Engineering Hubris: Adam Smith and the Quest for the Perfect Machine

Abstract

Adam Smith observes, in his The Theory of Moral Sentiments, that humans are often driven to perfect a tool or device along certain parameters far beyond the requirements of visible practicality. At times this drive has led to important technological breakthroughs, but at others has led to frustration or even disaster, as other goals are neglected and the perfect becomes the enemy of the good. I illustrate Smith’s point with four case studies, three of which led to failure, and one in which the perfectionist drive ended in success: (1) The quest to build a sea-level canal in Panama, continuing the “conquest of nature” theme which was successful in Suez, but which led to ruin in the more hostile geography of the new world; (2) Buckminster Fuller’s plan to build inexpensive prefabricated “Dymaxion Houses,” scuttled by his endless demands for perfection and complete control over implementation; (3) The quest for a reusable spacecraft, ideally with a “single stage to orbit,” which led to the adoption of the expensive and dangerous space shuttle, when refinements of older technologies have proven cheaper and more reliable; and (4) John Harrison’s successful creation, after decades of intensive work and the rejection of many good but imperfect prototypes, of a reliable timepiece for solving the “longitude problem.”