The people have spoken; but what have they said? W. J. Clinton.

Science is always wrong. It never solves a problem without creating two G. B. Shaw.

The purpose of computing is insight, not numbers R. W. Hamming.

Real knowledge goes into natural man in tidbits. A scrap here, a scrap there; always pertinent, linked to safety or nutrition or pleasure Ezra Pound.

It seemed that the next minute they would discover a solution. Yet it was clear to both of them that the end was still far, far off, and that the hardest and most complicated part was only beginning A. Chekkov.

It is instructive to quote here a prominent scientist who wrote a paper (1987) about buckling and post-buckling:

The readers may be surprised that in a paper dealing with numerical techniques the author has not mentioned finite element codes at all. This has been done intentionally.

Many, naturally, cannot share this sentiment. But let us provide the podium to the above-mentioned author (1987):

It is this author's belief that with the large scale introduction of computers in the practice and lately also at many technical schools, the teaching of and the approach to solving technical problems has been shifting in the wrong direction the insight of how structures behave under loading of the older generation is being more and more replaced by the nearly religious faith of the younger ones in the predictions of their favorite computer codes.

This book is of a different kind; to avoid the above mentioned...