I took a lot from the Melbourne Future Summit, much of it good and some of it worrying.
One of the worrying aspects was the hostility from the “creative thinkers” towards Engineers and scientists.
This was apparent in the Innovation Imperative seminar where many of the panel’s and audiences’ comments were notable for their hostility towards Engineers and scientists along with their view it was time for some “creative thinking”.
Most of questioners from the floor went as far to blame Engineers and scientists for the Global Financial Crisis.
This is odd as scientists and Engineers are no more responsible for the banking sector’s financial engineering any more than artists are responsible for the bankers’ creative accounting.
Creating artificial barriers between “creative” and “scientific” thinkers is dangerous and foolish. Our greatest Engineering and scientists are creative thinkers by definition. Many great artists have applied science to their work.
If we force people into these pigeon holes where an Engineer can’t be creative and an artist can’t use science then we are all the poorer for it and less equipped for the challenges ahead of us.