[Infowarrior] - Researchers say EEs have a 'terrorist mindset'

[Richard Forno]

------ Forwarded Message

From: David Farber


Holy War! Researchers say EEs have a 'terrorist mindset'

Junko Yoshida
(01/28/2008 10:07 AM EST)
URL: <http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205920319>

MANHASSET, N.Y. " 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.

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).