The Technological Priesthood

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The Materials Gateway: www.mrs.org POSTERMINARIES

The Technological Priesthood Science and religion traditionally do not mix particularly well. This should not be too surprising since there is an obvious dichotomy between the scientific reliance upon “provability” and the religious exercise of faith; but there are some striking similarities between science and religion, too. Just as the various religions have certain problems among themselves, different scientific disciplines sometimes have a hard time understanding each other’s viewpoints on shared subject matter. I consider myself lucky to have a close family connection to three of the major branches of Judeo-Christian monotheism, but it does not matter which religion one subscribes to if one does not really practice it. Lapsed adherents of religious faiths sometimes have a lot in common with lapsed MRS members—they periodically reclaim their membership through occasional attendance, and the extent of “lapsedness” can be measured by the occasions that call for religious observance. Some people go to church every Sunday, some go at Christmas and Easter, and some go only for weddings, baptisms, and funerals. Within one part of my family, the least religiously observant members are sometimes accused of only seeing the priest at their own birth and death (i.e., when they have no control over it). Although science and religion are often estranged from each other, many of the products of modern technology are like lapsed acolytes in the way that they relate to materials scientists. The materials professional is there at the birth of the product, since someone has to decide what to make it from. The materials professional is also frequently there at the “death,” whether it occurs via catastrophic failure or by obsolescence, because someone has to determine why it failed or wore out and how to design the next generation to make it immune to the same problems. Note that it is always the material that wears out, never the part. (Perhaps I should be even more cynical and suggest that the real reasons for investigating the demise of a product are either to assign 248

blame or to guarantee that failure will henceforth occur just as soon as the warranty expires, but that is too easy.) In any event, the materials engineer is only reliably present at the two extreme ends of the product life-cycle, and to this extent he or she parallels the role of the priest— even if, unlike the materials scientist, the priest may not ever be a woman. Of course, physicians are also routinely present at births and deaths, but it is much more fun to compare our work to a religion than to the practice of medicine, though there are elements of the mysterious in both realms.

If materials scientists are like spiritual leaders, then how much like a religion is materials science? If materials scientists are like spiritual leaders, then how much like a religion is materials science? Well, it has certain articles of faith, most of which relate to the Second Law of Thermodynamics. (The Second Law, of co