I am an engineer and though I disagree about the wit I do agree about the conceit.
So many engineers and physicists think they know everything. I spent many years working with some of the brightest in the world (not me, them) and very few lacked hubris. It was tough to work with many of them for that reason.
Engineers are confident by nature and design.
When an engineer sends a rocket into space for the first time, do you want him to be wishy washy and have nagging doubts about success, or do you want him to be confident in his preperation and execution of all aspects of building the rocket?
How about building a new type of bridge for the first time. Is that the time for a touchy-feely, consensus building ninny or someone who takes control of every aspect and his certain of his own judgment, preparation, and design of the bridge and its expected performance when it is loaded with vehicles in a snowstorm during a hurricane or during an earthquake.
You bet engineers have to be confident in their judgment when they put their license stamp on their deisgn. Engineers are without a doubt pains in the ass in many ways but at the end of the day, we are problem solvers.
Most people ask, “Can we put a man on the moon.”
Engineers ask “HOW can we put a man on the moon.”
To an engineer, every problem is solvable and has a technical solution just waiting to be discovered. While some personality types are spinning their wheels trying to refine the question, an engineer is already working on obtaining the answer.
Yes, we are pains in the ass and too confident, but that is the nature of the beast. There is no time for doubting when that dam is built holding back hundreds of millions of gallons of water. You want that engineer confident that water will remain behind the damn and not washing away all the skyskrapers in your city center.
The Hoover dam holds 9 trillion gallons of water. I would think you would want a person of conceit who is CERTAIN that water will never come crashing through the face of the dam, rather than someone who isn’t quite sure.