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Engineers Have a Terrorist Mindset?
An anonymous reader writes "Do engineers have a way of looking at the world not all that different from terrorists? According to an article in the EE Times, they do. The story cites 'Engineers of Jihad,' a paper (pdf download) by two Oxford University sociologists, who found that graduates in science, engineering, and medicine are strongly overrepresented among Islamist movements. The paper also found that engineers are 'over-represented' among graduates who gravitate to violent groups. Authors Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog chalk this all up to what they call the 'engineering mindset,' which they define as 'a mindset that inclines them to take more extreme conservative and religious positions.' Is this just pop psychology masquerading as science?"
Almost everyone in the middle east gets a higher education degree. They study and get their degrees and in their mid-20's they graduate without the ability to go to anymore school and NO JOB PROSPECTS. An inability to support their family drives them to religion and in some cases extremism where they blame all the problems in the middle east on not being religious enough (not pleasing god), or blame all the problems in the middle east on external forces. The problems in the middle east are economic. You have essentially a very small group that lives extravagantly using oil money and the rest of the population struggles to get by with no real jobs or careers that take advantage of their advanced degrees. The one exception seems to be the emirate of Dubai who actually appears to be starting a real economy.
Until there is real social and economic changes in the middle east the countries will continue to breed extremists, because people without prospects for the future will always cause trouble. Saudi is the prime example but Iran is as well, the religious leaders live extremely well, probably in the top 5% economically in the country while the poor people in the villages in the outer reaches freeze to death in a snow storm. Until there is real economic freedom and equal justice for all the area is for the most part a lost cause. Run the oil wealth out and the countries won't be able to provide the minimal support their populations need to survive and then there will be real change.