[AV1611VET]

Being in the center of a controversy isn't always fun, but I expect there is a sense in which people enjoy the opportunity to discuss their profession with the lay public - the chance to share with others what it is they enjoy about being a scientist. So, due to evolution, biologists get to talk biology. Due to things like the "God particle" physicists get to talk about physics.

So, is there some moral objection to the theoretical basis of mechanics so that I can have fun talking about engineering in this forum?

LOL ... good one!

For the record though, entropy is evil.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Being in the center of a controversy isn't always fun, but I expect there is a sense in which people enjoy the opportunity to discuss their profession with the lay public - the chance to share with others what it is they enjoy about being a scientist. So, due to evolution, biologists get to talk biology. Due to things like the "God particle" physicists get to talk about physics.

So, is there some moral objection to the theoretical basis of mechanics so that I can have fun talking about engineering in this forum?

In those 'X men are strapped to a railway track and only you have the lever' problems, is it ethical to blame the engineer?

 

[Elendur]

I think it's morally questionable to not teach Christopher Polhem's mechanical alphabet in school.

Joking of course

 

[Resha Caner]

I think it's morally questionable to not teach Christopher Polhem's mechanical alphabet in school.

I don't know what that is.

In those 'X men are strapped to a railway track and only you have the lever' problems, is it ethical to blame the engineer?

I'm in the heavy equipment industry, so there are some uncomfortable moments. Is it ethical to build better machines to tear down the rainforest? One of the ladies I used to work with led the local chapter of the Green Party. She left the company because of those types of issues.

For a time I could claim my job related to social responsibility. I used to lead the team responsible for reducing diesel engine NVH (noise, vibration, harshness).

 

[essentialsaltes]

So, is there some moral objection to the theoretical basis of mechanics so that I can have fun talking about engineering in this forum?

Hmmm.... not exactly a moral objection, but how about the Tower of Babel? Genesis 11.

The people were building a tower of unreinforced (I assume) brick and mortar. They wanted it to "reach unto heaven". God was concerned that these people working together would succeed since "nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do."

So how tall a structure of unreinforced brick could you build? Heaven must exist somewhere below that level.

I'm guessing the answer must be lower than, say, cruising altitiude of an airplane. So some Christians might have an objection to flying, if they knew with certainty that they were going to go to heaven if they get on that plane.

 

[Elendur]

I don't know what that is.

I'm not surprised it's 79 examples of kinetic energy transformation by a swedish scientist/inventor named Christopher Polhem.

Unfortunately the wiki is lacking about it
Christopher Polhem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

One example:

 

[CabVet]

So, is there some moral objection to the theoretical basis of mechanics so that I can have fun talking about engineering in this forum?

Oh yes, very much so. AV constantly blames this on mechanical engineers:

Even though the decision to launch was not theirs.

 

[KimberlyAA]

I enjoy discussing Bio and Physics but I don't need evolution / Higgs Boson to do so. I did Bio for 5 years and Phys for 3 years & those never really came up. Well ... Higgs is relatively recent & it's quite interesting. But the "evolution" I studied wasn't really evo at all, just adaptation, natural selection, speciation & variation. Have fun talking about engineering but that's not really my area of knowledge ...

 

[AV1611VET]

I enjoy discussing Bio and Physics but I don't need evolution / Higgs Boson to do so. I did Bio for 5 years and Phys for 3 years & those never really came up. Well ... Higgs is relatively recent & it's quite interesting. But the "evolution" I studied wasn't really evo at all, just adaptation, natural selection, speciation & variation. Have fun talking about engineering but that's not really my area of knowledge ...

Kimberly, I'm gong to have to ask you to stop plag...

... oh, wait!

Nevermind!

 

[AV1611VET]

Oh yes, very much so. AV constantly blames this on mechanical engineers:

Even though the decision to launch was not theirs.

I'd rep you for this, but I really don't think you would want them.

 

[Tomk80]

I enjoy discussing Bio and Physics but I don't need evolution / Higgs Boson to do so. I did Bio for 5 years and Phys for 3 years & those never really came up. Well ... Higgs is relatively recent & it's quite interesting. But the "evolution" I studied wasn't really evo at all, just adaptation, natural selection, speciation & variation. Have fun talking about engineering but that's not really my area of knowledge ...

Uhm, Kimberly. Adaptation, natural selection, speciation and variation IS evolution.

 

[CabVet]

Kimberly, I'm gong to have to ask you to stop plag...

... oh, wait!

Nevermind!

LOL, good one! That is the first post from her that I see in a long time which is not a copy and paste.

 

[CabVet]

But the "evolution" I studied wasn't really evo at all, just adaptation, natural selection, speciation & variation.

I have a Honda Civic, it has four wheels, an engine, runs on gas, seats 5 people, but I am not going to call it a car because it does not achieve speeds over 200 miles per hour. I am just going to call it a bicycle with four wheels.

 

[Resha Caner]

... not exactly a moral objection ...

I'd also accept philosophical, theological, and political objections as well. I could see an analogy in your Babel example, but I don't know of anyone actually raising that objection. So, you'll probably need to try again since I'm not interested in supporting the analogy I could infer from that.

As an example of a political objection (in reverse), why is it that billions are spent on digging underground tunnels so we can smash really small things but I can't get a few hundred thousand to design a machine that someone in India can afford to use for their housing development?

Have fun talking about engineering but that's not really my area of knowledge ...

This comment isn't specifically addressed to you. It's of a more general nature, but (cough) I'm not sure how many people here understand biology and physics either.

BTW, nobody took the hint. Someone was supposed to ask, "Why do you no longer lead that NVH team?"

 

[Loudmouth]

Being in the center of a controversy isn't always fun, but I expect there is a sense in which people enjoy the opportunity to discuss their profession with the lay public - the chance to share with others what it is they enjoy about being a scientist. So, due to evolution, biologists get to talk biology. Due to things like the "God particle" physicists get to talk about physics.

I really don't see either as moral issues. I think that is a strange way to frame them.

Bioethics is a much more interesing intersection of biology and ethics. It spans everything from genetic manipulation to the use of humans and animals in scientific protocols.

For example, most scientists think that DNA sequences should be open to whomever wants to look at them. At the same time, they do censor certain sequences such as the smallpox genome or certain other really nasty toxins. Is it ethical to censor data like this? Most think it is.

There is also the contentious issue of using human embryos to produce stem cells, genetically modified foods, and many others.

So, is there some moral objection to the theoretical basis of mechanics so that I can have fun talking about engineering in this forum?

As much as mechanics are part of the universal set of laws that are used to date the universe and rocks. If you have to change the laws of physics to accomodate a young universe then this is going to have drastic implications in engineering.

 

[CabVet]

I'd rep you for this, but I really don't think you would want them.

Oh, I would love to see you and Resha debate who was to blame on that accident

 

[Resha Caner]

I really don't see either as moral issues. I think that is a strange way to frame them.

The theological implications are probably discussed more often, but there are moral issues as well: What is the basis for moral accountability? Is it the belief that humans have a soul, a scientific definition of intellectual capacity, etc. If other life is a human cousin of sorts, is animal husbandry a euphimism for slavery?

But, come on, you're diverting my thread!

As much as mechanics are part of the universal set of laws that are used to date the universe and rocks. If you have to change the laws of physics to accomodate a young universe then this is going to have drastic implications in engineering.

FYI, I'm not YEC. But this is an interesting point. I can't think of how those changes would affect what I do. What engineering fields do you think would be affected? Searching for petroleum or something like that?

 

[Resha Caner]

Oh, I would love to see you and Resha debate who was to blame on that accident

Yeah, not to the same magnitude, but I've been involved in those kinds of arguments at work.

 

[Loudmouth]

The theological implications are probably discussed more often, but there are moral issues as well: What is the basis for moral accountability? Is it the belief that humans have a soul, a scientific definition of intellectual capacity, etc. If other life is a human cousin of sorts, is animal husbandry a euphimism for slavery?

But, come on, you're diverting my thread!

To bring this back on topic on shared interests, Hume spoke a lot about this subject. He referred to it as the "Is-Ought Problem" which is was boiled down to the Naturalistic Fallacy:

Is–ought problem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Naturalistic fallacy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The gist of it is that how things are is not a basis for how things ought to be. We don't derive our morality from how nature operates. We derive our morality for how we want things to be. For just a quick departure to biology, it doesn't matter if we did evolve. We derive morality from how we want society to operate no matter what our ancestry truly is.

In mechanics, we don't build machines because we can. We ought to build machines that improve society. What we can do and what we ought to do are often two different things, and that is where ethics comes from. Science can tell us what we can build and what our history is, but only we can decide what our future will be based on our own sense of morality.

FYI, I'm not YEC. But this is an interesting point. I can't think of how those changes would affect what I do. What engineering fields do you think would be affected? Searching for petroleum or something like that?

If the speed of light can change willy nilly then it has obvious implications in electrical engineering, nuclear engineering, etc. The very physical properties of molecules would change if you changed the laws of physics as required by YEC's.

Also, YEC's would argue that the acceptance of an old earth has the same moral implications as accepting evolution.