Critical Thinking in the Engineering Curriculum

Engineering Critical Thinking.

The main goal of the Viterbi School of Engineering is to produce engineers who have a solid foundation of applicable knowledge in math and science with a general understanding on how the world works. This in mind, there is not much an engineer can do in the way of critical thinking. There is absolutely no leeway in math and science, as the facts are facts. There is no getting around the minute details. Thus, on the smallest of levels, there is no critical thinking in engineering.
Taking a step back however, critical thinking can be seen nearly everywhere in the field of engineering. With mechanical engineers trying to build cars or civil engineers trying to build bridges, how do you think any improvements were made over the last century? Critical thinking. Change in the field of engineering only happens when someone says "Wait, that can't be right. This would make it work so much more efficiently." When questioning the design of the product itself, critical thinking is what fuels technoloigical change. Thus, without critical thinking, engineering would be a dead field; everyone would be able to do it.
Critical thinking is always good as it facilitates for change. In the early stages of engineering, with such a regimented set of prerequistes, critical thinking is hard to come by. As of now, there seems to be as much critical thinking as possible. If there isn't, more critical thinking is always good.

Nazi Germany and Pope Benedict XVI; an Author's View

Author Daniel Jonah Goldhagen presents an article which compares and contrasts the similarities between Pope Benedict XVI and Nazi Germany. Not knowing where Goldhagen is coming from to write such a random article, I read further into the article. As a young boy of 14, Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict) joined the Hitler Youth. This was his own choice as he was raised in an anti-Nazi family. Through the war Ratzinger served in the military. With such involvement in the Nazi party, how is it that Ratzinger never saw the horrors of the Nazis themsevlves? Did he see the atrocities and look away? To answer these questions, I read on to his later life as Pope Benedict XVI.
In a speech to the people, he talked of an "imperial church" and talks of "other religions as not being true religions or paths of salvation." With these two thoughts alone, it is clear there is some similarity between the Nazi way of thinking and the Pope's. However, one cannot even begin to believe that the Pope's closed mind toward religion is anywhere near as irrational as the Nazi's closed mind toward race and people (which led to exterminations). There might be some connection on some small scale, but in no way at all is the Pope going to act like a Nazi.
Goldhagen made this analogy to show that there could be some connection between Nazi Germany and its ways and Pope Benedict XVI. This analogy is not reinforced however. The reference made to the Pope's hope of an imperial church is construed to look like the Nazi hope for the extermination of people not of Aryan descent. These two might be similar in that they are trying to unify something. The way in which this objective is to be reached is completely different in both cases however.