Reddit reviews Design Paradigms

I would urge you to read Henry Petroski's Design Paradigms along with Levy and Salvadori's Why Buildings Fall Down. Resolving questions of structural failure is not a simple matter of fact checking and can actually ride on theories which engineers did not know were correct (or correct under all circumstances) until after multiple failures.

I am in complete agreement with the notion that the liberal arts and hard sciences have differences. However those differences are not nearly so stark as you suggest. Further, it is difficult for me to find an incentive to join the discussion on epistemology if your framing forecloses the bulk of my argument.

This is a good book.

Thanks - I'm currently reading Design Paradigms which is the closest thing to an answer I've gotten so far.... Not the book I was thinking of though :/ I went ahead and x-posted and am keeping my fingers crossed