>The engineers who design spacecraft may need a certain working
>familiarity with all of the parts in their systems. But biologists,
>and particularly biologists whose mission is to treat human disease,
>can make do with considerably more ignorance.
It seems to me that this is "relative" knowledge. It is possible for
an engineer to have a working familiarity with all the parts in their
systems. But the same "quantity" of knowledge represents only a
fraction of what goes on in biology. In fact one *cannot* have a
working familiarity with all parts of biology because there are still
plenty of things that are simply unknown.
It is true that a lot can be (is) done with only a partial knowledge
of biology (despite the demonstrate ignorance of the complexity of
regulation). But to me that is more analagous to the astronaut, who
is capable of navigating a spacecraft, even if he or she doesn't know
exactly how every microprocessor in every instrument functions.
The quoted statements indicate the mentality of an "astronaut", rather
than that of an "engineer".
-Paul
