Interesting People mailing list archives
Re: Holy War! Researchers say EEs have a 'terrorist mindset'
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 16:34:43 -0800
________________________________________ From: Bob Frankston [bob37-2 () bobf frankston com] Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 10:03 AM To: David Farber; 'ip' Cc: 'Dewayne Hendricks' Subject: RE: [IP] Holy War! Researchers say EEs have a 'terrorist mindset' Putting this together with the other note about the UK government trying to ban "hacker tools" I can't help but be very suspicious. It reminds me of correlations from the 60's that showed the milk drinking to be a precursor to drug use. When I see a sentence like "the absolute number is tiny but ...". Perhaps I can find a correlation between the lack of an engineering mindset and the lack of understanding of cause and effect? People want simple answers and people want to publish papers. Perhaps there is a correlation there too. -----Original Message----- From: David Farber [mailto:dave () farber net] Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 03:18 To: ip Subject: [IP] Holy War! Researchers say EEs have a 'terrorist mindset' Begin forwarded message: From: dewayne () warpspeed com (Dewayne Hendricks) Date: January 29, 2008 10:24:51 PM EST To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <xyzzy () warpspeed com> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Holy War! Researchers say EEs have a 'terrorist mindset' [Note: This item comes from friend Ken DiPietro. DLH] Holy War! Researchers say EEs have a 'terrorist mindset' Junko Yoshida (01/28/2008 10:07 AM EST) URL: <http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205920319> MANHASSET, N.Y. " Is there a thread that ties engineers to Islamic terrorism? There certainly is, according to Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog at Oxford University, who recently published a paper titled, "Engineers of Jihad." The authors call the link to terrorism "the engineer's mindset." The sociology paper published last November, which has been making rounds over the Internet and was recently picked up by The Atlantic, uses illustrative statistics and qualitative data to conclude that there is a strong relationship between an engineering background and involvement in a variety of Islamic terrorist groups. The authors have found that graduates in subjects such as science, engineering, and medicine are strongly overrepresented among Islamist movements in the Muslim world. The authors also note that engineers, alone, are strongly over-represented among graduates who gravitate to violent groups. However, contrary to popular speculation, it's not technical skills that make engineers attractive recruits to radical groups. Rather, the authors pose the hypothesis that "engineers have a 'mindset' that makes them a particularly good match for Islamism," which becomes explosive when fused by the repression and vigorous radicalization triggered by the social conditions they endured in Islamic countries. But what is the engineer's mindset? The authors call it a mindset that inclines them to take more extreme conservative and religious positions. A past survey in the United States has already shown that the proportion of engineers who declare themselves to be on the right of the political spectrum is greater than any other disciplinary groups-- such as economists, doctors, scientists, and those in the humanities and social sciences. The authors note that the mindset is universal. Whether American, Canadian or Islamic, they pointed out that a disproportionate share of engineers seem to have a mindset that makes them open to the quintessential right-wing features of "monism" (why argue where there is one best solution) and by "simplism" (if only people were rational, remedies would be simple). ------------------------------------------- Archives: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com ------------------------------------------- Archives: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Current thread:
- Holy War! Researchers say EEs have a 'terrorist mindset' David Farber (Jan 30)
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- Re: Holy War! Researchers say EEs have a 'terrorist mindset' David Farber (Jan 30)
- Holy War! Researchers say EEs have a 'terrorist mindset' David Farber (Jan 31)
- Re: Holy War! Researchers say EEs have a 'terrorist mindset' David Farber (Jan 31)