Talk:Engineering

Introductory Paragraph

Between the edit on 14:42, 26 January 2018 and the edit on 00:28, 27 January 2018, the first paragraph lost a lot of content. Today (11:01, 15 March 2018), it's a little better.

Engineering applies more than "scientific knowledge and mathematical methods" - I don't think many people would associate economics (cost is a huge engineering driver) or the social sciences (philosophy and ethics, sociology, and psychology come to mind) as falling into "scientific knowledge". Thinking of someone who is visiting this page to learn about engineering, I think it should be clear that it's not all science, math, and technology. We also lost innovation, maintenance, and research and the idea of tools, components, materials,

I applied the following sentence to the article:

Engineering is the application of science and practical knowledge to the innovation, analysis, design, construction, and maintenance of structures, machines, materials, systems, processes, and organizations.

This seems to be generally inclusive of the work done by engineers. Thanks to the article on science, "science" is inclusive of economics as well as the social sciences and this slightly longer than now but shorter than before first paragraph gives a better picture of what engineering is and therefore what different engineers do.

--Thomas J. Owens (talk) 13:13, 18 March 2018 (UTC)