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Surprised engineers are so often used to exemplify linear thinking. Engineering demands a nonlinear, artistic approach for effective problem solving and design. Linear processes exist, but they're tools to move from one stage to another, to consistently manipulate data allowing for an alternate vantage point setting the stage for creative thought. There is a certain breadth to the term "engineering" that's misleading. Interestingly, society seems to consider an architect as clearly more creative than an engineer. "Architect" having the same range as "engineer" but generally viewed to be on the creative rather than process side. An architect cranking out standard highway overpasses using tables and standards established over decades and modified by others to accommodate new understandings of such things as earthquakes and fatigue is not being particularly creative and proceeds quite linearly. An architect designing a monument, an iconic bridge, or perhaps a specialty home is likely operating in a very different manner, but using linear processes as tools along the way. "Engineering" spans a similar spectrum.
And, few people encounter, tackle, or even realize how nonlinearity affects our existence more than engineers. To pitch them up as the poster children for linearity is amusing.
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