244 Kline
without any clear objective in mind other than seeking knowledge. “If
this is accepted,” said Work, “then basic engineering research faces a di-
lemma” because it has a clear objective. Work suggested focusing on what
is sought, rather than how it is sought, in order to distinguish between
basic research in science and engineering. Indicative of these defi nitional
problems is that when the NSF gave a grant to the ASEE to study research
needs in engineering, Eric Walker, the director of the study, decided that
in order to “avoid controversy over defi nitions, the research will be merely
characterized as research which engineers do.”^73
Earl Stevenson, chairman of the board of Arthur D. Little Company,
was more pragmatic about the meaning of words. “Fortunately the dif-
fi culty of pushing and pulling words into an adequate defi nition has not
held up a vigorous program of engineering research grants. Whatever it is,
it is being supported!”^74 The disciplinary affi liation of a researcher largely
determined if a proposal was put into the category of basic science or
engineering science.
Yet turmoil over the defi nitions of engineering science and basic re-
search continued, especially when the launch of Sputnik 1 in October 1957
focused the country’s attention on improving the quality of its engineer-
ing. In 1958 Gene Nordby, a civil engineer and the fourth NSF program
director for engineering in seven years, reasoned that the transitional pe-
riod toward scientifi c engineering “has resulted in confusion and confl ict
among members of the profession.” “What is basic research in engineer-
ing and what is the impetus for the growing emphasis on the ‘engineering
sciences’?” Nordby asked. “In the classical sense, again, even the name
‘engineering science’ is a contradiction to the old- line practitioner of an
art, and from one important viewpoint the title of ‘applied science’ is
much more logical. Again by tradition, however, pure scientists who are
applying their research to more practical problems hold a rather strong
claim to that name. The engineer whose work may also be in this area
is neither accepted as an applied scientist nor, perhaps more important,
does he wish to surrender his identity as an engineer.” Nordby’s reso-
lution to these dilemmas was to defi ne engineering science as an “area
which has been essentially ‘abandoned’ or neglected by one of the areas
of pure science,” a common defi nition.^75 One attractive feature of this def-
inition—probably for both scientists and engineers—was that it resolved
Waterman’s epistemological problem by placing engineering science in
the realm of (old) basic science.
The view that engineering must progress toward a scientifi c approach
was echoed by another ASEE committee. Formed in 1956 because of the
“mounting discussion of the section [of the Grinter report] devoted to the