Engineers most likely to become terrorists, Oxford study suggests

[Bill]

Curious - yet somehow logical.

http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml;?articleID=205920319

Is there a thread that ties engineers to Islamic terrorism?
There certainly is, according to Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog at Oxford University, who recently published a paper titled, "Engineers of Jihad." The authors call the link to terrorism "the engineer's mindset."

The sociology paper published last November, which has been making rounds over the Internet and was recently picked up by The Atlantic, uses illustrative statistics and qualitative data to conclude that there is a strong relationship between an engineering background and involvement in a variety of Islamic terrorist groups. The authors have found that graduates in subjects such as science, engineering, and medicine are strongly overrepresented among Islamist movements in the Muslim world. The authors also note that engineers, alone, are strongly over-represented among graduates who gravitate to violent groups.

However, contrary to popular speculation, it's not technical skills that make engineers attractive recruits to radical groups. Rather, the authors pose the hypothesis that "engineers have a 'mindset' that makes them a particularly good match for Islamism," which becomes explosive when fused by the repression and vigorous radicalization triggered by the social conditions they endured in Islamic countries.

But what is the engineer's mindset?

The authors call it a mindset that inclines them to take more extreme conservative and religious positions.

A past survey in the United States has already shown that the proportion of engineers who declare themselves to be on the right of the political spectrum is greater than any other disciplinary groups--such as economists, doctors, scientists, and those in the humanities and social sciences.

The authors note that the mindset is universal.

[disrupter]

The GOP & NeoConmen are the ones hyping terror & attempting to terrify people.

By definition they are terrorists.
Using terror & its intimidation to achieve ends that people would not otherwise be willing to go along with.

[disrupter]

Aren't engineers very tactile, mechanistic in their thinking?

Isn't the idea of terror attempting to use the minimal effort to produce the maximum political effect,

Very like building an efficient bridge that is completely sufficient, but minimal in structure & costs?

In a sense it is rather articulate, manipulative, which i think does dove-tail with engineering sensibilities.
I would hope a good number of engineers would reject it for ethical reasons except where the cause is worthy.

But the question is, what causes are worthy? What are the criteria, what is the end goal, how important is it? And will this actually do any good?
I hope more/most of them are sane atheist/agnostic.

[SirMoby]

It makes perfect sense really. An engineer calculates things in a logic way and not an emotional way.

Remember the old Star Treks? Who would be more likely to destroy a planet if they thought that it would save 10 others, emotional Kirk or logical Spock? Who would be mostly to be a good engineer?

[mwillman]

HaHaHa

Come on guys if it werent for engineers you would still be sleeping on dirt and hunting for food with rocks.

I am an engineer and I know lots of them and for the most part they are like everyone else. They cover the gambit from liberal to conservative from religious to atheist.

[Bill]

Come on guys if it werent for engineers you would still be sleeping on dirt and hunting for food with rocks..

Ain't that the truth.

I think the same traits that are good in engineers, can also be turned to harm - but that's the exception rather than the rule.

To belabor the logical point, it does not follow from the observation that terrorists may be somewhat more likely to be engineers, that engineers might be more likely to be terrorists. I forget the name of that logical fallacy - maybe I'll look it up tomorrow.

I don't think there's enough appreciation of engineers and technicians, and of course scientists.

I do, tho, think that our culture does in some ways torment engineers and techs and scientists - possibly because some parts of society are afraid of the implications and powers of the technological work force.

And, I can understand how the engineers mindset could be turned by social forces to violence.

I can even admire that tendency. That kind of thinking and ability helped earn the united states it's freedom during the revolution and following conflicts.

[disrupter]

But the NeoCons have operated like efficient engineers.

The get maximum political gain while fulfilling a minimum number of political promises to their base the the voters at large.

They get their base [aka their fools] all worked up over gay marriage & anti-abortion and then they and their rich buds economically screw the bejeezus out of them & the entire nation.

They use a thin veil of flag waving, shrill screams of 'war on terrorism' while they loot the US treasury for a couple of trillion dollars.

The rob the nation's children with novocaine numbing deficit spending so no one will sensately say a word. Then they pull the teeth of your civil liberties and we foolishly act as if they are doing us a favor.

They validate the decision to stay in Iraq because 'the troops are happy'. And darn if their damn fool base doesn't take the bait, letting the tail wag the dog of foreign policy. Of course their base is high on it rabid dog attack psychosis.

The NeoCons couldn't have engineered 911 better, could they?

The NeoCons fan the flames & hysteria about terrorism, because it gives them almost infinite gullibility at nearly no cost.

It is completely nutty, but they get what they want.

Too bad for the USA, the American people.

How stupid can people be?
Obviously we have an amazing capacity for it.

[mwillman]

I dont think that engineers are more likely to terrorists. I just think they are more likely to be successful terrorists. Thus they are more likely to be known.

A terrorist that just throws stones isnt much to fear but one that can make bombs and other nasty weapons is going to be much more feared.

[disrupter]

Good Point, mwillman.

Engineers not just making things that are wishfully 'supposed' to work, but that actually DO work.

isn't it sad that people, generally, don't have the intellectual savvy to see through all of this?
Instead of following the soundness of robust, grounded intellect, we too easily give in completely to primitive emotional reflexes.