v43 Quote Poll: TECH_REFLECTIVE_ENGINEERING

[Spacer_J]

And two more here to begin.
Pick or submit your favorite!

TECH_REFLECTIVE_ENGINEERING
Quote #1:
No engineer can go upon a new work and not find something peculiar, that will demand his careful reflection, and the deliberate consideration of any advice that he may receive; and nothing so fully reveals his incapacity as a pretentious assumption of knowledge, claiming to understand everything.
-John B. Jervis

Quote #2:
What we usually consider as impossible are simply engineering problems...there's no law of physics preventing them.
-Michio Kaku

 

[Thunderbrd]

nothing so fully reveals his incapacity as a pretentious assumption of knowledge, claiming to understand everything.

I like this quote but balk at the grammar here... Does he mean 'assumer' of knowledge?

 

[Santa Klaus]

nothing so fully reveals his incapacity as a pretentious assumption of knowledge, claiming to understand everything.

I like this quote but balk at the grammar here... Does he mean 'assumer' of knowledge?

nothing so fully reveals his its incapacity as a pretentious assumption of knowledge, claiming to understand everything.

better?

 

[Thunderbrd]

nothing so fully reveals his its incapacity as a pretentious assumption of knowledge, claiming to understand everything.

better?

So, 'it's' refers to the last used noun... so...we're talking about the advice?

As it stands in its current form,
'nothing so fully reveals his incapacity as a pretentious assumption of knowledge, claiming to understand everything.' Sounds like 'his' is referring to the engineer whom is finding something peculiar and if we're talking about the person, a person cannot BE an assumption of knowledge. He could be an 'assumer' of knowledge, who claims to understand everything, realizing he's been wrong about something because of this peculiar detail he's found or the advice he's received, but HE cannot be AN assumpTION of knowledge. He can make an assumption but he cannot BE an assumption. So I'm not sure which way this was meant to be read, that HE is realizing he's made an incorrect assumption and didn't really know as much as he thought he did, or if the advice he's received or peculiar detail he's looking at, shows engineering as a whole to be a set of grand assumptions likely to be incorrect. Or is it now as you suggest by changing 'his' to 'its', that the advice or peculiar detail is a great assumption that claims to understand everything?

 

[Santa Klaus]

So, 'it's' refers to the last used noun... so...we're talking about the advice?

As it stands in its current form,
'nothing so fully reveals his incapacity as a pretentious assumption of knowledge, claiming to understand everything.' Sounds like 'his' is referring to the engineer whom is finding something peculiar and if we're talking about the person, a person cannot BE an assumption of knowledge. He could be an 'assumer' of knowledge, who claims to understand everything, realizing he's been wrong about something because of this peculiar detail he's found or the advice he's received, but HE cannot be AN assumpTION of knowledge. He can make an assumption but he cannot BE an assumption. So I'm not sure which way this was meant to be read, that HE is realizing he's made an incorrect assumption and didn't really know as much as he thought he did, or if the advice he's received or peculiar detail he's looking at, shows engineering as a whole to be a set of grand assumptions likely to be incorrect. Or is it now as you suggest by changing 'his' to 'its', that the advice or peculiar detail is a great assumption that claims to understand everything?

Yes, I think the statement as a whole starts out as tailored to engineers, and after the semicolon becomes more general by dissing a behavior.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I guess I was thinking it meant engineers tend to be full of themselves