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David Haywood
From: No fixed abode
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 352
Moderator
PA Radio: Science Report -- Energy Crisis in the Roman Empire
Part three of a twelve-part series looking at energy. This week: Energy Crisis in the Roman Empire...
NOTE: References, further information, and a complete transcript of this week's episode are available here.
This episode of Public Address Science was originally broadcast on Radio Live, 27th September 2007, 5 pm - 6 pm.
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Graeme Edgeler
From: Wellington, New Zealand
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 649
"Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible."
David Haywood
From: No fixed abode
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 352
Moderator
Thank you for that, Graham -- incredibly powerful stuff. Almost too anguishing to watch.
When I was a (very junior and temporary) engineering lecturer, I used to begin my lecture on the IPENZ code of ethics by talking about Auschwitz-Birkenau. I'd present diagrams of the material flows in an (unnamed) "factory from the 1940s" -- showing how efficient it was and how they almost closed all the waste streams, etc. Then I would explain what those highly-talented university-educated engineers had designed.
It seemed like a good way of pointing out that engineering isn't just about numbers and following procedures. It can very easy for design engineers (as opposed to engineering scientists, perhaps) to focus on solving technical problems at the exclusion of their meaning in the context of the wider world. Engineers are responsible for so many good things, but we shouldn't ignore the 'terrible successes' that engineers have also achieved.
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