Like Water & Oil: Merging Human Science Insights with Natural Science (Engineering) Thinking… the experiential way

Abstract

Oil and water don’t mix: a common expression describing two things that do not usually combine well. In this paper I use this analogy to discuss some of the techniques and methods used within a Danish postgraduate engineering stream to merge the contested territory between Human Science, abductive thinking and Natural Science, logical preconceptions (Water & Oil). The course was designed to help young engineers to step outside their normal positivist system of thinking and to explore, embrace or at least suspend judgement on various forms of emotional/meta-physical logic. Students were introduced to practical methods for developing deeper insight into specific human experiences and to apply this genuinely human-centred perspective to their 'engineered' solutions. The broader goal being, to help students to come to deeper understandings and appreciation of the people for whom they would propose design 'solutions'. The pedagogical process was intended to disrupt their preconceptions in such a way as to help them see many situations more clearly; a process of in-sight based engineering.