Järlström did not misrepresent himself.
An Engineer designs functional things.
No reasonable person is going to think that him calling himself an "Electrical Engineer", which he is, construes that he had specific training in designing traffic infrastructure that doesn't accidentally harm people.
Traffic infrastructure is not a nuanced topic full of dangerous pitfalls.
He was claiming that he had a background in engineering that is applicable to the subject, so that his viewpoint would not be cast aside. The state wanted to ignore his viewpoint, so they fined him.
Another more extreme, yet more common, example is structural engineering. While the basics of structural engineering are relatively simple the consequences of failure are very high. If a multi-story structure collapses, a lot of people will be injured or killed. That is why it is important to know more than just the basics of what goes into structural engineering.
I am not trying to down play the importance of training for medical doctors. I am trying to highlight that engineers need to have training and a regulatory board that is used to track and prove that the training has been completed to an acceptable level. If any yahoo is able to say, "I am an engineer, trust me," how do you prove his credentials? Just like with a medical doctor, you would look up his certification.
We aren't even talking about structural engineering here. We are talking about an electrical engineer submitting comments regarding traffic.
The only reason these are related is the word "engineer", which is ambiguous.
The contents of this man's letter are not physically acting upon traffic. They were submitted to be considered by a group of "licensed" traffic engineers.
The subject does not require the decade of specific education that is required by a medical doctor, or even months of training that is required by an EMT.
It's about a traffic light camera, which an electrical engineer would be able to understand significantly better than a layman, making the fact that he is an electrical engineer important to the subject.
The state fined him for his claim of being an engineer, defining the word by its context (traffic lights) instead of by its adjective (electrical).
The state abused this notion to delegitimize his words, and to disincentivize him commenting in the first place.
I would go further and say that as a EE working in the field he would understand this issue better than a traffic engineer would.
I am very critical of the idea that a license should be required to discuss the traffic system that we all interact with.
The issue I take to this is that you must have a recognized title to claim knowledge.
This has two problems:
1. People outside of a group of recognition have unnecessary difficulty giving input. This degrades the "public" aspect of the forum.
2. Common words like "engineer" are redefined to have more authority than they do outside the forum. This means that those with broad engineering expertise and knowledge that is applicable to the subject are considered to not have any applicable knowledge or expertise.
It may be reasonable to require credentials from someone who is doing the engineering, or someone who makes final decisions.
It is not reasonable to require credentials from everyone who uses a noun to describe him or herself.
If you want credentials from someone who claims to be an engineer, then you can ask for them. Credentials need not be assumed.
There are positions like MD, EMT, Police Officer, etc. that do imply credentials. These titles inherently require trust and respect, so claiming one without credentials is fraudulent. "Engineer" does not fit into that category.
You don't want someone to wire your house improperly, because non-trivial things like kinked cables can end up starting fires later on.
To say that you are an electrical engineer does not carry weight.
To say you can do electrical work because you are an electrical engineer implies that you have credentials. This is because "can" changes the context of the statement. "can" implies authority.
There is such thing as an unlicensed electrical engineer. That is because "electrical engineer" alone does not imply authority.
There are positions that do imply authority, like MD, EMT, Police Officer, and electrical engineer is not one of them.
I'm done here, this is not going anywhere productive or enlightening.
You don't.
"Engineer" is not broadly considered a claim of authority. It is a claim of knowledge.
If I am required to provide credentials whenever I say "engineer", then how, as someone without credentials, am I supposed to express my background?
I'll simply choose another word, which will have the exact meaning that "engineer" currently does. Why? Because you redefined the word.
The word "engineer" is perfectly adequate in its current state.
If you really want to know whether you can trust an engineer in his or her capacity, you will then ask for some credentials, like a degree or state-sponsored license. The fact that anyone can use the word "engineer" to describe him or herself does not in any way detract from that.
The reason that MD, EMT, or police officer are different is that every individual who claims that title is treated with authority.
Can you explain what you mean by that?
The reason why I ask is this - before the process was simplified in Canada, you were required to have your passport application signed by an accredited professional guarantor like a medical doctor, accountant, police officer, engineer (PEng), etc who had known you for a minimum period of time.
So in this specific context, an engineer is a special class of person in society (because of the professional body he/she is a member of).
I disagree.
In this scenario, the state has redefined the meaning of "engineer" in a way that is very detrimental.
A Medical Doctor or physician implies with his or her title, authority to practice.
The word "engineer" does not carry this implication, nor should it.
When I tell people that I am a "Software Engineer", I am expressing years of self-education, nuanced understanding, etc. This title is not misconstrued as having a degree or license, of which I have neither. If I want to claim to have a degree, I will be explicit about it.
Calling myself an "engineer" is a very useful way to express the complicated body of knowledge that I possess. If the word suddenly implies credentials, of which I do not possess, I am suddenly considered a fraud.
TL;DR You can consider me a fraud by redefining what an "engineer" is, but that doesn't make me one, so please don't redefine engineer. That does not help discourse.
This is backwards from my perspective. Engineering has long been a licensed profession. It is only recently that a group of people have chosen, for some reason beyond me, to call themselves "software engineers" and avail themselves of the industrial exemption. I'm not a fan but the ship has sailed on that one.
> A Medical Doctor or physician implies with his or her title, authority to practice.
There are many MDs and DOs that are not licensed by their state boards and they too have to take care with misrepresenting themselves as physicians licensed to practice. The same is true of people using the industrial exemption to practice engineering, one cannot use the industrial exemption to practice before the public.
TL;DR from my perspective (PhD in engineering but not an engineer) there is a newer group people who are attempting to redefine what "engineer" means as a profession, and that redefinition relaxes education, experience, and professional conduct standards by quite a bit. I realize that like the Browncoats of Firefly I am on the losing side, and also like the Browncoats I don't like it.
Titles like "Medical Doctor" or "EMT" carry authority, because they require specific training, so that you know how not to kill someone while you are trying to help them. For these professions, it is necessary for the state to demand a set of requirements from those who carry those titles.
Saying someone must be specific about what kind of engineer they purport to be is quite unreasonable, and unnecessary.
In this case, the state created the "title" so that they could ignore anyone who didn't pay for the title. Since it is totally normal to call oneself an "engineer" without worrying about that title carrying a dangerous authority, it was unexpected, and malicious for the state to redefine the term.
>Saying someone must be specific about what kind of engineer they purport to be is quite unreasonable, and unnecessary.
You are essentially saying that any discipline of engineering is the same as any other. This is simply untrue. Do you want me as a traffic engineer doing the job of a chemical engineer? Probably not.
Simply calling oneself an engineer does not make it so. Just as I can't call myself a race car driver because I can drive a car fast by pressing the gas peddle further down. There must be enforcement of titles that effect public health and safety. Traffic engineering is one of those protected titles.
No, but they are related, and any type of engineer will be trained to think like an engineer, which is really the only prerequisite for contributing to discussion about traffic design.
This man is not walking up to traffic lights and changing the timing, he sent a letter with his comments, and pointed out that he is an electrical engineer, which is how he is capable of understanding the nuances of traffic lights.
The problem is not that his idea was rejected, but that it was ignored. When we require licenses for broad things like "engineering ability", we prevent discussion on engineering topics.
> Simply calling oneself an engineer does not make it so.
Simply calling oneself an engineer is not harmful. I am not suddenly gaining authority by saying that I am a software engineer. I am, however, bringing to light years of self-education as a context for my understanding.
> There must be enforcement of titles that effect public health and safety.
That is a broad statement.
I agree that titles like MD or EMT that involve direct action that are likely to cause harm without proper training should be regulated, so that people can trust an individual who claims to be an MD or EMT to do the things that an MD or EMT does.
I disagree with the idea that no one is allowed to contribute to a discussion on topics related to public safety without a license. That is absurd.
Those who do the engineering likely should have a license, so that we can trust them.
Those who discuss engineering should not be limited to the ones who have a license.
Everyone should be able to discuss a topic without fear. Otherwise, engineers would not be able to hear from those who use their designs.
A software engineer that does not hear his or her users writes awful software. An engineer that designs something used by the public that does not hear his or her users is an awful engineer.