200 Words
Moira Gunn,—Science journalist, creator of NPR’s TechNation and BiotechNation, and Purdue Science and Engineering alumna.
It’s taken me several decades to figure out what may be obvious to everyone else: Technology is the result of the relentless force field between science and engineering, and it is difficult to uncouple the two.
There are times when the breakthrough thinking of science enables engineers to build technologies they never before imagined. Likewise, the technologies that engineers build produce results which can confirm scientific propositions, or better yet, lead to new scientific insight.
In practice, I have come to discover there is a bit of the engineer in every scientist I’ve ever met, and a bit of the scientist in every engineer.
So does this make a difference to the science journalist? I would say – Yes!
Science is all about the quest for truth. And there is only one truth … even if it is confounding … as in “It’s both a wave and a particle.” While engineering is about implementation. The result is technology, and where there is one technical solution, there are more.
So let us all be mindful of the difference – that over time technology evolves, with new ones supplanting the old, while the body of scientific truth only expands.
And let us revel in one great fact: The human creative spirit knows no bounds.