Doctors, lawyers, and engineers. Engineers always seem to take third place in the list of esteemed professions. Exciting television programs feature skilled surgeons or smooth, well-dressed defense attorneys, but engineers are not primetime stars. That’s too bad, because they do exciting work, as reflected in one school’s motto, “Cool stuff doesn’t just make itself.”

Editor’s note: several important questions have been received by ICR’s editorial staff in response to our series in Acts & Facts addressing natural selection.¹ This article answers those questions.

A major university promoted an annual Diversity Day that featured almost any organization willing to set up a booth. At one booth, a student was given a small carved statue that, he was told, had the power to select his best soulmate from all the girls he’d ever met. He asked how a statue could truly select, but was provided an unsatisfying, unquantifiable, mystical answer.

In medicine, a patient’s symptoms may be explained by many causes. Experienced doctors train new physicians to keep an open mind and an active list of potential diseases until evidence indicates one. Thoroughness for the patient’s sake is crucial, and skilled doctors quickly change their thinking if indicated by new evidence. The good of the patient far surpasses a doctor’s pride.