Engineers are cold and dead inside, research shows
A study carried out by psychology researchers in Sweden has shown that people who go into engineering are less caring and empathetic than those who enter professions such as medicine. Trick-cyclist Chato Rasoal and his colleagues determined this by surveying 200 students from six different study programs, using a "well- …
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Re: Psychologists as a measure of normal?
> One of your staff at least is an emotional mess, one or two may not really like children.
That's a fairly abnormal school - only one or two disliking children?
> Explain how you will use your knowledge of integration by parts to get the GCSE results up.
As with most "difficult" problems, the solution generally involves a pint of diesel and certain parts of the anatomy of the senior management...
Vic.
Psycho-types, however-
See people as puzzles to be dissected without mercy, and love nothing better that the feel of squeezing brain matter as it oozes between their cruel fingers.
I am an engineer (Electronics), and my partner works in the healthcare industry. She would certainly agree with the article, and basically claims I am not just unfeeling, but borderline autistic. She says this a lot, and it would obviously hurt my feelings, if I had any.
She, on the other hand, has to look after her staff and "customers", their emotional welfare and so on. By all accounts she does this reasonably well. She also runs her car absolutely into the ground, does not pick up on noises/vibration/smoke/warning-lights and other danger-signs. She'll happily drive off on a flat tire, without really noticing. No mechanical empathy whatsoever. That DOES hurt my feelings.
Passing off surveying as actual science might be indicative for being cold, dead and calculating inside. That's the only hint the study might provide to the ones still enjoying blood circulation through their brain tissue....
Dreaming in colour
Several years ago there was a report by a phsycologist who 'proved' that people dreamed in black and white and only imagined that they dreamed in colour...
Not sure what reminded me of that...
I'll
go along with the 'engineers are cold unfeeling bastards' idea.... because I are one
To quote a friend(also an engineer)
"I dont want to listen to what you watched last weekend , or the latest ****ing football scores, I'm not ****ing interested in how many woman you shagged or ****ing fast your stupid iPhone is.. I'm here to solve problems and I dont ****ing well need your useless ****ing prattle putting me off, now **** off and bother someone who ****ing cares"
But then, after explaining to my doc that I 'm fairly smart, and reasonably educated, he treats and talks to me like an adult
The last phrase I heard him use was "The tests have come back positive, you will die within the next 21 days unless you have an emergency operation on your heart"
I like that.. direct and to the point.
Re: I'll
"I dont want to listen to what you watched last weekend , or the latest ****ing football scores, I'm not ****ing interested in how many woman you shagged or ****ing fast your stupid iPhone is.. I'm here to solve problems and I dont ****ing well need your useless ****ing prattle putting me off, now **** off and bother someone who ****ing cares"
Let's not confuse "cold and unfeeling" with "insulting and rude"
"Insulting and rude" would indicate an awareness on other peoples emotional capacity, evidenced by the attempt to influence their mood in a negative fashion. So your engineer friend is actually less dysfunctional than the rest of us. He is also an arsehole, but that is a separate matter...
Re: I'll
""I dont want to listen to what you watched last weekend , or the latest ****ing football scores, I'm not ****ing interested in how many woman you shagged or ****ing fast your stupid iPhone is.. I'm here to solve problems and I dont ****ing well need your useless ****ing prattle putting me off, now **** off and bother someone who ****ing cares""
You're friend is far too emotional.
A simple STFU would have sufficed.
It's what I would have said.
Isn't this just a.....
.....rehash of Myers-Briggs assessments?
@SnowCrash (was: Re: Isn't this just a.....)
Yep. Same basic idea.
Unfortunately for the wing-nuts, pigeon-holing humans just plain don't work.
I'd feel rather hurt by the implication...
....but fortunately I'm an emotionless void with a lump hammer.
Re: I'd feel rather hurt by the implication...
Lump Hammer, don't you mean a fine adjustment impact tool?
get some proper researchers
and a survey base that's slightly larger than a swedish university.
As an electronics engineer with a strong background in physics, I should be offended by this. However, I can't really get there. Not because I'm "dead inside"; but because I know this "study" was thought up, performed by, and compiled by Psychologists, not scientists. Ask them what standard deviation is and they'd probably say it means everyone like a little weirdness in the bedroom...
Indeed. A scientist would realize the result of the survey at best may reveal a characteristic of Linköping University, possibly evidence to suggest reviewing the admissions process. Or perhaps scientists and engineers when presented with this sort of study deliberately give the inappropriate answers for fun. Publishing a paper pretending to give evidence for stereotyping based on such a clichéd study says more about the authors than anything else.
Actually, for most psychologists, SPSS is the basic computer tool. You are confusing psychiatry and psychology, a consequence of an overly narrow education.
In other news
Engineers and proper sceintists point out that psychology is one step up from asking "do you want fries with that?" for a living.
Re: In other news
Down.
At least shovelling fries is honest work.
Re: In other news
Sir John Rose (former CEO, RR) might not agree.
Cold and dead - those CARING profession's MACHINES
Obviously a bit of research designed to prove a prejudice. Without us Physics-based engineers, those CARING professionals would have COLD and DEAD machinery - computers, cars, telephones, etc. They would squat around a fire (provided by a cold-hearted engineer, as they couldn't start their own) telling each other how much they care. And they would starve because they would have trouble figuring out how to make the spearpoint attach to the spear shaft. Too complex, you know.
There's a reason why reason rules. Empathy gets you nothing when the car's broken down, the telly's out, the phone's kaput, or the computer blue-screens.
Wasn't there a report on the internet (so must be true) comparing Doctors to serial killers? Something about the mentality to cut open a patient was similar to causing deliberate injury IIRC.
PS Work in a hospital, some of the most arrogant, self centred people I have ever met call themselves Doctors. There is one that is nice and polite and calls me by name.
Engineers should now conduct 'research' into the frictional coefficient, angular momentum and rigidity of psychologists
Doctors & Nurses
My personal experiences of both during my better half's recent surgeries were extremely varied. One of the Doctors I found to be human and responsive and warm. The other was cold and remote but an amazing surgeon and top of his field (I checked!)
A couple of the nurses in ICU were superb. Efficient and fully in control, yet warm and understanding. Others were cold and uninterested.
Once on the main ward most of the nurses were Ok but she did nickname one of them Hirohito and another one Hitler.
I consider myself pretty empathic and am one of the few men I know who can always see the other persons point of view, even if I disagree with it. However, I am rarely "passionate" about anything and before switching to IT I was an Electronics Engineer. Sounds to me like somebody already knew what results he wanted.
Medics?
Most of them are swotty little calculating machines who only go into medicine for the status and the money.
If I were in computers/applied, I'd be rather concerned about this report. The theoretical physics lot can breathe a sigh of relief. Being favourably compared to medical students is an appalling thing to happen to you! Have you never heard of the game of 'intestinal skipping ropes'*?
However, assuming this research to be 100% accurate, we can dump physics A Level. All we need to do is to get Harrison Ford to put physics degree applicants through the Voight-Kampff test, and those that fail can join the course.
I wonder why our trick-cyclist friends didn't add the group of psychology students to the study?
*Please see 'Struck Off and Die', a hard-hitting Radio 4 documentary from the 1990s for details...
An engineer through observation and feedback can produce a reasonable model to emulate empathy.
A medical professional could not change a plug to save a life...
My GP wants to convert his practice to using Linux desktops.
I think he can do a bit more than change a plug.
"...to using Linux desktops"
One could argue that he's got a plug loose, perhaps?
Re:
Note necessarily. Most GP's (private ones at least) are just looking for what they think is a way to save their practice money.
Scratch a cynic you will usually find
A disillusioned romantic.
They've measured people's rhetoric against their deeds and found them deeply lacking.
Well, I work with computers
because, I don't know why, but computers really like me and want to please me.
Never trust anyone named after a vegetable
Swedish trick cyclist? Sounds like one of Baldrick's cunning plans involving a blonde turnip...
Re: Never trust anyone named after a vegetable
Swedes? Every one I've met is either a manic depressive or a drunk.
Cheers!
Like I care what someone in Sweeden thinks of me.
Or anyone else for that matter, apparently.
Some of the most infamous terrorists of the 21st century were former engineers.
So there's that.
Re: Some of the most infamous terrorists of the 21st century were former engineers.
Some were doctors, Ernesto "Che" Guevara
Re: Some of the most infamous terrorists of the 21st century were former engineers.
When I tell my ban-guns friends what one can do with products sold by grocery and hardware stores, they look at me as I were a terrorist, right enough.
I feel misrepresented by this Article.
I am a cold, heartless, dead inside person, and I'm a computer engineer. I now feel misrepresented.
A thought experiment
A thought experiment, to highlight the "usefulness" of caring.
Which would you rather have as your doctor:
1) a Bill Clinton-esque "I feel your pain" type who is so so hung up on how awful you feel he cannot reason about your illness
or
2) A Gregory House-like character who doesn't give one femto-fsck about how bad you feel if it is not diagnostically relevant, who can focus on reasoning out what is wrong with you and the most probable cure.
Sometimes I truly wonder if The Powers That Be are actively discouraging anybody with a rational, analytical bent due to those people being the most likely to see through the Bravo-Sierra and start proposing solutions to the problems that keep The Power That Be in power.
Clearly, these researchers haven't met *my* doctor.
Which explains a few things. Maybe he should have been an engineer instead.
RE: Well, I work with computers
"but computers really like me and want to please me."
Don't anthropomorphize computers. They hate that.
Con Kolivas was a pretty decent kernel programmer (Who for a while made my Linux box work like I wanted it to).
I think there was a superiority type thing going on (Due to him being an accomplished Anesthetist as a day job). Reminds me of the jock / cheerleader thing in horrible US TV.
Some medical people are not really humane. (Some of the psychiatric stuff is awful - e.g Electric Shock Therapy - engineers have to design the stuff but doctors choose to use it).
If you see everything (All possible inputs and outputs). You have to become desensitised. (Either that or ignore stuff.) The mind anyway. (I don't think the medical profession knows even most of the inputs or outputs).
Physical things are more limited in scope.
"By contrast the medical students were warm and bursting with empathy and love"
Probably 1st years.
This weakness will be corrected in due course.
Re: "By contrast the medical students were warm and bursting with empathy and love"
> This weakness will be corrected in due course.
...When they can't afford E any more...
Vic.
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