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Why Do So Many Terrorists Have Engineering Degrees
Socguy noted that Slate is apparently a little desperate for some traffic as they are writing about"Why so many of the terrorists have engineering degrees, and they come to the conclusion that engineers and engineering students are much more likely to hold strong conservative and religious views than a general cross section of the public. Further, engineers tend to hold a particular mind-set that disdains ambiguity and compromise. Terrorist organizations have long recognized that engineering departments are fertile ground for recruitment and have concentrated their efforts there. A 2005 report from British intelligence noted that Islamic extremists were frequenting college campuses, looking for 'inquisitive' students who might be susceptible to their message. In particular, the report noted, they targeted engineers."
Didn't the EEtimes come to a similar conclusion last year?
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/03/1943247
http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml;?articleID=207001533
I recall it had more to do with planning skills than anything else.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
Does literacy cause terrorism? If so, the solution is simple.
Also, this was discussed here on Slashdot twice last year:
Engineers Have a Terrorist Mindset? (Jan 2008)
Engineers Make Good Terrorists? (Apr 2008)
They wouldn't be targeting engineers because they have skills of getting things done and paying attention to details.
Engineering isn't science. Engineering is using what is known of science to create results. It is one of the few degrees that have that focus. Most of the other disciplines if recruited will spend their time researching and analyzing the problems and probably coming up with the idea it is a bad idea. But an engineer will just go ahead and make it go.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Could it be that engineering degrees are a dime-a-dozen in oil-rich countries where middle-eastern terrorists usually originate? How many people in these countries don't have engineering degrees?
Hmm... some googling:
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed got his engineering degree in North Carolina.
Mohammed Atta got an engineering degree in Cairo (and studied English and German there), but his PhD in Hamburg, Germany.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab studied mechanical engineering in London, UK. It's unclear whether he graduated.
Speaking of degrees being a dime a dozen: In the United States, almost 30% of the population has at a Bachelors degree or higher, and again that many have attended university but only have an associates degree or nothing. In other words, unless wikipedia is wrong, two thirds of the population has attended college. According to the Unesco website, the situation is similar in Western Europe. According to that same website, "23% attended college in the Arab States, 11% in South and West Asia and, despite rapid growth, only 6% in Africa"
Google is refusing to specify these statistics to engineering degrees, but the numbers above suggest that degrees are actually a dime a dozen in "the west", and not in the oil rich countries where middle eastern terrorists usually originate.
Over the years it has gotten more and more clear to me that (counter-intuitively perhaps) it is entirelty possible for very intelligent, learned and hard working men to be religious fanatics, homicidal maniacs, perverts, terrorists, psychopaths, all-round assholes or all of the above. Moral outlook and intelligence don't seem to be very strongly related at all.
When did Thomas Jefferson ever try to murder innocent civilians or stone women because they were raped? How about try to kill a person because he drew a cartoon? Thomas Jefferson did or advocated none of these things or anything like it. It looks like you may need to crack open your history book.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
You are generalizing: "Ana Muhandis" is spoken Egyptian. Egypt is a very large country with a low percentage of college degrees, combined with the fact fact that Egypt is has very large agricultural and industrial sectors, gives you that weird claim. In other Arab countries, being an engineer is just like being an engineer in the US or Europe. Anyway, this is *not* the case anymore, engineers are not envied at all in Egypt (compared to business people or medical doctors). And honestly, how would you know that they claim to be engineers just by being in an immersion program?
Children should not be allowed to read Ayn Rand until they clearly understand the difference between fiction and non-fiction
If your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd murder you in your sleep
The "Insightful" parent's stats are not reflected in the link that he provided. Here's quoting directly from Wiki:
"The 2006 American Community Survey conducted by the United States Census Bureau found that 19.5 percent of the population had attended college but had no degree, 7.4 percent held an associate's degree, 17.1 percent held a bachelor's degree, and 9.9 percent held a graduate or professional degree."
Just another day in Paradise
Spelling it with a "Mu" gives it an Egyptian connotation, other spelling would be more like "Mhandis" or Mouhandis" or "Mohandis". Arabic is my mother tongue. I am not trying to undermine your knowledge of Arabic culture, 16 years is a long time. However, as an Arab engineer who has lived for more than 20 years in different Arab countries (and kept contact later when in Europe and the US), I think you are making too much of it. Maybe your sample population is specific...