Amusingly in this context, often engineering decisions are based more on precedent than science (has somebody else done things this way?)
Precedent is evidence that “doing things this way” works. This is generally a better basis then new, and hence speculative, science. Especially when the price of getting it wrong is frequently high.
As I was saying to Remontoire, I wholly agree. But (a) precendent is not “Science”, unless you want to be very semantically generous, and (b) precedent is one primary method by which the law does its “rationalization”, which the OP was attacking.
Precedent is evidence that “doing things this way” works. This is generally a better basis then new, and hence speculative, science. Especially when the price of getting it wrong is frequently high.
As I was saying to Remontoire, I wholly agree. But (a) precendent is not “Science”, unless you want to be very semantically generous, and (b) precedent is one primary method by which the law does its “rationalization”, which the OP was attacking.
(You put the closing quotation mark one word too early.)