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."

Comments

EE times came to a similar conclusion

[ProfBooty]

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.

Re:Obvious answer?

[rve]

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.

Parent's Stats Are Not Accurate

[dcw3]

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."

Re:It's a cultural thing

[ladhami]

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...