Researchers say EE has a 'terrorist mindset'

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>EETimes.com</a> - Holy War! Researchers say EEs have a 'terrorist mindset'</p>

<p>(01/28/2008 10:07 AM EST)</p>

<p>MANHASSET, N.Y. " Is there a thread that ties engineers to Islamic terrorism?</p>

<p>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."</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>But what is the engineer's mindset?</p>

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

<p>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.</p>

<p>The authors note that the mindset is universal.</p>

<p>Whether American, Canadian or Islamic, they pointed out that a disproportionate share of engineers seem to have a mindset that makes them open to the quintessential right-wing features of "monism" (why argue where there is one best solution) and by "simplism" (if only people were rational, remedies would be simple). </p>

<p>lol do not fear terrorist, fear me! I'm EE major
humor me with comments please</p>

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<p>Is this for real? That has to be a joke.</p>

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<p>My first reaction was that this is absolute crap, that almost none of the engineers I knew would be considered far right. But, then I realized I went to school in Berkeley…</p>

<p>Honestly, though, the mindset issue is probably right. At least on some social issues people debate, I find myself reducing it to a simple scientific question, where there can only be one right answer. Engineers also tend to be individualistic or confident introverts, so I can see how that would make them skew to the right.</p>

<p>Still, any engineer whose “best solution” is religious extremism(or just religion, for that matter, but that’s just me :o) or mindless patriotism is just a product of indoctrination. Saying engineers having a “terrorist mindset” is just fear mongering. Makes me just want to go to oxford and blow up… a balloon. Yes.</p>

<p>EDIT: Should also point out, that you’d be hardpressed to find an engineer who doesn’t want any change. Moving the world ahead technologically is part of the job description, it’s just social change that engineers might balk at, perhaps any sort of socialized system, where people didn’t specifically earn what they were given. I’d be interested to see the breakdown on which issues engineers came out conservative.</p>

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<p>its not a joke, the full research by oxford professors is here
<a href=“http://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/users/gambetta/Engineers%20of%20Jihad.pdf[/url]”>http://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/users/gambetta/Engineers%20of%20Jihad.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>I’m not sure if I can take this too seriously. I didn’t read the full article, but as engineers tend to be male, and males tend to be more conservative, then the male-dominated engineering profession would be conservative. Now, I know that this doesn’t debunk the entire deal, but it sort of argues against an “engineering mindset.”</p>

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<p>Along with smithiegr, I would question the direction of causality. Is it that an engineering education tends to make one more conservative, or is it that more conservative people tend to become engineers?</p>

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<p>

All technical majors are biased towards males. High level mathematics, physics, chemistry, economics, engineering is all male dominated. In all except Econ, the low levels are dominated by males as well.</p>

<p>I think that people with high level numeracy are more likely to be conservative (fiscally, especially) than those with high level literacy found in softer majors/careers. I don’t believe it tracks sex. For example, I would tend to believe that women who happen to be in a “numerical field” would display more conservatism when compared to other professions at the same income level and education.</p>

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<p>When I actually read the paper, as opposed to the media interpretations of it, it was far less ridiculous than the media interpretations. I still have some issues with it, but a lot fewer than I would have if I took the stories at face value (it addresses some of the causality issues that people are correctly bringing up, among other things). The media sucks at reporting on research. Sensationalism sells.</p>

<p>I don’t know about the engineering = conservative thing. I would be willing to believe that it is true in some areas, schools, cultures, or sectors of engineering. But the joke at MIT was that the real political divide was between the liberals and the libertarians. Not a conservative school at all. My coworkers, mostly computer scientists and software engineers, are overwhelmingly liberal (which amuses me, since it’s not exactly typical in the defense industry).</p>

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<p>well first of all I dont know why the study is funded and what’s the purpose? To find out which majors tend to become terrorist?</p>

<p>Terrorists are mostly engineers but engineers aren’t terrorists. It doesn’t work both ways. I mean when you are a terrorist, you gotta know the technical side, say to operate a machine. Why would a terrorist group hire sociologists to become terrorists? What are they gonna do? socialize? </p>

<p>It makes sense to see terrorists are engineers/technical people. But it doesn’t mean engineers tend to become terrorists.</p>

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<p>Well, to be fair, first of all, I doubt that this study required all that much funding anyway. It’s not like running a giant particle accelerator. All you would need to do to complete this research is to build and then analyze a sociological dataset and that’s pretty cheap to do. It’s just a data-mining exercise and computer processing power is dirt cheap. </p>

<p>As far as the purpose of the study - hey, trust me, there are plenty of papers out there that have far less purpose than this one. At least this paper could, potentially, serve to understand the psychological basis of terrorism, which I see as a useful goal. There are plenty of other studies out there that, at least in my opinion, have no discernable purpose whatsoever.</p>

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<p>My point was not that conservatism is a trait of terrorists, but that correlation does not neccesarily equal causation. Other factors apply.</p>

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<p>I completely disagree that Engineers tend to be conservative.</p>

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<p>

That’s not what people are saying. At the highest levels, Engineering is easily one of the most conservative areas of any university. That still might be 60% liberal, but that could be more conservative than 100% liberal as with women’s studies. Purely arbitrary numbers, but you get the point.</p>

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<p>Evidence? (10char)</p>

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<p>Muslim radicalism? I thought Israel and America has the best engineers working in the field of weapons technology…and the best businessmen to sell them to those so called terrorist harboring nations. who wrote the article?</p>

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<p>And yet another thing,</p>

<p>The first nuclear bomb was made by a non muslim, used by a non muslim on a non muslim nation. </p>

<p>I am not criticizing your religion, Muslims have their share in trouble making as well, but you CANNOT justify the conclusion of the research without taking history into account. Think out of the box, Think like Thomas Hobbes = ) .Hope that sums it up.</p>

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<p>I disagree with the notion of tying conservatism to Islamic terrorism. The two are in radical opposition to each other. Conservatives embrase freedom and limited government while this Islamic extremists are trying to limit freedoms (particularly of women) and promote an Islamic government that is highly involved in its people’s lives.</p>

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<p>I have personally known terrorist recruiters, they look for people which think differently (out of the box) with a background in which they can easily understand or adapt to technology, there are other things they look for but an EE major can fit that description.</p>

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<p>You’re mixing a narrow American definition of political conservatism with the original broader one: “Conservatism is a term used to describe political philosophies that favor tradition and gradual change, where tradition refers to religious, cultural, or nationally defined beliefs and customs”</p>

<p>(Source: <a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism&lt;/a&gt;)</p>

<p>Radical Islam sure sounds like that sort of philosophy to me. Radical Chrisitanity, too, who happen to identify as politically conservative as well.</p>

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<p>“a mindset that inclines them to take more extreme conservative and religious positions.”</p>

<p>I just have to say: What the [beep]? Engineers are probably more driven towards atheism/agnosticism/irreligion than any of the other majors (besides the hard sciences) because of their strong background in science and appreciation for it, which means they would be less likely to fall for religious extremism. Yes, they tend to be conservative politically, but it is more of a libertarian strain of conservatism than mainstream conservatism, i.e. fiscally conservative, not socially/religiously conservative. This is the way it is in the U.S. anyway. But ditching PC-ness here… we all know it is overwhelmingly Muslims that are involved in this. It is different for them (engineers being more religious)?</p>