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Engineers Nine Times More Likely Than Expected to Become Terrorists

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Engineers Nine Times More Likely Than Expected to Become Terrorists

#21

Post by tikhonj »

> Survey data indicates that engineering faculty at universities are far more likely to be conservative than people with other degrees, and far more likely to be religious. They are seven times as likely to be both religious and conservative as social scientists.

This statement seems to say as much about the sort of people who don't get non-engineering degrees as it does about engineers. In my experience, people deep into humanities fields—especially the social fields like sociology, anthropology and religious studies—are both significantly self-selected and externally selected. Perhaps even more so than engineers especially in niche fields. This selection has more of a moral, ideological and philosophical component than that for engineering. Put together, there is quite a bit of pressure against people harboring radical religious views in most of the humanities.

It's an interesting dynamic to think about.

I'm also a bit curious about what exactly an "administrative position in Hamas" entails. My sketchy understanding is that Hamas functions as more of a proto-government than merely a military organization: are they counting any role in Hamas as terrorists?

Re: Engineers Nine Times More Likely Than Expected to Become Terrorists

#22

Post by nyolfen »

pj_mukh wrote: post #4

As an Engineer, I've been avoiding this conclusion for a while. Chalked it up to faulty conclusions from liberal arts majors jealous of funding cuts or a lack thereof (/s). But this conversation is becoming more and more prevalent. Perhaps STEAM education ( http://stemtosteam.org/ ) and not a purely focussed STEM education is the answer

>As an Engineer, I've been avoiding this conclusion for a while. Chalked it up to faulty conclusions from liberal arts majors jealous of funding cuts or a lack thereof (/s).

perhaps consider that your priorities may be divergent from other modes of thinking, and that your priorities may not be universal

Re: Engineers Nine Times More Likely Than Expected to Become Terrorists

#23

Post by nickff »

CookieMon wrote: post #11
solipsism wrote: post #9

Survey data indicates that engineering faculty at universities are far more likely to be conservative than people with other degrees, and far more likely to be religious. They are seven times as likely to be both religious and conservative as social scientists. That's surprising to me. I'd like to know where they got that data, and look more into it. How likely are they to be conservative and religious than people wi…

> I'd like to know where they got that data Yes, given that the context seems to be people who go into engineering in Middle Eastern and North African countries which are too dysfunctional to employ engineers, you are left wondering whether the survey data was of those societies, or whether they extended some data to be an international truism. But I'm not paying $30 to find out. I too would have thought engineers le…

From what I have seen of survey data in North American engineering magazines, their readerships (at least those who fill out surveys) seem to be fairly religious, as well as notably conservative and libertarian leaning. I have seen this consistently across a few trade publications for electronic and mechanical engineers, but do not have any citations handy at the moment of this post.

Re: Engineers Nine Times More Likely Than Expected to Become Terrorists

#26

Post by iofj »

Engineers are also a necessity for terrorist groupings. It may very well be that engineers aren't any more likely to become terrorists, it's that the ones that do are much more likely to find a terror cell that will take them, which then leads to actual terror. As opposed to, you know, dreaming about it.

Re: Engineers Nine Times More Likely Than Expected to Become Terrorists

#27

Post by MAGZine »

CookieMon wrote: post #11
solipsism wrote: post #9

Survey data indicates that engineering faculty at universities are far more likely to be conservative than people with other degrees, and far more likely to be religious. They are seven times as likely to be both religious and conservative as social scientists. That's surprising to me. I'd like to know where they got that data, and look more into it. How likely are they to be conservative and religious than people wi…

> I'd like to know where they got that data Yes, given that the context seems to be people who go into engineering in Middle Eastern and North African countries which are too dysfunctional to employ engineers, you are left wondering whether the survey data was of those societies, or whether they extended some data to be an international truism. But I'm not paying $30 to find out. I too would have thought engineers le…

These authors have published papers along the same lines of the book, if you have access to academic resources.

journal title: "Why are there so many Engineers among Islamic Radicals?"

Hertog, Steffen has written a few articles along these lines.

Re: Engineers Nine Times More Likely Than Expected to Become Terrorists

#28

Post by CookieMon »

nickff wrote: post #23
CookieMon wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd like to know where they got that data Yes, given that the context seems to be people who go into engineering in Middle Eastern and North African countries which are too dysfunctional to employ engineers, you are left wondering whether the survey data was of those societies, or whether they extended some data to be an international truism. But I'm not paying $30 to find out. I too would have thought engineers le…

From what I have seen of survey data in North American engineering magazines, their readerships (at least those who fill out surveys) seem to be fairly religious, as well as notably conservative and libertarian leaning. I have seen this consistently across a few trade publications for electronic and mechanical engineers, but do not have any citations handy at the moment of this post.

> fairly religious, as well as notably conservative and libertarian leaning

These are words I would use to describe North America ;)

So you'd want to remove regional bias by comparing engineers to people from the same demographic and region, i.e. not comparing liberal arts graduates in California against the petroleum engineering graduates from Texas.

Re: Engineers Nine Times More Likely Than Expected to Become Terrorists

#29

Post by olau »

jamesrcole wrote: post #15
mikeash wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nine times a really small number is still a really small number. A well rounded education may well be beneficial for engineers, but if so it's not because of the terrorism potential.

The number isn't itself the important thing, it's the consequences of their actions on the world. I think we can agree that terrorism, and the world's reaction to it, is a pretty big thing. [EDIT, in response to the two replies I've received so far: I'm making a pragmatic suggestion. In pragmatic terms what matters is whether the benefits, whatever their size, outweigh the costs. I suspect they might, and even increm…

I think it would be more effective to educate the mass media. Western-world terrorist attacks work by playing on the dynamics of the mass media, and the mass media is definitely playing along, licking up the clicks and views.

Pragmatically speaking, amortized, the deaths and injuries are minor compared to other sources of death and injury (e.g. traffic).

Re: Engineers Nine Times More Likely Than Expected to Become Terrorists

#30

Post by jamesrcole »

olau wrote: post #29
jamesrcole wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number isn't itself the important thing, it's the consequences of their actions on the world. I think we can agree that terrorism, and the world's reaction to it, is a pretty big thing. [EDIT, in response to the two replies I've received so far: I'm making a pragmatic suggestion. In pragmatic terms what matters is whether the benefits, whatever their size, outweigh the costs. I suspect they might, and even increm…

I think it would be more effective to educate the mass media. Western-world terrorist attacks work by playing on the dynamics of the mass media, and the mass media is definitely playing along, licking up the clicks and views. Pragmatically speaking, amortized, the deaths and injuries are minor compared to other sources of death and injury (e.g. traffic).

Why not do both?
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