Foxy,

Are you aware that none of the three people you mention above was ever awarded a doctorate so why have you put Dr in front of their names?

I know they are/were doctors with a little d if that what you are trying to tell us.

I can never understand why doctors with a little d call themselves doctors with a big D when they have never been awarded a doctorate.

Is this one of your multicultural thingies that we are supposed to accept unquestioningly?

a few.
Foxy,
yep, few being the operative word !

Sitting on your spreading butt in a classroom, listening to some dill who has never done anything in their life but sit or stand in a classroom is no way to get an education.

Try riding a big horse at a hand gallop up to a 1.3 meter solid log jump into a lagoon. You will very quickly learn a whole lot about yourself. You will also learn what the horse thinks about you. Remarkably discerning animals horses.

Try sailing a yacht single handed a couple of thousand miles across an ocean. You will very quickly learn a whole lot about the meaning of life, with no fool professor feeding you garbage he learnt from a book.

Spend a couple of days helping in the clean up after a serious cyclone. You'll learn more about people & life than than you will learn in any classroom.

Meanwhile lets all give thanks that arts graduates don't design bridges or skyscrapers.

There's always been rivalry between Engineering and Arts. Sort of similar to different parts of the forces.

I guess the universities role has changed over the centuries since Plato's (and Socrates') vision.

http://labs.ece.uw.edu/dms/Tools_for_Teaching/Tools_for_Teaching/Professional_Development_files/History_Engineering_Education_Gateway.pdf

"Early on, most American engineers started as apprentices on canal and railroad projects such as the Erie Canal and the Transcontinental Railroad. A few classes (e.g., surveying) were taken to supplement this experience. Around the 1850’s some schools started following the French model – the ‘polytechnics’ – Engineering was apart from the university. This changed with the Morrill Act of 1862 Engineering was a part of the university."

"The shop dominated early engineering programs
In 1885, Robert Thurston (Cornell, ME) pushed to reduce “shop” hours and add basic science in the classroom. Stillman Robinson (Ohio State), William Burr (Columbia), and Comfort Adams (Harvard) followed his lead. The classroom began to prevail, but progress was slow. After WW I, the Europeans brought their ideas on engineering education to the US. European leaders in mechanics and fluid dynamics brought complex mathematical analysis... Stephon Timoshenko (Ukraine) first worked at the U of Michigan (1927) and Stanford (1936). He wrote mathematically based textbooks for the strength of materials, structural mechanics, and dynamics. In 1930, Theodore von Kármán (Hungary) brought German based theoretical fluid dynamics to Cal Tech. He later helped to found the JPL. HaraldWestergaard (Denmark) worked at the U. of Illinois (1916). He linked civil engineering and theoretical mechanics through the study of bridges, pavement slabs, and dams.... By the 1980’s, hands-on skills dropped tremendously.."

I have worked alongside educated people for 20 years prior to retirement & I give you one guess whom they invariably consulted when their theories failed !

What I find amusing is that the swamp donkey is trying to compare himself to an ophthalmic surgeon.

Mate, you are not one of the most educated people in Aus, in fact, you probably don't even make the top 1000 000.