Making Headlines

By Henry Petroski

Distinguishing between science and engineering

Anthropology Engineering

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May-June 2000

Volume 88, Number 3
Page 206

DOI: 10.1511/2000.23.206

The lead story on the front page of the New York Times for December 11, 1999 bore the headline, "Nuclear Weapons Engineer Indicted in Removal of Data." However, on the inside page where the article continued, a related story about the arrest of Wen Ho Lee, the former Los Alamos National Laboratory staff member who had come under suspicion for spying, bore the headline, "Lee's Defenders Say the Scientist Is a Victim of a Witch Hunt Against China." As interested as I was in the content of these stories, I became fixated on the two descriptions of Lee in the headlines. Does the New York Times really consider "engineer" and "scientist" to be synonymous?

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