http://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/users/gambetta/Engineers%20of%20Jihad.pdf

Warning, sit down and get something to calm you before reading this PDF.

Curious to hear what you all have to comment on this one.

Engineers have a more violent mindset than average??? Makes sense to me. I met a lot of crazy characters when I was in engineering school.

Andrew

I only managed to get half way through it before I threw jar of pickles at the monitor.

I have a few things to say about this, having graduated from a very well respected University that has graduated thousands of engineers since 1865, and I've never heard of a single one being involved in Jihad. That doesn't mean there aren't, just that if there are, they've not been caught. Lehigh engineers are that
good, but I doubt there are but a few that would be Jihadists.

Mom always reminded me that figures lie and liars figure. The research paper sounds like a vendetta written by a couple of sociology students that hate anyone that majors in physics and has some upper level math studies to their credit.

Having gone to a University with three colleges, Arts & Humanities, Business & Economics, and Engineering I have run into tech envy a lot. Primarily from accounting majors and sociology majors, this envy is rooted in mathematic inadequacies. Psychology majors and economics majors had, at that time, a higher math requirement. Many engineering wannabees left engineering when they hit the brick wall of calculus, switching to something with less of a math requirement. Interestingly enough, some economics and psychology wannabees switched to accounting and sociology because those had lower math and science requirements.
A small percentage of these folks hated anyone that understood math and science more than they did. 35 years later I've met a few of these folks in the radio and TV workplace, and rather than avoid engaging these folks, I've always explored their resentment to try and bring about a better understanding.
Not to single out any one job, it's easy to spot these kinds of people in broadcasting. Less of them now that broadcast gigs are fewer in number and reliant on much stronger technological skills. It all just underscores my point(s).

e.g. Program directors involved in a market wide loudness war that do not understand modulation percentage. Production directors that don't understand signal/noise ratio. General managers that don't understand preventative maintenance in relation to the bottom line. News photographers that don't understand the concept of battery life curves not being linear.
There are more.

Engineers rarely offend other co-workers and professionals.
I guess in some small degree, they just get even. But judging from the abstract and a few select sections of the paper I read through, I would simply point out that given enough statistical data, a bunch of jealous sociology professors/students can produce whatever result they want.

Or, in the short form,

What a bunch of fuc*ing bullshit!!

I gave it a cursory scan through and I am with Amus on the pickle chucking. If this is the kind of drivel they come up with in an institution that rich with history, it might be time for them to open a window and let a bit of air inside. Granted, Oxford has a proud tradition of refining that uniquely British trait, priggishness.

Andy, you said some great things and you certainly have the experience to back it up. This in particular stuck out, "Engineers rarely offend other co-workers and professionals. I guess in some small degree, they just get even."

The kind of revenge that I have seen engineers exact was usually well thought out, not dangerous, and funny enough to still be told over workbenches for years. Engineers in many fields are just a group of people who are brighter than most -- or simply blessed with the ability to focus themselves in a specialized way. They are still people.

What troubled me the most about the paper was the tone. Despite all of the modern footnotes and careful positioning, it fully embraces a colonial view from the heyday of the Empire: Watch out gentlemen, the smart brown ones are even more dangerous!

Thanks Missing, I guess it is a good thing for us to know about these fascists before they graduate from college. The authors used some pretty broad strokes to satiate their egos. Thank heavens these twits are still currently marooned on an island.

Ok, I'm sane then. That's about the reaction I had to this turd.

It came up on a discussion about tech and kids today -vs- back when.

> e.g. Program directors involved in a market wide
> loudness war that do not understand modulation
> percentage. Production directors that don't
> understand signal/noise ratio. General managers
> that don't understand preventative maintenance
> in relation to the bottom line.

I don't mean to derail the discussion too much here, but isn't it interesting that in all of the above examples, people who do not understand fundamental concepts about the things that they work with somehow climbed their way up into management? The scary thing is that examples like this can be found in virtually any industry.

I still haven't made it through the entire paper. I am, however, pretty disappointed about the prospect that they skewed their facts to single out a specific profession because I want to know: what is the truth? What is the makeup of terrorist organizations, and what motivates the terrorists? Are the common stereotypes of terrorists wrong? By the way, does anybody remember Maher "Mike" Hawash?

There are many pitfalls with singling out and profiling groups of violent criminals based on racial, educational and professional subsets. The biggest problem is that many terrorists are not affiliated with any particular organization. You could not find pickpockets or shoplifters based on this sort of investigation either.

After all, the average thief ranges from a desperately poor retiree, to a drug addict, to a wealthy individual who is simply thrill seeking. They are all colors of the rainbow too. I had friends in loss prevention at Nordstrom tell me that the majority of folks they busted were young people with more than enough money to pay for what they stole. They simply did it for fun.

Nobody can accuse terrorists of doing these things on a lark, so one can eliminate that as a motivation. When one examines the other factors, at what point do we see all dogma or political beliefs as dangerous? The very definition of terrorist seems to need work too. Is a mad bomber a terrorist whether he builds bombs in his shack in Montana, flies jets into buildings, or attacks a clinic in suburban Atlanta? I would say yes, but some people would not.

In this country, most serial killers are white, male, educated and fundamentalist Christian. Is it fair to follow every single person who fits that stereotype and suspect them all of such crimes? It is a slippery slope. Once one believes there is a solid profile for any crime, many innocent people become suspects, and many dangerous folks fall outside the narrow band of scrutiny.

I have not talked to them about it in a while, but my acquaintances at Intel were certainly surprised when Mike Hawash disappeared into the system. He was charged with helping the Taliban -- something that previous administrations did wholeheartedly -- and is serving 7 years in prison.

Add -- "I don't mean to derail the discussion too much here, but isn't it interesting that in all of the above examples, people who do not understand fundamental concepts about the things that they work with somehow climbed their way up into management? The scary thing is that examples like this can be found in virtually any industry."

You nailed it Alfredo -- and that topic is a mighty thread all by itself.