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Why Are Terrorists Often Engineers?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the break-out-the-asbestos dept.

An anonymous reader writes "As a follow up to their September 2008 article, IEEE Spectrum revisits the question of why a disproportionate number of terrorists have engineering degrees. According to their own summary of the interview with political scientist Steffen Hertog, 'nearly half of [individuals involved in political violence] with degrees have been engineers,' a rather ambiguous statement especially for a publication targeted at engineers. The interview makes some interesting points (lack of job opportunities for engineers despite a relatively high social status) and some suspect ones (e.g. framing Islamic culture into the western left vs. right politics). Above all, IEEE Spectrum tries really hard to associate engineers with terrorism for some reason."

20 of 769 comments (clear)

  1. Aptitude by Sonny+Yatsen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Maybe a little mechanical or chemical aptitude is the reason. A bomber with an engineering degree might have the skills necessary to build a bomb and not blow themselves up in the process, whereas a non-engineer bomber might either fail to build a bomb or wind up blowing themselves to kingdom come.

    Just look at Faisal Shazad, the guy from Connecticut who tried to blow up Times Square. He tried to build his bomb with a toy clock and M80 firecrackers. He had a business degree.

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    1. Re:Aptitude by Lurker2288 · · Score: 5, Funny

      But I bet he could write a really scary business plan! OOOH!

    2. Re:Aptitude by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And, more to the point, it's more likely that those terrorists got their engineering degrees as a result of their choice to be a terrorist, rather than the other way around. There are millions of engineers in this country that aren't going around blowing stuff up and killing people.

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    3. Re:Aptitude by robot256 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      THIS!!

      There have been news articles about terrorist organizations specifically recruiting engineers for their skills so they can build weapons. This is not some coincidence of psychology, it is a fact of necessity. If terrorists were selected randomly, or were a naturally occurring phenomenon, then yes, we would have lots of non-engineers trying to make bombs and messing up. But terrorists are made, not born, and they intentionally proselytize engineers because they don't want to waste time cleaning up after idiots.

    4. Re:Aptitude by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 5, Funny

      There are millions of engineers in this country that aren't going around blowing stuff up and killing people.

      right. that's management's job.

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      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    5. Re:Aptitude by east+coast · · Score: 5, Funny

      Just look at Faisal Shazad, the guy from Connecticut who tried to blow up Times Square. He tried to build his bomb with a toy clock and M80 firecrackers. He had a business degree.

      In all fairness, it was a very economical bomb.

      --
      Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
    6. Re:Aptitude by somersault · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yeah, I expect it depends how you define "terrorist". If it's "someone who causes havoc by blowing stuff up", then it seems rather desirable to have some kind of technical training. If you extend terrorist acts to suicide sprees with a gun for example, does the ratio hold?

      If you restrict "terrorists" to the category of "people who have successfully blown stuff up", then the headline is kind of like saying "why are professional drummers often good at banging things rhythmically together?"

      I tried to RTFA but it's been Slashdotted, so if they do have a really wide definition of terrorism then I agree that it makes for a decent question. The answer is probably something obvious like the fact that engineers are generally relatively clever and technically capable, but not great at socialising.

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      which is totally what she said
    7. Re:Aptitude by Darth_brooks · · Score: 5, Funny

      The difference between engineering majors and business majors:

      The part of the flowchart that says "then a miracle occurs" is a joke to engineering majors. For business majors, it's a required step that makes perfect sense.

      --
      There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
    8. Re:Aptitude by Thanshin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The bombs dropped on Japan in WWII weren't just the products of scientists, you know...it's hard to build a bomb with a crowbar.

      The bombs dropped on Japan were the end result of a country wide effort that implicated people from every (useful) discipline.

      I agree that a matematician or a physicist can have a deeper impact than almost any other professional. But right after them come the rulers, high level politicians, economists, etc.

    9. Re:Aptitude by barzok · · Score: 5, Funny

      There have been news articles about terrorist organizations specifically recruiting engineers for their skills so they can build weapons. This is not some coincidence of psychology, it is a fact of necessity.

      I had a bunch of Iranians ask me to build them a nuclear bomb. I gave them a box full of pinball machine parts & kept the Plutonium to use as fuel for my time machine.

    10. Re:Aptitude by hedwards · · Score: 5, Funny

      It's probably because the liberal arts degree is arguable the most useful degree of the ones you listed. The other degrees are virtually useless outside the intended field, and with the science degree in particular, even within that field it's very limited.

      The other degrees set you up in a field, the arts degree sets you up to think.

    11. Re:Aptitude by johnny+cashed · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not to mention that Defense Contractors working for the United States Government are also specifically recruiting engineers who have the skills needed to build weapons which are designed to kill people.

      Imagine that. Engineers building bombs and weapons. Sometimes a noble profession, sometimes just another job.

    12. Re:Aptitude by Ubergrendle · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You are modded as funny, which is a sad reflection of the value judgment of the slashdot community. I type this from my desk as a director of IT, managing a department of 50+ computer science graduates and computer engineers -- my degreee is double major in english/history.

      My boss, who is scary smart, has a masters in philosophy.

      Sadly, technical degrees still do not provide very valuable training in the world of evaluation and judgement. "How to do this" is rarely more important that the ability to formulate an argument on why you should do it. I'd argue humanities, teaching you how to evaluate shades of gray and formulate arguments on subjects that don't have objective right/wrong answers, provide the ability to understand context -- and as a result is a better training ground for future managers and leaders.

      --
      John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
    13. Re:Aptitude by grahamd0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Is it only us Europeans these days who know that your Civil War was fought to maintain the union and not to forcefully abolish slavery?

      No, you're not.

      While that's technically correct, the political tension that led to the potential dissolution of the union was almost entirely over the issue of slavery. The south seceded because they feared the north would abolish slavery, the north fought to preserve the union, then did abolish slavery.

      Like Newtonian gravity, the simple explanation for the US civil war is inaccurate, but good enough for most people.

  2. Meaningless by elrous0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I am sure you would find that an unusually high number of non-Terrorist Asians and Middle-easterners are engineers too (compared to the west). These people are often from wealthy families in Saudi Arabia and Yemen (and a few other parts of Asia and the Middle east)--and university students in those areas are known mostly for their interests in hard science, business, and engineering. You don't see a lot of history or literature majors in those areas (when's the last time you saw a Saudi come to the U.S. to study journalism or art?).

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  3. Re:Just the kind of headlines we need by zill · · Score: 5, Funny

    Death to all infidels who do not use green on black displays! Monochrome CRT Akbar!

  4. It's simple, really by Bill+Dimm · · Score: 5, Funny

    I remember reading once that men were much less likely to engage in terrorism if they had a wife (or was it a girlfriend -- I'm too lazy to hunt down the reference). The real problem is that engineers can't get laid, so they become terrorists. So, ladies, for the sake of world peace, sleep with an engineer.

  5. Maybe because terrorism is mostly engineering? by mrogers · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I think this can be answered by looking at how the question is framed. The question doesn't ask why politically radical people are likely to be engineers. It asks why that subset of politically radical people who decide that the best solution to political problems is through the direct application of technology are likely to be engineers. Well guess what? That subset of any group that tries to solve every problem by applying technology probably contains a lot of engineers.

    It's unfortunate for the world that most problems can't be solved that way. But that doesn't stop a lot of technically adept people from trying.

  6. And Creationists by Epeeist · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As Bruce Salem notes those who support creationism and claim scientific credentials tend to be engineers - http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Salem_hypothesis

  7. Well if I were going to guess by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It would be that Middle Eastern culture seems to value engineering as a "real" degree and many others as not. So the bight students are forced in to engineering degrees, like it or not. My freshmen year I met a guy like that. Hated engineering but his government was sponsoring him to come to the US and learn it so he had no choice. In China you actually see this go further in that more or less everyone in the government is an "engineer" now I put that in quotes because they have lots of degrees that we wouldn't call engineering that they do. Basically the word is what matters. If you are an "engineer" you are good to go. However if you get the same kind of degree but are not an engineer, well then too bad for you.

    Our engineering college sees more foreign grad students from a few places than any other place. It isn't like it is the only "hard science" college. Computer science, chemistry, optics, pharmacy, then are in different colleges. However only we award "engineering" degrees. Get a masters in Chemistry and it is just that, it is not Chemical Engineering. That title of "engineer" seems to be the only thing acceptable to many.