Why Are Terrorists Often Engineers? 769
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."
because garbagemen don't have an aptitude for... (Score:1, Informative)
let'sface it. Just because someone's an engineer does not make them a terrorist. But to make things go boom you need to have basic electrical skills.
And.. if you are a more advanced asshole you will need to know chemistry too.
Re:Aptitude (Score:3, Informative)
Engineers design the product, then they design the process (by which the product is mass produced.) Then laborers build it.
Because terrorists become engineers. (Score:2, Informative)
I bet a disproportionate number of software developers have Computer Science degrees.
I bet a disproportionate number of CEO's have MBAs.
I bet a disproportionate number of military personnel know how to properly handle an assault rifle.
An organization is composed of the people that it recruits and has the skills that it trains its members with. Terrorist organizations need engineers to build weapons. All the terrorists that majored in History, Art, or Econ are the ones wearing the vest or being sent back to school to learn something "useful".
Oh no.... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Aptitude (Score:3, Informative)
Inadvertently causing someone's death is legally considered manslaughter, not murder. Murder requires intent to kill. It's extremely unlikely shysters like Madoff intended for anyone to die--it's just a sad consequence of their reprehensibly-selfish actions.
Re:Aptitude (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, I don't know who it originally came from. It was scribbled on the bathroom wall in the engineering labs where I earned my degree. It was particularly funny because the building where their "classes" were held was adjacent to our engineering labs, and so they would occasionally wander in and stare dumbfounded at the joke, which just made it that much more satisfying.
Re:Aptitude (Score:2, Informative)
I believe Freeman has a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from MIT. Definitely a scientist, just probably also the new guy.
Re:Aptitude (Score:3, Informative)
Sadly, technical degrees still do not provide very valuable training in the world of evaluation and judgement[sic].
I realize since you don't have an engineering degree that you are speaking out of ignorance, but the engineering process begins with evaluation and judgment. Engineers must evaluate requirements, options, goals, costs, etc., and then make judgment calls on their relative importance. In most cases, there is no single "right way" of engineering a solution. There are myriad possible solutions, and different engineers using their own judgment will select different solutions as the best.