Engineering As Social Experimentation

Engineering as Social
Experimentation

Similarities to Standard Experiments
1. Any project is carried out in partial ignorance.
2. The final outcomes of engineering projects are generally uncertain.
3. Ongoing success depends on gaining new knowledge.
Monitoring is thus as essential to engineering as it is to

Common Mistakes of Engineers
• Lack of established channels of communication. • Misplaced pride in not asking for information. • Embarrassment at failure or fear of litigation.
• Plain neglect.

Contrasts with Standard
Experiments

Experimental Control
Engineering can be appropriately viewed as a natural experiment using human subjects.
• The experimental subjects are human beings or finished and sold products out of the experimenter’s control.
• Clients and consumers exercise most of the control because it is they who choose the product or item they wish to use.

Informed Consent
Two main elements:
 Knowledge
- Subjects should be given not only the information they request, but all the information needed to make a reasonable decision.
 Voluntariness
- Subjects must enter into the experiment without being subjected to force, fraud, or deception. Knowledge Gained
• Engineering projects are experiments that are not necessarily designed to produce very much knowledge.
• The best outcome is one that tells us nothing new but merely affirms that we are right about something. Engineers as Responsible
Experimenters
What are the responsibilities of engineers to society? Conscientiousness
• A primary obligation to protect the safety of human subjects and respect their right of consent. • Engineers as guardians of the public interests, whose professional duty is to hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of those affected by

Comprehensive Perspective
• A constant awareness of the experimental nature of any project, imaginative forecasting of its possible side effects, and a reasonable effort to monitor them.
• An engineer should make an extra