Some variant of logical positivism is typically drilled into engineers pretty hard. If it can't be quantified, it's not meaningful. In fairness, this is largely

Some variant of logical positivism is typically drilled into engineers pretty hard. If it can't be quantified, it's not meaningful. In fairness, this is largely true within the context of engineering-related fields, but generalizes poorly outside of that area. But same way a fish is the last to discover water, it's very hard to discover these assumptions while inundated in them. That "not meaningful" slips by very easily, because nobody stops to ask meaningful in what sense. It already sounds so abstract it's easy to think the line of thought is complete.