Researchers say EEs have a 'terrorist mindset'

Now, now. I have seen and herd about some bizarre scientific studies. This one just happens to involve engineers. When I first herd about this one I immediately thought it would involve the creative engineering mindset, the enjoyment of solving complex or seemingly almost impossible problems, a clear-cut ethical perspective and the engineers broad and natural ability to solve engineering problems in numerous fields to achieve a goal. This can all be applied to terrorism very well, after all many engineers are quite capable of designing explosive devices from scratch (including the explosives themselves), or just plain shutting a country down by targeting the weaknesses in the infrastructure which will cause far more damage and is far, far easier (it is not just me surely). I will not go into details (obviously) but that in itself makes engineers both very useful and very dangerous (as you have already stated).

This study does NOT appear to be about that at all. The problem with these studies is that you can prove anything you want (I wonder how many engineers they actually talked too and how large a sample they looked at). I say that if they looked closely they would find that pastry chiefs are the primary group targeted by terrorist groups for designing biological weapons for their cause (a background in organic science and growing biological cultures, think about it).

I will keep an eye on this thread rather than checking the "email me" box (the last thread on engineering and terrorism on a google group exceeded 10,000 posts). Hopefully the media won't make a huge deal over this. The last thing we need is another panic and fear-mongering pushing future engineers away from the field.

Have a cup of tea (I am going to).

(it is not just me surely). Nope it's not just you, I sometimes marvel at how easy it would be to paralyse vast tracts of the UK with very little effort and thank my lucky starts that, instead, the terrorists are daft enough to try and drive a 4x4 into a Scotish airport where they are assured of a good kicking.

You make some fine points..the CIA should keep a close eye on those damn pastry chefs.

And if you factor in how many engineers could wreak havoc we are probably under-represented...

Maybe I just shouldn't have even risen to the bait...

That tea is a fine idea...

I dont know about this; it might be true. I always had a bad feeling about those EEs. (Heh, Heh) Look at all the evil things they have developed, like computers, etc.

Stop sugar-coating it, cat, tell us how you really feel deep down inside!

I did bother to read the article, also the comments to it in the original forum. Apparently most of the EETimes readers are at least aghast at the article. So why isn't everyone? Well, some people actually can be befuddled by simplistic statistics. True, you can reverse-calculate statistics to 'prove' anything. True also, you can pick and choose the statistical variables you use to slant the evidence toward whatever bias you prefer. But this obviously was not published (at least it didn't have the worth to be...) in a peer-reviewed journal. So it is still so that you get what you pay for. Is it total humbug? Not necessarily. Is it good research? Not hardly.

Hi Del,

Don't get mad on this piece of sh...

Let's be creative and use this "study" pro-actively: let's forward it to president Bush (the world champion of anti-terrorism fight) together with a suggestion to surgically air strike all engineering universities in the Arab world and in the same time to ban all Muslim decent citizens of western countries from any engineering studies. Before ending his presidential mandate, this world will be terrorists-free and the dignity of our profession will be restored. Signed: a group of EEs...

I wouldn't be surprised to find this thinking at the White House.

Kafka could be alive, after all.

...with all due respect to the "STAPLES®" company, it reads like someone pushed the "STUPID" button instead of the "EASY" on their keyboard with this article.

What a piece of crock!

And a piece of tribal thinking: my kind of artsy-fartsy people would not think and do any such things!!! Being in the middle of the primaries for who will be the next president, one thing is glaringly, obviously coming out every single day.

Most of all polling is nothing, but GARBAGE. Plenty do it, with technical faults left and right, including too small samples, leading questions, questions that cannot be answered without bias, etc. Example: if only this and that person is left standing, who would you vote for? Never mind that the field is still wide, and nobody knows, which two will remain. Then going ahead, and recording your answer for this / that as a clear (not a conditional) choice from you.

With a little bending from here, not admitting your own bias there, a little data massage afterward without correcting for confounding factors, and presto, you have your own prejudice neatly proven. Or the best: do the survey a few times. Throw the disagreeable ones to the bottom of your file cabinet. Publish the remaining one you like.

And all that just from the top of my head. Think, what a wonderful chicanery we can devise when we put our collective mind to it!!!

The problem with most Statistics is that one may always find some statistics to quote to support their own slanted argument or fixed viewpoint.

In this case their Paper shows that their article and argument is a lot of baloney.

Kind Regards....

It may also be due to the range of courses acceptible to the more fundamentalist young man (Business/accounting/marketing - a bit to vocational, graphics/art/teaching - that's what women do, anything that involves critical analysis of ideas - unnecessary since all wisdom comes from the book, engineering/science/medicine - manly and acceptable). ffeJ

In the very first place, if you're planning to build a bomb to bring down a packed stadium or demolish a bridge during peak hour traffice, who better to do the design and planning than an engineer? Just think about it: if a terrorist wanted to bring a city to its knees, isn't the easiest way to do it would be to shut off its water supply? And who can do that better than an engineer in the local waterworks?

I wonder if these 2 sociologists have actually considered how the impact that their so-called "social studies" reports may actually influence impressionable young minds to become radicalized. For example, if a report emphasizes only the sufferings of Muslim women, without clearly showing that much of the oppression against them are actually carried out by Wahhabi radicals like Osama bin Laden, then wouldn't any well-intentioned young Muslim be outraged and very likely to blame non-Muslims for it since he probably won't believe his own fellow Muslims are capable of such atrocities against their own people? I should know this better than most: one of my friends was arrested as the ring-leader of a gang of JI terrorists a few years ago. He had become radicalized after receiving "religious instruction" from a Wahhabi extremist who gave him a one-sided view of current events.

Just think about it.

Aargh! Primitive and outmoded concept on a crutch! I don't believe these so called experts can honestly have read there own report! Lets examine the phrase - 'the repression and vigorous radicalization triggered by the social conditions they endured in Islamic countries.' - Have they been to these countries themselves and experienced these conditions? If not, how can they comment on the conditions? Have they made assumptions? After all, the article then quotes these origins as being - 'Whether American, Canadian or Islamic'. Yeah, right. Where in the world is Islamic? It sounds to me like a targeted test population, to me. Have they got a test result for any other group? How about Christian Nationalism? Any control group would be good.

Lets see some hard evidence, like interviews. (Again, lets not forget the random test population)

Pthhhhhhhhhhh......

This thread runs the risk of a pile-up. What's the betting it then gets pulled?

<unsubscribes, and ducks>

No takers...Although you can say it's an engineering issue...

To quote another English gentleman, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

The problem is that simply finding a correlation in data does not demonstrate cause and effect. It could very well demonstrate a coincidence. But the press and the undereducated tend to pick up a coincidence and call it truth.

I've found that the press will print anything that will sell papers and hang the truth. The undereducated are just a good example of Barnum's theory of advertising - there's a sucker born every minute.

I also note in the report that "proportion of engineers who declare themselves to be on the right of the political spectrum is greater than any other disciplinary groups" and then apparently continue to bash a perceived point of view. It would seem that the whole report is another luddite attempt to disparage technology and a dissenting political viewpoint by equating both with terrorism.

I suppose somebody's tax money was used to fund this drivel. Unfortunately we will now have to waste time refuting the claims or expect them to be held as truth by some segment of the population.

Hi Eric, Nobody is wasting their time refuting rubbish like this, precisely because this type of drivel is held as truth by some sections of the population. Thankfully there are forums such as CR4 that can inject a little sanity into the discussion.

The only thing I can say with out giving this article to much brain power is, what a hunk of bull.

Engineers are terrorist? Cool I can live with it. Now I know why I have all those evil ideas.

Oh don't tell anyone we (engineers) are slowly taking over the world.

Who saw "Falling Down"?

Having lived through one terrorist attack perpetrated by an EE (not a Muslim), and having noticed myself the often extremely conservative religious and political opinions of some of my coworkers, I have little trouble believing this.

I, myself, have almost no terroristic inclinations.

Based on this, I find that cats have a terrorist mindset..

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?cl=6160204

But they also seem to Rock!

To All: One of the things my Grandsire taught me is that there 4 types of lies: White Lies, Damn Lies, Statistics and Opinion Polls.

Dragon

I must simply put it this way : I have always promised to use my powers for good.

And will continue to do so until one of the other groups, that they should be concerned with try something, Then I recommend everyone to please step behind the yellow line for safety , it won't be pretty.

Logix101, Does this mean that the term "blast radius" comes into effect. And if so you will have my support.

Dragon

With out the fear of being on some watch list....we will say as our great Forefathers once said to "not fire till you see the whites of their eyes!" works for me from around 1000 yards away. Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. I thank you for your support, safety first!

Is there a thread that ties Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog at Oxford University to Islamic terrorism ? There certainly is, The authors engineered a mindset using illustrative statistics and qualitative data to conclude that there is a strong relationship between the sociology paper published last November and their involvement in a variety of Islamic terrorist groups. why argue where there is one best solution) and if only people were rational, remedies would be simple.

Hey poetic license, I almost used their words in order. A statistical truth.

Sad that it is less BS than the article. If true I would have stayed in demolition. Chaos improves what. To build and fix creates.

I challenge their cause and effect. Islamic terrorist may become EEs to further their goals but EEs don't think like Islamic terrorist. Can you find similarities in the thinking between Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog and Islamic terrorist groups? Many.

The authors pose the hypothesis that "engineers have a 'mindset' of "monism" and by "simplism". And this too will change because change is the universal constant. There is no best solution only best known solutions.

Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog go heal your selfs, oh ya you can't you have to see a shrink because your "truths" are not self evident.

Lie to someone with the color of truth from a position of authority is a great sin. I know you don't believe in sin or evil or Karma, but how do you justify your conviction?

How do I really feel? Psychology is a left handed art based on the justifications of a sex offender.

I apologize if I offended anyone except the authors above.

Brad

Surely this thing is getting over-complicated. Engineering is a constructive force that can be used for good or evil. Terrorism is a destructive force that can only be used for evil. Sure engineers can be terrorists, but that doesn't mean that all terrorists are engineers.

It seems that the original authors were disguising the BS with complexity - but it's still BS

Totally agreed. What the so-called study doesn't say is how many of the "interviewed" EE terrorists have fake diplomas. Do they know what Gaudeamus Igitur is? Or have they been confirmed by a recognized academic institution? I would like to see their reaction after a study saying that Oxford is producing more terrorists than MIT...

I found a dead horse and thought it would be good to beat it again. I ran across an article from Design News 04/28/08 tittled "Engineering Terrorism Link" the info is pretty much the same as before . I am just wondering, how do you fill out a survey for that interview , "IF you are an engineer and like to destroy things , with out being in a controlled environment and not taking any data points or are concerned with the out come of your experiment you may be a terrorist." My apologies to any one who has dismissed this blog , but it seems to not have gone away...yet.

"IF you are an engineer and like to destroy things , with out being in a controlled environment and not taking any data points or are concerned with the out come of your experiment you may be a...

...member of a Marine Combat Engineering Brigade (or a SeaBee...)!?!

Ya doesn't HAS ta be a terrorist ta like making stuff dissappear in a cloud of smoke...

So could this be called some type of "occupational profiling"? Can we then ass-sume that according to the research, that not all engineers are terrorist...but all terrorist are engineers? We all like to see things change states some more violently than others. Moose and I have spoken of this subject a few times, and I think we all can agree that sound, color and smoke is a great way to start the day. And after reading the post I made yesterday, again , I do think it is some fodder for a Jeff Fox worthy joke.

I don't know a better name for it than "occupational profiling", but it is clearly not logical to state that either all engineers are terrorists NOR all terrorists are engineers. Some engineers are terrorists, some terrorists are engineers, but nothing else can be said on the subject.

You may be a redneck if: yo' momma catches you out behind the barn beatin' the crap outta Jeff Foxworthy fo' tellin' all them damn dumb redneck jokes...

However, I used to be into sadism, bestiality, and necrophilia. Then I realized I was just beating a dead horse, so I moved on.

OK, back on topic...I think one might be better able to make a case for something like "all psychological researchers have mental stability problems" than "all engineers are terrorists". It certainly appears to be a sign of some form of mental irregularity to find terrorists under every bedstead (it used to be the commies, remember? before that, I think it was anarchists...).

The case has been made for "wanna build a bomb? recruit an engineer" making sense. But the way most of these guys work it from what I can see, read, and have been told is "wanna build a bomb? incorporate bomb-building training into the mahdrassa" (sp? Koranic school). They recruit idealistic youth, train them to be jihadistas, teach them enough to fulfill their needed role as terrorists, and send 'em across the wire.

I see you have not traded in your funny bone to obtain an education, Thank you for that. "However, I used to be into sadism, bestiality, and necrophilia. Then I realized I was just beating a dead horse, so I moved on. " That was too funny!!! I suppose the wording for the recruiting would be "indoctrination" they do how ever give you the choice to wear em' or build em' ! So the smart ones build them. Thank you for joining me in this necro- equestrian sadism. We do things a bit differently in the south, the stills are portable and the black powder is a form of currency!

"We do things a bit differently in the south, the stills are portable and the black powder is a form of currency!"

Damn straight!

And just because I did get some eddykayshun does not mean that I can't see the funny side of what I'm looking at. Heck, I laugh at Foxworthy too, even when he's saying things about my upbringing and lifestyle.

But on the topic of discussion, I think the recruiting is called whatever the term for baptism is, and the education is the indoctrination. Sadly, sadly, you can see the same process at work in the more fundamentalist Christian sects too. They ALL scare the p-waddin' outta ME, son!

Yeah, totally on-topic, but you forgot to un-check the off-topic box, so you'll have to hope for at least 4 more on-topic votes (I gave you 1) to register it as otherwise.

So electrical, civil, and IT engineers are the worst of the worst, 'other', meccies and architeccies are second-tier, chem, industrial (time-management studies), and urban planners are pacifists. According to the psycho-babble crowd, anyway...