Since the early modern period natural science has been defined in terms of method. The two major approaches to scientific method are those of rationalist deduction and empirical experimentation, analyses of which are often traced back to René Descartes (1596–1650) and Francis Bacon (1561–1626), respectively. Both methods have been argued to have ethical components or to be applicable to ethics. Engineering has been much less described in terms of some distinctive method. In fact, it was only in the mid-twentieth century that discussions of engineering method came to the fore. Interpretations of engineering method are, however, more varied than with science, with less effort to draw connections to ethics, although on both counts the negligence is unwarranted. What follows is a modestly polemical assessment of engineering method that seeks to redress previous oversights by defining engineering method, comparing it with alternative definitions, and establishing the nexus between engineering...