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Don't worry, I'm sure your books on C18th Scottish history will be dreadfully useful in helping you to cross rivers. No doubt I'm sure your far more worthwhile subject will enable you to design vehicles and aircraft in which to travel, safely bore tunnels for trains to go through, generate electricity to run those computers you write your essays (and on here, your drivel), to design those computers you use, to design those machines that enable the mass production of those books you read, to design the most durable and effective delivery mechanism to provide you with running water in your home, to design those telecommunications masts and to choose a place most likely to deliver the best coverage to your mobile phone, which of course you'll also have to develop yourself. Maybe your academic superiority will ensure that those road networks design themselves, perhaps you'll preserve your food in a pan of water in the absence of a fridge? Perhaps you can burn a few of those books to generate a campfire to cook your food?

Learning to think independently and critically analyse is worth all of the above, and far far more.

Edited by vikingTON
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Nope, Finlay only delves into philosophy by accident, as he daydreams of the two litre bottle of Stongbow awaiting him at the end of a hard day's waffling.

You are Finlay, right?

Engineers are the pipefitters of the Internet?

Engineers pretty much designed the world you live in, and did it all with a wrench!

Makes sense I guess.

Ahhhh, the historian's creed....

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Learning to think independently and critically analyse is worth all of the above, and far far more.

I probably use as many critical faculties in choosing my sandwich filling as you will in all your entire academic career.

Edited by renton
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Learning to think independently and critically analyse is worth all of the above, and far far more.

False dichotomy. You have absolutely zero evidence to support the view that those who do engineering do not learn and hone the craft of independent thought and/or critical analysis.

Your ability to say "the Darien scheme wasn't important. I read stuff from back then and reached a judgement off my own review of the evidence and I'm clearly right" does nothing to advance society. Renton developing nuclear fusion technology does.

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You are Finlay, right?

If only...

Engineers pretty much designed the world you live in, and did it all with a wrench!

That's great but I'm not seeing the relevance. Cleaners do a great job (genuinely) at preventing diseases, untidiness and making that floater go down a public toilet with some spare bleach as well. Should we go round shaking their hands and giving them each a 2:2 in Diddy Cleaning Degree from a clown college too? No, because it's not of academic merit. Nor is engineering.

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If only...

That's great but I'm not seeing the relevance. Cleaners do a great job (genuinely) at preventing diseases, untidiness and making that floater go down a public toilet with some spare bleach as well. Should we go round shaking their hands and giving them each a 2:2 in Diddy Cleaning Degree from a clown college too? No, because it's not of academic merit. Nor is engineering.

Being serious for a moment, the idea that engineering is not of academic merit is laughable. It's basically the applied arm of physics. Critical analysis, independent thinking, the development of structured experimentation.... it's all there, and engineering has been the main driver of those mental disciplines for a long time now. The fact is that quite simply the sheer volume of academic data required to work in engineering, the required mental flexibility it teaches means that if anything is worth academic merit, it's engineering.

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That's great but I'm not seeing the relevance. Cleaners do a great job (genuinely) at preventing diseases, untidiness and making that floater go down a public toilet with some spare bleach as well. Should we go round shaking their hands and giving them each a 2:2 in Diddy Cleaning Degree from a clown college too? No, because it's not of academic merit. Nor is engineering.

Ooh ooh I've called this: SWING AND A MISS.

If the biochemists hadn't developed the cleaning detergents, or the engineers designed the optimal container for safety in which to store it, the cleaner wouldn't be able to do their job effectively, and your ability to think critically about stuff that happened 300 years ago would have very little utility from your sick bed (which would be a slab of stone or a hard piece of wood if engineers hadn't developed a light-weight frame and designed a mattress to support your weight in comfort.)

The work of the engineer is not manual labour. It's the engagement of critical faculties that makes the execution of daily tasks the preserve of the masses rather than a select few in labcoats in a laboratory.

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The work of the engineer is not manual labour. It's the engagement of critical faculties that makes the execution of daily tasks the preserve of the masses rather than a select few in labcoats in a laboratory.

I don't care about the masses, I reside in an ivory tower of thought.

Edited by vikingTON
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I don't care about the masses, I reside in an ivory tower of thought.

Which will crumble and leave you on your arse when its foundations are found to be defective because an engineer wasn't allowed to give it the once over before you built it.

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Which will crumble and leave you on your arse when its foundations are found to be defective because an engineer wasn't allowed to give it the once over before you built it.

Oh it was done using engineers. From a technical college.

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:D

Aye and who worked out how much it cost and made sure it was built properly, aye surveyors, so the rain theory applies to us too.

Sure, everyone can have a piece of the Rain Theory©

If only...

That's great but I'm not seeing the relevance. Cleaners do a great job (genuinely) at preventing diseases, untidiness and making that floater go down a public toilet with some spare bleach as well. Should we go round shaking their hands and giving them each a 2:2 in Diddy Cleaning Degree from a clown college too? No, because it's not of academic merit. Nor is engineering.

Are you calling Strathclyde a "clown college"? huh.gif I only ask because it seems so since you're trying to rip Engineering after I brought up I do that at Strathclyde.

As for the argument, I did have a big list of all your posts in a multiquote but couldn't really be arsed trying to argue with you, I suspect that's what you want.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that never has your catchphrase "^^scrambling for relevance" ever been so appropriate.

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I don't care about the masses, I reside in an ivory tower of thought.

Forced to reside there until a handsome prince climbs up your skaggy repunsalesque baw hairs to set you free in the realm of reality where elephants get to keep their tusks and towers are built of better materials than ivory.

Edited by renton
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Are you calling Strathclyde a "clown college"? huh.gif I only ask because it seems so since you're trying to rip Engineering after I brought up I do that at Strathclyde.

If it were up to me I'd knock down everything that wasn't the McCance Building and the Student's Union. I mean, Marketing, really? I was delighted when they binned Music and Sociology.

Fortunately I rarely have to go outside McCance Level 4 now which is the figurative brain trust of the whole operation. Granted half of them can't carry out straightforward tasks like signing paperwork or tieing their laces but it's in there somewhere.

Edited by vikingTON
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University snobbery from a Strathy student lol. Pick on someone your own size (perhaps a student from Abertay) *snigger*

You say that, and yet I can't think of anywhere that does my chosen subject better in this country, Arguably Stirling.

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You say that, and yet I can't think of anywhere that does my chosen subject better in this country, Arguably Stirling.

Everywhere else had better things to spend their money on I guess.....

Edited by renton
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Civil Engineering at Strathclyde - nothing diddy about that cool.gif

I know someone who is in second year doing that, doesn't set the best standard...

Don't worry, I'm sure your books on C18th Scottish history will be dreadfully useful in helping you to cross rivers. No doubt I'm sure your far more worthwhile subject will enable you to design vehicles and aircraft in which to travel, safely bore tunnels for trains to go through, generate electricity to run those computers you write your essays (and on here, your drivel), to design those computers you use, to design those machines that enable the mass production of those books you read, to design the most durable and effective delivery mechanism to provide you with running water in your home, to design those telecommunications masts and to choose a place most likely to deliver the best coverage to your mobile phone, which of course you'll also have to develop yourself. Maybe your academic superiority will ensure that those road networks design themselves, perhaps you'll preserve your food in a pan of water in the absence of a fridge? Perhaps you can burn a few of those books to generate a campfire to cook your food?

Don't be such a fucking intellectual snob. There is nothing remotely diddy about engineering. It contributes far more to contemporary society than a poxy arts or social science degree. And I say that as someone taking a quasi-social science degree in the form of the LLB.

Haha, he got you good.

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