EEs have terrorist mindset, Oxford University paper suggests

We must often come to your blog)) is interesting

"EEs have terrorist mindset, Oxford University paper suggests" interesting idea Edison and Tesla as terrorist? well we could find similar mindset with more foundation between "Wallstreeters" and the mafia, don''t you think so?

There are many anti-social, sociopaths in this world. What makes Engineers different is their skill level. A disturbed engineer is a dangerous person. An example would be the nut who killed his ex-wife, her family and tried to blowup the house with a homemade fuel-air bomb.

The "paper" is not worth the material it is written on. Remember readers, this is likely the product of repressed Oxford public-school, horrah-henries studying a mickey-mouse degree in sociology, with clearly too much time on their hands. The authors are probably engineering rejects; this being their vain attempt to exact revenge on their more intelligent engineering contempories. Not buying this at all guys... good luck socialising;)

I am not surprised that two people researching in a field as academically non-rigorous as sociology would make such a hypothesis. Of course engineers are more likely to be labeled as extremist. I would rather say they just happen to have a more realistic and polarized view, because think about it - they understand logic, what is scientifically correct, and are less likely to be influenced by students of other disciplines who are so open-minded their brains have fallen out. Add to that the effort required to become an engineer, and compare it to those who study psychology, business, or even something as subjective as law, and they are paid less than all of them - they are more likely to be discontent and therefore develop strong views.

Most likely, the Ismalist recruiters are heavily recruiting students involved in the sciences. How else are they going to build the weapons to attack us. They need only "upgrade" 1 in a 1,000 from Ismalist to Jihadist. I never could understand why we educate the buggers anyway. What has Islam ever done FOR the America, Europer, Japan or other modern society? Name one major contribution of the 20th or 21st century!

This wonderful paper is proof positive of the lack of correlation between education and wisdom, i.e. Literacy and Insanity are not mutually exclusive!

Silly paper. Jihadist societies, and the industrial West, turn to their engineers when they want the physical world changed, because engineers are the ones who understand the laws of physics and have the drive to build and create solutions to make the changes that others want. There are far more engineers (like me) who want to see the Jihadists defeated than who want to see them succeed.

the only problem is, that that kind of papers could be taken seriously by people, which are even large idiots

I always though being a suicide bomber is the height of stupidity. That they feel their life is not worth the $100 of parts, including the cell phone, needed to make a remote detonator. Or $10 for a timer. Something any EE, electronics tech or bright high school student on the planet can do. Thus all EEs and techs better all be watched and monitored by Homeland Security. Think how many jobs this will create for the unskilled.

Correlation does not prove cause. How can you write something like this and still be a respected member of your academic community? Well, I suppose I do not really know whether or not he/she is respected. Look at the facts: Engineers have the schooling and the expertise to drive technology forward. So when a government needs new technology for war, do they go to people with business degrees?? No! They hire engineers. When extremist groups need members who can construct their weapons, would the send them off to study economics?? No! I mean come on. Wouldn''t you expect this to be the case. I think you are looking at this from a backwards point of view. It should instead be viewed in the following way: ENGINEERS ARE NOT TERRORISTS, RATHER, TERRORISTS ARE BECOMING ENGINEERS. The greater number of Electrical engineers ties in perfectly with all of this. Advances in electronics have skyrocketed in recent years, and have made all kinds of other advances possible. (Plus, weapons use electronic equipment)

I had an epiphany on this subject listening to new Muslims who taking ?Now that you?ve converted, this is what it means to be a Muslim? classes. I heard a couple of men described how much they appreciated that for them Islam simplifies and codifies difficult social behavior with rigid behavioral guidelines. ?Wow, how ?Aspergerish?!?, I thought. It is sufficiently established that Asperger?s Syndrome usually presents with elevated technical aptitudes and with attraction to technical professions. Perhaps the basic autistic deficit in social abilities coupled with the Asperger?s frustrated cravings for social acceptance causes a similar draw to rigid religious sects (or to social or political proxies for religion). This is to suggest that a common developmental disorder results in an attraction to both engineering and strongly codified religious, political, or social organizations....* So, engineers don?t have a terrorist mindset, to suggest so is a cum hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Rather, it seems there exists a spectrum of developmental disorders that seeks comfort or finds security in both engineering and rigid (meaning terror-based) sub-cultures. The two attractions are coincident effects of a common cause, rather than cause and effect as was proposed *... or the Society for Creative Anachronism.

i wonder what they were smoking when they wrote this

"...terrorist managment group...". MBAs.

May be I am not an engineer, because I am leftist. Maybe the terrorist operational branch are engineers, but the terrorist managment group must be graduated from business or social studies or politicians.

If I were a people person, I would be interested in people's clothes, and the car they drive, and how beautiful their house is, and all that stuff. Instead I'm interested in meachanisms for concentrating, storing, and expending energy, whether it's for communications, entertainment, transportation, or heat and light. There are a bunch of really dumb people that can't understand why this is important. They need to be moved out of the way so that the smart people can achieve their objectives.

This article is hogwash. Utter bushwah. The reason the uber-radicals are engineers is because Islamic radicals choose sciwence and engineering degrees in order to better undo what they see as the heart of the west.

The only profession more capable of utter destruction are economists.

this is such BS...what drivel is coming out of Oxford...correlation does not mean causation...this is totally bogus....the writer should statistically have some proof..his conclusions are ridiculous to say the least and there isn't a thread of truth to this nonsense...

One group I like terrorizing is Oxford academics.

This is the biggest piece of crock I read in 2008.

You shall all be pwned by civil engineering jihadists, o nations of infidels!

Engineers make things happen. Anything, good or bad, happens because of engineers. So, what''s the big deal about this finding?

Yasser Arafat, civil engineering

*www.engology.com* I don''t think that much more damage can be done to the profession since it is at an all time low due to outsourcing, the importation of cheap labor, etc. What we need is an Engineer-terrorist who might put the skids under the Corporates!!

Most people these days are bent on restricting activity whereas engineers try to change things. No surprises that some adopt radical ways of acheiving that. Real concern here is what this document has done to our professions rating on some homeland security computer. Stay at home folks.

If Leonardo da Vinci were alive today he would be considered a terrorist.

We're reading the wrong magazine. Soldier of Fortune advertises an "engineer oriented" T-Shirt: "Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms: who'se bringing the chips?".

See * High Profile Engineers* Link on website, *engology.com*

Odai Hussein ( Assassinated ): Engineer , Journalist , Alleged Torturer , Son of Lawyer Sadam Hussein, President of Iraq. Osama bin Laden : Engineer , Billionaire, and Alleged International Terrorist Leader . Osama Bin Laden - Engineer and Terrorist ' - Interview by Robert Fisk Gulbuddin Hekmatyar : Engineer , Warlord and an Alleged International Terrorist . Khalid Shaikh Mohammed : Engineer, and Alleged International Terrorist . Yahya Ayyash ( Assassinated ) : Engineer, and Alleged International Terrorist . Abu Hamza : Self-claimed Engineer, Egyption-born Islamic Cleric and Alleged Supporter of International Terrorism .

When I read Nuts and Volts, I see books titled "Projects for the Evil Genius". Sounds like whoever wrote the report was watching too much Back to the Future.

This study is certainly flawed. One of the major flaws is the false underlying assumption by the authors which is indicated by this quote: "This is all the more puzzling for engineers are virtually absent from left-wing violent extremists and only present rather than over-represented among right-wing extremists" I infer from this quote that the authors believe that radical Islam is a left-wing violent extremist group. This may well be because many far left groups have struck alliances with radical Islamists. It may also be because many on the left have become apologists for radical Islam. The truth is that radical Islam is arguably the most conservative movement ever to appear on our planet. When the left allies with, apologizes for or protects radical Islam, it indicates how shallow the left has become. This paper is flawed by a faulty assumption of the authors.

Bwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh,haa! If they were not so insulting ethinically, they would almost be to funny. But then considering the source, i.e., a University named after a shoe. What should we expect?

Strange, there actually have been very few college campus shooters; but several (most?) are/were engineering or technical students? // University of Texas at Austin massacre 1966 Charles Joseph Whitman, aka, ?the tower Shooter? mechanical engineering architectural engineering // Concordia University massacre 1992 Dr. Valery Fabrikant, mechanical engineering // École Polytechnique Massacre, 1989 Marc Lépine electronics technology, engineering // University of Iowa shooting 1991 Gang Lu physics // Virginia Tech massacre 2007 Seung-Hui Cho, business information technology // Dawson College shooting 2006 Kimveer Gill Shot engineering students

This study is flawed. I work with and know scores of engineers who are either Christian, Hindu, non-religous or Jewish. As far as I know none of us belong to any radical groups. This is a case where individuals who happen to be engineers become radicalized.

I think I''ve just been terrorized! And it wasn''t by an engineer....oh what''ll I do, what''ll I do.......hey, why are my co-workers looking at me like that? HEY! Give me that article - whose passing that around? Where''s the door? BLOCKED! Where''s the window? TOO HIGH! Come on Dave, think, think, you''re an engineer, heck what would a terrorist do? YES! Push the button and take ''em all out! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM....... Can I have my virgins now?

The matter of fact is even terrorist want to recruit intelligent people who can actually do things. That is why not so many are from oxford.

Relax guys. Looks like somebody is just jealous. Probably tried but flunk his EE exam.

We should take this to heart because we now have a way to eliminate terrorist, by simply eliminating all engineering courses of study in all schools.

I would have thought that most EEs would be thrilled to go from geek to radical in 80 easy pages. Makes me worry about non-Muslims though, there's no telling where their radicalism will take them :o)

Did you see the results of the sociologist survey done by the engineers? Apparently most of them are deluded sociopaths who jump to the wrong conclusions, based on a weak grasp of reality and poor problem solving ability. This paper is a pure cry for help from an attention seeking imbalanced fruitcase.

Perhaps we would be better served if these people channeled their efforts into 'researching' the types who convince others to become terrorists. They are certainly not Engineers.

Its a gud job Im stoooopid ! But it does seem anyone that has ideas or thoughts that go against the general opinion is instantly considered a threat or radical, maybe even a conspiracist (? if that was a word). so much for freedom of speech and thought...

Not the first time I've heard this. Possibly the same source via a different route. And boy, do you all sound defensive about it. Perhaps because there may be a grain of truth in it? As an engineer myself, I've met a fair number of... the socially challenged among our numbers and it seems like everytime there's a report of peeping toms, molesters, etc it seems that it's an engineer - coincidence?

LOL! See what happens to us when we question the actions of the Bible!!! Scurrred, theyz all scurrrred. Anyone who questions authority is now associated with the US's #1 hated culture (next to terrorism) Muslims. I'm gonna file this one with Iraq's weapons of mass destruction facts...

On page 67 of your report: Frustration with the personal and collective consequences of failed economic development is the most plausible gun powder, the absence of which would have been sufficient to prevent the overrepresentation of elite degree graduates among Islamic radicals, as it did prevent it among Western groups and in those which emerged in highly developed Singapore. Note the saying "most plausible gun powder". If I would have turned this in to my 12th grade english class, I would have been downgraded severely. Does the author intend to be taken seriously, or has he like many of the socialogy and humanities majors I have met, spent many a nite smoking the green tobacco, and drinking lattes? You enhance the reputation that humanities had at my college. You guys are dumb due in large part that you most difficult class is not as hard as engineers most simple courses, say Elementary circuits or even C++. Dont like engineers? Dont fly, drive, cook, read at night, drink pasturized products. Build an outhouse next to your yurt.

I am an EE whose radical philosophy was once that of the founding fathers of the USA. If we were in a war, I would be one heck of an asset- wait, we are in a war. Hey, maybe people will use me to find innovative ways to defeat the enemy- wait, they do use me that way. I suppose each side needs engineers to wage a war effectively, because psychologists do a darned poor job of building solutions to stop the enemy. That may be because they are busy writing silly studies about engineers being recruited far more than folks with useless skills. Maybe we should all focus on supporting engineers with our values from our culture so we can win? Nah--- too easy.

Well, the Uni research is just about some little finding for the edu level of the terrorist only. However, the title of this article seems stereotyping all the IT/Electrical Engineers... may be because the editor wants to catch the eyes of those engineers who are not aware of their basic roles and code-of-ethnic (to solve technical problems and make better living environment for everyone)

Monkeys eat bananas. Men eat bananas. Thus all men are monkeys? After this kind of stories, I am worried about stuff which obviosuly comes with bananas.

This sociology paper from the University of Oxford, presented to the public, is an affront to all engineers, which are working hard to give a better life to the people of this world. First of all, this sociology paper contains a classic statistical trap: even if a statistic or report would say that all violent people are engineers, it does not declare that all engineers are violent - because the opposite is the truth. This I learned in my first year statistics. For clarification: If every one who has cancer would be an engineer, that would not declare that every engineer has cancer, wouldn''t it? Second, this sociology paper only reports about Islamic terrorists. Table 12, "Graduates and engineers in non-Islamic radical groups", Page 31, says that there are nearly no engineers in non-Islamic radical groups! Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses!

Hal, You dont mind creating a bunch of speculation on mental disorders causative effects in Terrorism. Do you think that people of Islam have more birth defects if they believe in Jihad. Heres the answer, Jihad is mainly a small subset of Islamic people, the majority of which are good. We should ban liberal arts majors

The thing which should worry us is the poor and decreasingly level of quality of this kind of "studies", pretended to be scientific. The author seems to forget the elementary principle that in science (I assume he believes sociology is a science), statistics can not be used as proof. Depending on how the data is gathered, anything can be "proven" in principle. But what a nice opportunity for a "researcher" to write such a paper...

When I was in 6th grade, my teacher was upset that I was good at math. Now I see a paper written by someone that has an advanced degree, but its not scientific, and overlooks a plethora of data. I must be Autistic, I felt that getting tattoed and drinking in college was a waste of time. I was called unconvential, and antisocial. I honestly look at my compatriots who did want to bother with science degrees, and wonder about their character.

I would like to see someone try and accuse me of having terrorist tendancies. I take pride in my independent mindset and it is one of the things that led me to obtain both my engineering and mathematics degrees.

Well about autism, i wonder if it is the effect of engineering profession. In general, engineers,medical people are supposed to spend lot of times at universities on their studies, which cut them off from social life. It should be more problem in western world where family life is not more common. I consider myelf lucky to be from pakistan, with vibrant and healthy social life which helped me to have social contacts, and social life alongwith highly demading semesters. No wonder we have far less austistics and socially strange people that i find here in west.

Dear Mr. Gambetta, I have surveyed part of your paper on the correlation and relationship of engineers in terror groups. I am an engineer, and several of my engineering friends have noticed traits that the Terror groups are showing. We engineers refer to the terror groups as ?Venture Capitalist Groups for Terror?. That is that these are small groups of people really are, with funding and skills sets needed to wage hidden battle against the US, UK, Spain etc. There are many facets of why I consider this appropriate to call these groups venture capitalist, including finding funding from key supporters, having a plan to action, planning and execution of the plans in a manner that creates the maximum impact for the minimum amount of money, low bureaucracy, short timelines, hidden from public view, use of the internet to broadcast propaganda, etc. Rather than suggest that engineers have a mindset for terror, I observe that for a small group to have such a large impact, they must be as smart and driven as engineers. This is to say, that there are many non science majors that believe in the gods of murder, but engineers are by nature driven to action, and have much greater skills that other degrees who don?t make products, or goods. If the Jihadists were liberal arts majors, they?d be too lazy to do this, would quit, would not have the drive or vision, or would sit around talking about it. To have a vision and to have the ability to conduct a difficult task is an engineer?s trait. In fact engineers can have more vision than most other peoples in society and contribute disproportionately. Many great bold visionary leaders had a ?Engineers Mindset?, bit it Churchill, General Patten, the Wright Brothers, Nicolas Telsa, Henry Ford, Faraday, Cavendish, ? these leaders changed the world for the better, and we live better than Kings of the yesteryear because of these individuals. Where you paper missed the point is that currently, the Jihadist spend $1000 on a bomb and it destroys a $1M dollar tank, the US spends billions to address terror that costs the Terror Venture group, $100K, there is a disconnect on the efficiency of the small Venture Capitalistic Terror groups, and the big US/UK DOD who follows the Geneva convention and outspends the Terrorist by about 1,000:1. If you would factor into this the financial differences in Jihad Venture Capitol vs. the US military costs, and the characteristics of the Engineers skillset compared to other skills, the argument that engineers are more prone to terror is inverted. To further back up my claims, please review the past history of the Mongols, of the Huns, - you will find men of the same ?Venture Capito? traits listed in 1 above. Were they like engineers, yes ? but only because others would not or could not do the work. In summary I find your paper not accurate in the understanding of what makes and engineer, and why mainly engineers can do hard tasks: 1. If the US and other nations would enlist more engineers in the fight against Terror, we would increase the likelihood of finding and defeating the Jihadist Venture groups. 2. Engineers in general have a desire to do a greater good. Most of the good technology we now enjoy comes from a minority of engineers and production workers. 3. Engineers do not have a tendency towards Jihadism, rather, it takes smart and fast workers at a small firm to make big noticible changes ? this means engineers. 4. If you take a survey of Islamic males not facist or in the middle east, the engineers will sympathize less with the Jihadist, thus proving the above arguments, orthogonally. 5. It is the non hard science majors who have allowed facism and other distorted types of mindsets to gain a stronghold. Liberal arts majors want to be protected, and expect engineers to do it while they write books, paint poorly, and talk on their phones. As usual the engineers will be called to fix what the slackers have distorted. As an engineer I have a viewpoint that its mandatory to work in good faith with all people to create benefits to society. I have worked with all sorts of other professions, but I see a trait in non-science majors to not work in good faith to the same extent, to game the working environment for their own interest. In Engineers this is remarkably not the case, as I have observed. I wont delve into the terror within large companies at this point. I encourage you to take some wideband and accurate data and consider some of the data that was not brought forth in your paper. I would reject you paper as not only incomplete, but flawed as to its rationale starting from the bottom up. For if we are to address Jihadism, it will be engineers, men and women in the military, who solve the problem.

...and schizophrenia; and that among highly educated people with developmental disorders there are more engineers.

This roughly coincides with what I have been interested in lately. Engineers are recognized for higher rates of Asperger?s Syndrome and Autism. Autistic children are twice as likely as other children to have an engineer for a father, for example. Asperger?s Syndrome and Autism generally feature problems with Procedural/Implicit Memory with the attendant difficulty of doing things the same way ?normal? people do. That is, engineers are more likely to fall outside social norms for getting along with other people. I think it is more reasonable to consider that terrorists are more likely to display developmental disorders, particularly ADD, ADHD, Asperger?s Syndrome, Autism, and schizophrenia

How couold this be possible! Everyone KNOWS that Postal Workers are by far the most violent!!! The radicals would do far better recruiting at Post offices!!! Seriously, what a bunch of nonsense...

since 100% (!!) of terrorists eat, drink, breathe ...

Very amusing??The sociologists figured out that the terrorists are not stupid and they tend to recruit intelligent people who have the ability to disrupt society if they misuse their skills.

I doubt a significant connection has been shown here. But I have sometimes seen a tendency for engineers, dentists, and others working in very clearly defined fields, to expect that there are 'simple and logical' answers to all the other problems in life. An intolerance of ambiguity, if you will.

American CEO said: This is pure hogwash! This is nothing more than an attempt to limit the ability of hard working businessmen to hire H1-B engineers and be competitive in a global marketplace! This is meant to influence politicians to pander to labor! Its an outrage! -------------------- This guy wants highly educated capable slaves. No H1-B!!!! It is exploitation! You want what a decent engineer can provide, then pay a decent wage!

It''s no wonder that the word "psychobabble" is used so often these days. And this is a prime example of it. I''m an Electrical Engineer (EE) whose family background is middle eastern. My father is also an EE and is actually from a middle eastern coountry. However, he came to the U.S. and learned engineering long before anyone heard of terrorist engineers. This is a personal afront to my family and me, and based on the most feeble evidence (basically none). This is sensationalism run amok and there is no excuse for it. If the person who wrote the paper was a psych student and turned it in, I would hope the instuctor would give him a well deserved ''F''.

AUTHOR MUST HAVE INTERVIEWED CURRENT PRESIDENT OF IRAN WHO I BELIEVE IS AN EE.

Hey, sociologists gotta eat too!!! Unfortunately they don?t produce anything substantive, so they resort to provocative theses only another pseudo-scientist would find credible. Meanwhile, we violence-prone engineers slog-on with seditionist developments such as anti-lock brakes, intelligent prothesis, pacemakers, iPODs, cell phones, hybrid autos and all manner of evil devices that sociologists revile and avoid.

As an MIT grad and electrical engineer, I think I can offer an explanation: it is only engineers who are socially inept enough to get caught. The extremists who are lawyers are probably not so easily identified.

Great! I can just see the DHS or TSA dorks take this paper seriously.

So ... may I conclude that sociologists are: A) fear-mongers? B) anti-intellectuals? C) clueless? D) evil? Not really, as a trained engineer I cannot indulge in sloppy logic and mistaken statistics. I can conclude that at least some sociologists begin to write before engaging brain.

What is the proportion of engineers in the army? Most soldiers sent on the front are by definition engaged in violent acts. They are really publishing crap these days.

I don''t think you will find too many MENA''s coming to the west for a Humanities or Women''s studies education, so what kind of terrorists do you expect?

Food for thought - are our societies "terrorists" just engineers working for defense companies? An old friend of mine who is is an engineering manager working at a defense company kept e-mailing out videos of things and people being blown up at great distances by his companies' great weapons. Kind of like IEDs without the Improvization. I finally warned him to stop sending that crap before somebody noticed his entheusiasm and he got himself fired.

I dunno, smoke and fire were always a kick for this EE (actually, EEE, so I guess I'm worse by one E). I will be glad, any time, to develop more efficient ways to eliminate (not martyr) terrorist threats either directly via ordnance or indirectly (as I have) in defensive systems. Oh, I don't mean for the highest bidder either -- I mean I'll work to eliminate terrorists against my Nation. I guess that, in the minds of those with tin foil hats and those with lofty degrees, makes me a terrorist. As for joining a jihad, sorry, I might be a protestant, but I'm not a fool. Does the term "correlation does not imply causation" trigger any thoughts? Going to a university is not an entitlement in the Middle East as it has nearly become in this country. Perhaps the lot chosen or allowed to go to college in the middle east are those most ideologically aligned to the party, open to jihadism and radical Islamic thinking from the get go. I'll bet the study does not even consider this minor little detail.

LOL @ TommyMc. Which are the professions for which one has to work really hard to enter? Doctors, Lawyers and engineers. Both Doctors and lawyers earn much more... no wonder some engineers use whatever little knowledge they have to seek 'power, glory, 72 virgins' etc..

I know mathematics professors who are hard core lefties - but would never commit violence. I know sociologists who are all in favor of extreme actions - but not anywhere THEY might be affected. Most people I know in engineering/technical disciplines are far more in touch with reality than the average adult. And now that we teach most kids "science" without any math they can be convinced of the most ludicrous myths and lies.(Rule of thumb: if the course has the word "science" in its title, it's not.)

Engineer's possessing the great knowledge of electronics and technology have the ability to do a lot of good in the world. I've worked as an electronics engineer and technician in many areas of electronics, communications, industrial electronics, information systems, defense electronic systems etc etc since graduating from the good school of DeVry Institute of Technology 31 years ago, and have the opportunity to bring alot of good to this world we live in. It's true, with this great knowledge one can do alot of wrong. I suggest everyone acquire some wisdom, learn about the other cultures and people of the world and learn to appreciate life and that you have one. Use your good skills to help solve the problems of the world and do some good for yourself, your family and your fellow man in this world.

This study does not make a good case why Sociology should be treated as a "science" and shows that one can come up with statistics to support any conclusion.

I am embarrassed to admit that I have the time to read this stuff. Engineers have a practical bent to begin with and are trained to be conservative because mistakes can be catastrophic. Is it a big surprise to find us among conservative groups? QED.

Looks like the "Mad Scientist" stereotype has again reared its ugly head ...

The correlation does not prove cause - effect relationship. This is similar to a baby statement "the wind comes from the waving trees".

I think those engineers need the 72 virgins more than anybody...

Those that know how, do it. Those who don't, teach at Universities.

I'm not prone to violence, but idiots like this author seem interested in polarizing people.

I agree with Haider, but there may be more. Consider an engineering student who worked hard but saw the frat boys get the big money. If he is good enough, he would get a decent job. If not, maybe he is jobless. So all that hard work got him nothing. Perhaps the equivalent is at work in the Muslim world. But there the unemployment rate is probably much higher. So it would not surprise me that a lot of those with engineering backgrounds are in fact looking for something meaningful to do. Having found none, they turn their rage onto what they perceive to be ones responsible for their predicament. Anyone with facts to verify or disprove this hypothesis?

I know and have worked with many engineers who are all logical thinking and even-tempered, including myself. Like so many studies, it appears there is a possible bias toward a hidden agenda in this study.

As an engineer, I find the link interesting but certainly not actionable in any way. I think it is 'interesting' because: Engineering education always teaches us to evaluate reality against the basis of perfection (or theoretical). We add factors to account for losses due to friction, wind resistance, etc. and then seek to implement ways to minimize these losses. In addition, we are taught to 'solve problems' and, in general, we prefer not to allow emotion to cloud our judgment. As a result, I think it is fairly easy to see how an engineer might prefer the 'theoretical best' (or 'extremist / fundamentalist' depending on your perspective) of a belief system. In addition, I think it is fairly easy to see how engineers can detach themselves emotionally from a situation and identify the the most 'effective' means to achieve whatever objective they identify. After all, most machines of war have been designed and constructed by teams of engineers. I do not think it is 'actionable' because: People cannot be put into boxes like this because many other factors are involved. For example, if a terrorist mastermind were trying to set-up a terror-cell, who do you think he would try to recruit: an engineer that is trainable to carry out all sorts of nefarious missions or a 'philosopher' who could 'think' about carrying out all sorts of nefarious missions but does know difference between a screwdriver and a hammer. So, perhaps the reason engineers make up these terror cells is because other careers do not have the training / skills required.

This is pure hogwash! This is nothing more than an attempt to limit the ability of hard working businessmen to hire H1-B engineers and be competitive in a global marketplace! This is meant to influence politicians to pander to labor! Its an outrage!

Of course it could not have anything to do with recruiting could it? After all if I were a terrorist organization that wanted to attack a technological society, I would not recruit Engineers that could tell me the best way to attack their critical systems. The study is a flawed one.

Since so many scientists and engineers have been considered socially inept by others in society, should it be all that surprising to postulate that this group would be dispropotionately represented in such extreme anti-social cirles? Evil scientists in literature and the criminal hackers that work at trashing our PCs with their viruses and keyloggers are just other examples, real and imagined.

This is one of those "Duh!" conclusions. Other elite degrees such as those in the arts do not know how to design and build weapons. If you have a group of people that have gravitated to violent forms of radicalization, then in order to act on those tendencies they must have engineers to provide their hardware. If you are a PHD in Sociology you can't just run down to Bombs-r-Us and buy what you need to furtherer your crackpot views on world order. You need engineers and not more philosophers.

Perhaps the actual correlation here is people who want to blow things up study disciplines where you can learn how to blow things up. And if I was gonna be an extremist I?d study EE again, if for no reason to be able to make a time delay bomb, you know, a bomb that I don?t have to be holding in my hand when I press the trigger and make it go BOOM.

This "paper" seems to ignore the fact that to accomplish effective violent acts requires a technical mind. Thus it is obvious that a violent extremest group would recruit members that have the ability to do something real rather than just study and write "papers" AND draw rediculous conclusions based on flawed data.

I am an EE and a middle easterner, what does that make: Hard core Terrorist

I guess this would easily explain why so many MIT & Carnige-Mellon grads are Islamic Terrorists! Really, is the rest of the educated world that out of touch with engineering and physical science that they understand us that little and fear us that much? What a strange world we live in these days!

I don't see any logical explaination behind this hypothesis. It might simply be a stastical anomaly that the number of engineers in right wing extremists is significant. One aspect of social dynamics needs to be considered here as well. That is, in the eastern cultures, engineering and medicine are two of the highly emphasized disciplines of study. Most families encourage their children to be either an engineer or a MD. Children grow up with this bias and most of the decisions are made by the parents. The reason for this is a guarentee of financial freedom and social success for these two disciplines. All of the other degrees are considered washouts and do not earn the same respect or compensation as the engineers and doctors. This fact is now more prominent as we notice a significantly higher number of engineers being produced in developing countries and the Asia pacific as compared to America. This issue has been a focus of many recent IEEE magazine articles.

This paper sounds like xenophobia robed in science. Too many people from India becoming engineers? Accuse the group of having a "violent, terrorist mindset". Yank the old fear chain and watch people fall apart. Most of my co-workers are Islamic Indians. They are the salt of the earth and I have found few more polite, kind, and intelligent.

What a bunch of tripe! This person must also see the man in the moon too.

There are 275 million conspiracies to take over the world, and that's just in the United States.