Engineering terror

For decades, and most particularly since Sept. 11, 2001, commentators have noted the curious prevalence of higher education amongst members of radical Islamist movements. The idea that poverty is a "root cause" of radical terrorism can no longer be put forward without attracting snickers -- at least not without some further account of why it is the brightest and educationally best-equipped in poor societies who turn to violence.

Of course, no one can be surprised that university campuses should serve as incubators of radicalism in the Muslim world, since they have served the same function here for so long. The odd thing is that the terrorists seem to have their best luck with engineers and doctors, particularly the former. At least eight of the 25 known participants in the 9/11 attacks had engineering training -- including mastermind Mohammad Atta, an architectural engineer. Of the 12 persons known to have been involved with the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, five had been to engineering schools.

In a new working paper that is attracting worldwide interest, Oxford sociologists Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog have undertaken a deeper study of Islamist movements to see if the pattern is more general. The figures turn out to be quite astonishing. Messrs. Gambetta and Hertog compiled a list of 404 violent Islamist terrorists from more than 20 groups and 30 nationalities; of these, biographical information existed in the public record for 326. A remarkable 196 members of this subsample had some post-secondary education, suggesting that at least half the terrorists in the overall sample and 69% of those with biographies were educated men. (Background rates of post-secondary enrollment in even the most advanced Muslim countries are less than 25%.)

Drilling down still further, the researchers were able to find known subjects of study for 178 of the 196 educated fanatics. Of these, a whopping 78 had studied engineering. No other type of training came remotely close; there were just 14 medical students, who made up the second-largest group. (The prominence of engineers can be observed across individual countries and terrorist groups, which restricts the chance that the effect is merely a case of a social network originating within one professional grouping.)

Why are engineers so far to the forefront of organized Islamist terror? It could be that they are considered especially attractive recruits, or naturally become more likely to be killed, caught or investigated, because they have the technical gifts to take on crucial roles such as piloting hijacked aircraft or manufacturing bombs. Yet most terrorist attacks do not require a great deal of technical sophistication. And non-Muslim terrorists drawn from the poorly educated (as is common with the Tamil Tigers and the IRA) have seemingly not lacked for destructive capability.

Messrs. Gambetta and Hertog offer data to suggest that there is a "mindset" inherent to engineers that may make them attractive candidates for Islamist recruitment. Among academics in the Western world, they are known to have the most pronounced tendency to vote conservatively, and they are the most religious. The authors' analysis does partake of some old, stale sociological nostrums about Western conservatives being "authoritarian." Still, anyone who's had engineers as friends knows they can be prone to sneering at "soft" academic disciplines, in which right answers are elusive and theoretical bases are fluid. In some ways, engineering may be the most religion-like of scholarly fields to the extent that it applies universal rules to deliver ironclad truths. The Oxford sociologists cite some interesting interviews with religiously radical engineers who describe their work as "intellectually clean" and "unambiguous," "reflecting the rationality of the One."

The great Friedrich von Hayek suggested in 1952 that engineers of his time tended, inappropriately, to see the "strict 'rational' control of processes," which works so well in a bridge deck or a factory, as a model for social organization. In a Western, mid-20th-century context, this article of faith made men ripe for recruitment by fascists or communists. In the heat of the Middle East, it may serve as the counterintuitive seed of religious jihad.

I’ve observed that Middle East leaders spend heavily to have their students learn engineering in US schools simply because there’s an immediate payoff, technically and economically, when the students return.

The Shah flooded Iranian society with tens of thousands of US-trained engineers in the 70’s trying to improve his country’s demographics. I always saw it as a practical effort by those nations to improve themselves rather than something sinister.

Except now, those engineers are unemployed and under the thumb of a 14th century regime. That's unfortunately the right kind of manpower and expertise mullahs exploit to export terror.

“Still, anyone who’s had engineers as friends knows they can be prone to sneering at “soft” academic disciplines, in which right answers are elusive and theoretical bases are fluid.”

My apologies, but as an electrical engineer I don’t think feminist studies and other “soft” academic programs even qualify as “disciplines”. (SNEER!)

Still, anyone who's had engineers as friends knows they can be prone to sneering at "soft" academic disciplines, in which right answers are elusive and theoretical bases are fluid.

You don't have to be an engineer to sneer at many "disciplines".

My apologies, but as an electrical engineer I don’t think feminist studies and other “soft” academic programs even qualify as “disciplines”. (SNEER!)

I've got your back on that one (Uber sneer!).

“My apologies, but as an electrical engineer I don’t think feminist studies and other “soft” academic programs even qualify as “disciplines”. (SNEER!)”

You can’t spell jEEhad with out “E.E.”.....

(can’t spell “gEEk”, or come to think of it “snEEr” either....)

I concur. Right now I’m about halfway done with getting my Civil Eng. degree. My efforts to convince people to take basic Newtonian physics have been in vain.

At least we still have a lot of fun bashing the liberal arts folks.

The odd thing is that the terrorists seem to have their best luck with engineers and doctors, particularly the former.

It's not at all surprising, actually. We engineers have a tendency to think of human activities as if they're engineering problems. Seriously naive in the ways of humanity.

BTW ... it seems that libertarians are heavily weighted toward the engineering/technical disciplines as well.

We engineers have a tendency to think of human activities as if they're engineering problems.

LOL Engineers have always been a problem for me (a liberal arts person. Married one, divorced him. Married another. Engineers exist on a different level from the rest of humanity. I've never seen it put quite that way, but it fits perfectly! Thanks!

r9etb wrote: “We engineers have a tendency to think of human activities as if they’re engineering problems.”

It depends on what type of activities you are talking about. Cooking food, for example, is an engineering problem. Human-human emotional interactions, however, aren’t so easy to deal with, because they don’t follow mathematical principles. Engineers generally seem to prefer to work with things rather than people.

Engineers generally seem to prefer to work with things rather than people.

Right. If you do something to "things," they respond in a consistent and predictable manner. If you try the same approach with "people stuff," -- like politics, or fund-raising, or church -- there's often no consistency within the responses of the same person, much less a broad cross-section of them.

It's why I get a chuckle whenever (especially young) engineers get into political or social-type conversations -- it's only a matter of time before they get off on an "if everybody would just ... " tangent. What they say is logical, but it's not human-compatible.

It's been my experience, too, that engineers (me included) are easily fooled by other peoples' duplicity. We really can't fathom the motives or tactics of somebody who's bent on deceit. We're credulous.

And again -- it's no coincidence that engineers are so well-represented among terrorists.

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