Commons:Categories for discussion/2019/12/Category:Engineers

Category:Engineers

Engineers are not a sub-cat of Scientists. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:14, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

• Also note the edit-warring at {{Engineersyear}} Andy Dingley (talk) 20:50, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

 Comment I was responsible for the "edit-warring" at {{Engineersyear}}, beeing unaware of this discussion page; please apologize. See also User_talk:Jochen_Burghardt#Engineers_are_not_scientists. for details. - Jochen Burghardt (talk) 11:14, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

 Oppose I repeat my edit summaries here, and add some subsequent remarks:

• Categorizing engineers as (applied) scientists is commons practice on commons, see e.g. categorization of Category:Engineers, Category:Engineers by country, Category:Engineers from the United States, to list just a few. (I'm aware that this practice is just to be discussed; so this isn't an argument; however, it still might give an idea about which other categories are affected by the discussion here.)
• en:Engineer's lead, ("The foundational qualifications of an engineer typically include a four-year bachelor's degree in an engineering discipline, or in some jurisdictions, a master's degree in an engineering discipline plus four to six years of peer-reviewed professional practice (culminating in a project report or thesis) and passage of engineering board examinations.") infobox, ("Activity sectors: Applied science"), and categorization (Category "Science occupations") support the view of engineers being scientists.
• Up to now, Andy Dingley didn't give any justification for his opinion.

At least in Germany, engineers are considered scientists. For example, computer scientists usually have the choice to obtain a doctoral degree in engineering (German "Dr. ing.") or in natural sciences ("Dr. rer. nat."). - Jochen Burghardt (talk) 11:14, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Sure, but do a google searc for "Department of Science and Engineering" and you'll find 45 million hits because engineering is generally considered separate in English-speaking academia. The distinction is even the subject of jokes. - Themightyquill (talk) 09:14, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

The problem is that different languages/cultures categorize academics differently. In English, even academics in the social sciences are not usually described as "scientists", nevermind historians or other scholars. Elsewhere in the world, they can be. The same goes for engineers (fr:Sciences de l'ingénieur. The commons working language is English, but does that mean we use English cultural logic to organize our category tree, rendering it illogical to others? Do we make Category:Scientists a disambiguation page with links to Category:Academics and Category:Natural scientists? I'm not sure of the appropriate answer. - Themightyquill (talk) 11:01, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

 Comment We do have a Category:Natural scientists and a Category:Social scientists, and often subcategories by country, including Category:Natural scientists from the United Kingdom, Category:Natural scientists from the United States, Category:Social scientists from the United Kingdom, and Category:Social scientists from the United States. Despite their names, not all are (currently) categorized below Category:Scientists from XXX. - Jochen Burghardt (talk) 11:23, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Yes, we have a mixture of both systems - one which uses "scientist" essentially as a synonym for academic, and one which uses "scientist" as a synonym for "natural scientist". That's problem. - Themightyquill (talk) 09:10, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Just some remarks:

• I guess there is some commons policy to use the U.S. American system of notions if in doubt - ? So I'll try to cut out my innate bias towards the German notion system in the following.
• The lead of en:Science (3rd paragraph) distinguishes as the three major branches: natural sciences (study of nature), social sciences (study of individuals and societies), and formal sciences (study of abstract concepts). It then mentions that engineering etc. is (not a main branch, but) subsumed under "applied sciences". It reports disagreement about formal sciences, since it doesn't rely on empirical evidence. Moreover, in my opinion, the en:scientific method (observation, skepticism, hypotheses, experimental falsification attempts) is not fully applicable in social sciences, since experiments with humans are subject to moral issues, and experiments with societies are hardly possible at all.
• As a result, I still would suggest to subsume "applied sciences" (including "engineering disciplines") below "sciences". This subsumption does need a en:grain of salt, but so do formal and social sciences. Moreover, in formal sciences, the distinction between "pure" and "applied" research is rather fuzzy (e.g. theorems from one mathematical subfield are often applied in other one, although both subfields are "pure"). I also wouldn't like to consider theoretical computer science as formal science, but non-theoretical computer science as non-science. - Jochen Burghardt (talk) 14:06, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

stale discussion. Dealing with terminological questions, we should base on enwiki. Could en:Category:Engineers or en:engineer help us?--Estopedist1 (talk) 19:09, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Conclusions

@Andy Dingley, Jochen Burghardt, Themightyquill, and Estopedist1: As per my analysis of this discussion:

• Engineers may or may not be considered scientists.
• The category Scientists is treated as a synonym of Academics or Natural scientists, depending on context.

My solutions to this problems are as follows:

• Although engineers apply scientific knowledge to create wonders, they are not generally considered as scientists. The corresponding Wikidata item is not a subclass of Applied scientists. en:Category:Engineers is also not a subcat of en:Category:Scientists by field (there's no en:Category:Applied scientists in English Wikipedia). So, it is better to categorize it under People associated with science.
• The category should be cleaned up in accordance with en:Category:Scientists.

--Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 07:40, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

 Keep Category:Engineers as a child of Category:Applied scientists, just as Category:Engineering is a child of Category:Applied sciences, in accordance with the Hierarchic Principle and Universality Principle. We are not English Wiki; they do what works for them, but we have a very different objective then them so it makes no sense to mimic their categorization schemes.  Strong oppose trying to mimic English Wiki in this situation. Josh (talk) 20:03, 21 June 2024 (UTC)