64 SCIENTIST 



team devoting his energies to designing or developing one 

 or another essential part in a complex product or industrial 

 process. Even though most engineering results in some new 

 thing, the activities leading to it are already well known. 

 The average engineer is therefore involved in applying well 

 known rules and standard tables in as original a way as 

 he knows how to do. It must be admitted also that the scope 

 of his originality encounters a variety of constraints, de- 

 pending on the state of the industry in which he is working. 

 Generally speaking, the classical fields of civil, mechanical, 

 and chemical engineering are pretty conservative in out- 

 look. The basic principles of building bridges and dams are 

 well understood, and the product appears to meet existing 

 needs very well. In the large industries, of which the manu- 

 facture of automobiles is perhaps typical, the heavy in- 

 vestment in existing designs tends to make management 

 reluctant to encourage significant innovations. The engineers 

 employed in industries of this character must perforce con- 

 fine themselves to refining details within a well established 

 framework. It is significant in this connection that the Euro- 

 pean automobile makers, with their smaller markets and 

 relatively less massive investments, have provided many 

 more basic innovations in automotive design than the large 

 American makers have. 



There seems httle doubt that the scientist at this same 

 intermediate level enjoys a good deal more freedom of 

 action than the typical engineer. He may have no more 

 intellectual capacity and no more intrinsic originality, but 

 his situation is likely to be such that he can express what 

 he has more easily. In the first place, he is much more likely 

 to be working by himself or as a member of a small team 

 in which his voice will be more easily heard as the team's 

 overall objectives are being mapped out. In the second 

 place, he is much more Ukely to be working in a university 



