That's a strawman argument, because most engineers aren't engineers. The vast majority of engineers have no consequences for their shite. Neither is certification a panacea against bad engineers.
Watch some electronic engineers design circuits that don't work.
Watch some geotech engineers make up overspecified bullshit: because they're paid per hour and their work is often just a glorified tickbox (where they have no real consequences for most of their failure risk).
Even with egregious design failures by engineers, they often get away with it for a variety of reasons. A building collapsed due to the Christchurch earthquakes - failures by different engineers with little harm to them.
That is categorically untrue. Professional Engineers not only face consequences, they are personally liable for the work they put their stamp on, and they can lose their license
The Christchurch CTV building was supposedly built to the code standard of the early 1980s, it was a non-ductile reinforced concrete structure.
Supposedly is heavily stressed, the Royal Commission investigating found a lack of communication between the official structural design engineers (Alan Reay Consultants), the actual engineer employed for the design (David Harding) and somewhat more critically the "engineer" on the ground implementing the building's construction (Gerald Shirtcliff).
Gerald Shirtcliff had faked his engineering degree.
Despite all this the building passed inspection and stood for 25 years, passing two additional inspections in 2010 (a year prior to collapse) after two separate earthquakes.
they often get away with it for a variety of reasons.
The documents show police wanted to charge Harding and Reay with manslaughter. Christchurch Crown Solicitor Mark Zarifeh believed the evidential sufficiency test was met by expert evidence from engineering firm Beca.
Deputy Solicitor-General Brendan Horsley disagreed.
Horsley said for charges of negligent manslaughter, the Crown had to prove the conduct was so bad it deserved to be condemned as a serious crime. It would be difficult to show the conduct was one of the main causes of the deaths.
"A key difficulty for the prosecution would be in proving the CTV building would not have collapsed in the absence of the identified design errors," he said.
Another obstacle was the length of time between the design and when the deaths occurred.
~ stuff.co.nz
That's the dot point overview, and FWiW the actual design engineers got professional black marks on their careers and the case is still heavily studied in formal civil engineering courses.
wanted to charge Harding and Reay with manslaughter
Exactly: certifications were irrelevant and toothless. Unfortunately so were the laws.
Similarly in the UK no individuals or engineers have been formally charged or convicted for any offenses relating to the Grenfell Tower fire. The causes were distributed more widely in that situation.
We need heavy criminal penalties for managers and other responsible people that are irresponsible.
And the corporations should not be able to hide behind limited liability. Additionally I suspect NZ lacks a good legal framework for chasing civil liabilities.
The bigger pattern is that organisations have systemic safety flaws, so instead they want to blame their frontline staff: pilots, teachers, engineers. Every time.
If the strongest incentives result in unsafe decisions, then the incentive to not sign-off will fail (because it won't trump the other incentives).
And professional indemnity insurance undermines some negative incentives.
Certificates are for the patsies. And certifications don't work across borders.
The consequences of criminal decisions are not nearly as bad as they should be.
Basically, within NZ certifications just don't seem to have the effects we imagine they should. Unfortunately the fix should be criminal negligence laws, but they seem to fail for other less obvious reasons some of which you mention (my further guess is that negligence would tar too many people involved including politicians, so every incidental person is keen to avoid doing the right thing).
Idealists believe in civil certifications. Realists believe in a criminal code.
Criminal negligence laws should also be able to deal with deadly software (although perhaps Facebook is too nebulous).
wanted to charge Harding and Reay with manslaughter
.. but the legal system felt it would be impossible to prove that the building was not built to the code that it should have been - a code that was likely insufficient in the face of the forces of the earthquake of 2011.
Comments
That's a strawman argument, because most engineers aren't engineers. The vast majority of engineers have no consequences for their shite. Neither is certification a panacea against bad engineers.
Watch mechanical engineers design plastic rubbish.
Watch some electronic engineers design circuits that don't work.
Watch some geotech engineers make up overspecified bullshit: because they're paid per hour and their work is often just a glorified tickbox (where they have no real consequences for most of their failure risk).
Even with egregious design failures by engineers, they often get away with it for a variety of reasons. A building collapsed due to the Christchurch earthquakes - failures by different engineers with little harm to them.
Yes. This. Also I don't think most software engineers are CS majors, either :)
That is categorically untrue. Professional Engineers not only face consequences, they are personally liable for the work they put their stamp on, and they can lose their license
The Christchurch CTV building was supposedly built to the code standard of the early 1980s, it was a non-ductile reinforced concrete structure.
Supposedly is heavily stressed, the Royal Commission investigating found a lack of communication between the official structural design engineers (Alan Reay Consultants), the actual engineer employed for the design (David Harding) and somewhat more critically the "engineer" on the ground implementing the building's construction (Gerald Shirtcliff).
Gerald Shirtcliff had faked his engineering degree.
Despite all this the building passed inspection and stood for 25 years, passing two additional inspections in 2010 (a year prior to collapse) after two separate earthquakes.
~ stuff.co.nzThat's the dot point overview, and FWiW the actual design engineers got professional black marks on their careers and the case is still heavily studied in formal civil engineering courses.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CTV_Building
* https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/99399561/police-will-not-pr...
Exactly: certifications were irrelevant and toothless. Unfortunately so were the laws.
Similarly in the UK no individuals or engineers have been formally charged or convicted for any offenses relating to the Grenfell Tower fire. The causes were distributed more widely in that situation.
We need heavy criminal penalties for managers and other responsible people that are irresponsible.
And the corporations should not be able to hide behind limited liability. Additionally I suspect NZ lacks a good legal framework for chasing civil liabilities.
The bigger pattern is that organisations have systemic safety flaws, so instead they want to blame their frontline staff: pilots, teachers, engineers. Every time.
If the strongest incentives result in unsafe decisions, then the incentive to not sign-off will fail (because it won't trump the other incentives).
And professional indemnity insurance undermines some negative incentives.
Certificates are for the patsies. And certifications don't work across borders.
The consequences of criminal decisions are not nearly as bad as they should be.
Basically, within NZ certifications just don't seem to have the effects we imagine they should. Unfortunately the fix should be criminal negligence laws, but they seem to fail for other less obvious reasons some of which you mention (my further guess is that negligence would tar too many people involved including politicians, so every incidental person is keen to avoid doing the right thing).
Idealists believe in civil certifications. Realists believe in a criminal code.
Criminal negligence laws should also be able to deal with deadly software (although perhaps Facebook is too nebulous).
.. but the legal system felt it would be impossible to prove that the building was not built to the code that it should have been - a code that was likely insufficient in the face of the forces of the earthquake of 2011.
What do you base this on? In my country, engineers are legally responsible for their designs.
Look up some post-mortems on engineering failures in your country that caused deaths. Pick something big like a dam failure or a large building.
Did the engineers have their certification revoked? Did the engineers go to jail for criminal negligence?
I found a couple of examples and counter-examples in European countries.
I'm no wonk, but too often major failures have seemingly small consequences.
Yes. Just because the word means nothing in your country doesn't mean it means nothing in other countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algo_Centre_Mall