I think it's more that "Some human some time has known how it works", not that "Any given human knows how it (all) works.".

But yea this glosses over a bit trial-and-error designs and, so to speak, "genetic optimization" kinds of designs where we just try random stuff and say "Hey, this works. Not sure why, but it works.".

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vitally3643 5 hours ago | parent [-]

There was a period of a century or more where steam engine design parameters were determined by experiment and gut feel. The physics of fluid dynamics required to explain why a design is optimal just did not exist yet.

There's a lot of places in history where engineering far outpaced the science required to explain it.

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budman1 4 hours ago | parent [-]

If your design work is not based upon science and mathematics, it is not engineering.

Not saying engineering is required to build or improve a product; it is not.

"try this" is not engineering.

	▲	neerajsi 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I disagree. For example, the Wright brothers did air foil engineering empirically without full knowledge of the underlying fluid mechanics. Early and innovative engineering will often be less based on existing scientific or mathematical knowledge, while still using some of the methods. It's still absolutely defined as engineering.
	▲	drdexebtjl 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Of course it is. The science comes from reproducing what you tried and getting the same results. You may not have a good enough model for this observation to allow you to predict the results of other starting conditions, but it’s a model nonetheless, one that narrowly applies to the conditions you tried.