Are Engineers More Likely To Be Terrorists, And If So, Why?

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I met a student, I was on his examining committee, who had been a civil engineer for years (he was getting his undergraduate degree late in life). He was politically conservative and cynical about academia. He needed the degree in order to get a major promotion, hated the idea of going back to college, but he held his nose and did it anyway.

Part of the examination process involved asking the student how the completed degree program had changed is life. In this student’s case, one might expect the answer to have focused on the simple fact of getting a doubling in salary and promotion to the head of a major department because he now qualified, having the sheepskin in hand. But that was not his answer. I paraphrase:

“I hated the idea of taking all these politically correct courses this program requires. Then I took the courses, and realized that I’d been a narrow minded asshole most of my life. I’m still probably a narrow minded asshole, but not as much, and I appreciate things more. So-called ‘Liberal Arts’ is good for people like me. Thanks for making me do it.”

That program, by the way, was very heavy in liberal arts. Students would spend considerable effort, typically at the graduate level, focusing on their area of expertise, which was often quite developed in these older students with vast life experience. But at the same time they had to meet all the university liberal arts requirements, plus ones we added that consisted mainly of self reflection and integration of the other liberal arts study with each other and their core area.

The vast majority of engineers are not jihadist terrorists or suicide bombers.

But it turns out that among jihadists and suicide bombers, an alarmingly disproportionate share are engineers.

This is covered in Engineers of Jihad: The Curious Connection between Violent Extremism and Education by Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog. I’ve not read that book, but I have read Does Engineering Education Breed Terrorists? by Dan Berrett summarizing the research (hat tip Maggie Koerth-Baker).

(I’ll probably get the book and report back later.)

The researchers seem to have nailed down the data suggesting that more than expected terrorist bad guys have engineering backgrounds. All the objections I was thinking of as I read the article, related to how this apparent bias might have resulted as an artifact of the data, were addressed.

The explanations provided are multiple, and likely, several apply.

One possible expansion, which the data suggest explains part, but not most, of this phenomenon, is the concept of relative deprivation. You put sweat and tears and maybe some blood into developing skills and raising your own prospects, but then you fail because of external or contextual forces. Many of these engineer-terrorists became engineers in societies where they could not actually get jobs or status as engineers, and thus may feel bitter and disenfranchised. In countries where engineers do get high status and have a high employment rate, but otherwise provide a good number of terrorists (like Saudi Arabia) the percentage that are engineers is low. Looking across the data, this concept seems to explain part of the resulting pattern.

Another explanation has to do with the sort of person who becomes an engineer. I’m not going to go into this psychological argument here (read the article or book), though it is key to the discussion. I just feel this is pretty complex stuff and I’ll avoid forming an opinion until I see the book. Suffice it to say that the sort of mind set that makes one more likely to be drawn to engineering, or succeed in engineering training, has features that for a small number of individuals may lead to the determination to go blow oneself up and take a few perceived enemies with you.

That argument involves selection of those who go into the field, but a third argument involves what happens during the process of education. It is generally true that some professions, including engineering, have narrow liberal education requirements than other professions, such as the social sciences and humanities. As I demonstrated anecdotally above, taking liberal arts seriously can expand, change, and enrich minds, but if those requirements are reduced, then not so much.

This can be a vicious cycle of sorts. Large university units (such as a college with in a university, or a major program, controlling the details of undergraduate or graduate education) can move towards or away form liberal arts eduction over time as people “typical” of that subset of academia regularly make programmatic decisions. For example, a technically oriented college may have relaxed language requirements compared to the sister college in the same university system that focuses on social science and humanities.

Anyway, the argument here is that academic training matters. The leftist terrorist groups of yore (back in the 60s and 70s) involved operatives with a disproportionate number of humanities and social science education, while today, rightist (statist, jihadist) terrorists are more of the opposite bent.

But, again, that only explains part of the larger pattern. Yet it may be a factor, and that would be interesting.

The important thing about this study, and the reason I’m going on and on about it, is that it is an interesting and apparently well done look at the cultural and social nuances, and the role of lived experience, behind important geopolitical factors that matter. There is some good anthropology to be done here, if we can find some good anthropologists to do it (I don’t think there is much anthropology going on these days in this area, and what is done is mainly critical theory, so not much pragmatic use.)


*Please note:

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44 thoughts on “Are Engineers More Likely To Be Terrorists, And If So, Why?

  1. Based on interactions on the internet, amongst climate ‘skeptics’ there certainly seem to be a high proportion of those with engineering backgrounds. I’m not saying all climate ‘skeptics’ are terrorists; but, well, you know…

  2. I’ve noticed the same. Talking about savaging the hand that feeds you… Stabbing the mother who gave you life…

  3. I have also noticed the higher than average number of engineering types who are skeptical of the 3C or higher climate sensitivity number, and skew towards the lower end of the range (1.5C).

    I attribute that to left brain types being more analytical than average, and therefore more attracted to engineering jobs.

  4. Terrorists have to design and build bombs. They cannot manufacture them and ship them to their destination – but typically have to be built at the point of use.

    Therefore, it is not to surprising that terrorists tend to be technical, which is perhaps a skill which is necessary to build bombs, design remote triggers or other terrorist related jobs.

    Perhaps the job skills of being a terrorist tend to self-select toward the engineering or chemistry type background?

    I don’t know this – I just throw it out there for consideration.

  5. Maybe it’s just a matter of access. Countries are more willing to let in someone they think will be useful to their society. So will they give a visa to the guy with a stem degree, no degree, or the one with an African literature degree?

    1. Recruitment has not focus on engineers. Many of the engineers looked at in this study found the organizations on their own, showed up, and volunteered, without being sought out. So, what you are suggesting seems really likely to be true (I had the same thought) but didn’t turn out to be a major factor.

      Of course, once someone shows up, I imagine things might be a bit different.

  6. Engineering is about designing something to behave the way you want it to. This can work in certain narrow areas, like building a bridge or an airplane or a robot. But it doesn’t always translate to larger society. Good engineering programs teach their graduates to learn when engineering skills suffice and when more is needed. But not all engineering programs teach this meta-skill successfully. And some engineers who learn this lesson the hard way don’t take it well.

    Other fields of study don’t have this same emphasis. Yes, when you work in a lab you have to acquire some engineering skills so that the apparatus you need for your experiment will let you make the measurement you need to make. But your ultimate goal in this case is to study nature as it actually is, and you learn that nature will often surprise you. Graduates of good humanities and social science programs also learn that the world does not always work as expected. So this lesson is less likely to be painful than it is for mediocre engineers who graduate from mediocre programs.

  7. I love the phrase “engineer terrorist.”

    Deniers of observed reality (climate change, evolution, the heliocentric model of the Solar System, Earth not being flat) who are also educated are often engineers: Young Earth Creationists and Flat Earthers. Economic disenfranchisement among the uneducated (who are not subjected to “liberal arts”) don’t revolt: in fact, they tend to vote for and worship the people oppressing them.

  8. Engineering is largely a matter of learning a systematic way of solving problems and optimizing solutions to fit requirements as prioritized.

    An example might be that you need to get a million people a day across a river a quarter mile wide. A given design can can be optimized for safety, build time, cost, or durability, and any number of other criteria, but optimizing for one is gong to lower others in complex ways.

    The old joke was that you can optimize for quality, cost, and build time … pick two.

    A bomb for use by a suicide bomber is a interesting engineering problem. It has to be portable and so It is constrained in size and weight. The use of rolling luggage, and attacking an airport and train station, where such rolling luggage is common, was clearly an attempt to get around those limits.

    You are limited to readily available materials so they go with a cheap, easily produced low-grade explosive that is inherently unstable. And, of course, they want to optimize the design for maximum damage and casualties so they pack nails around the explosive.

    A couple of decades ago I read a book by a anti-nuclear activist, she wrote about getting to know the nuclear engineers designing nuclear weapons. She related that they were all very bright, energetic, and driven to find the ‘best’ solution as an exercise in problem solving. This pursuit of the best solution was almost entirely detached from the fact that they were designing devices that would kill and maim millions and destroy entire civilizations.

    In this context it might be this ability to abstract the problem as a puzzle independent of context and intention that makes engineers good at doing this sort of thing.

    It must also be noted that the one of the most well represented profession among tyrants, top level torturers and terrorists are medical doctors.

    This makes sense. Doctors are trained to selectively ignore the pain of the patient and to be ruthless in pursuit of treatment. Extracting a tumor requires a certain level of ruthlessness and willingness to inflict pain and suffering to gain a cure. If you abstract the wider society as a body and disruptive persons as a tumor it is easy to see how they are wiling to engage in mass murder and ethnic cleansing.

    But in both cases it seems to me to be the ability to abstract goals of warfare and techniques of terrorism as a puzzle that needs to be solved and the body politic and populous as a single human body that needs to be violated violently to be treated.

  9. Primitive peoples have a long history on Earth of worshiping the perceived gods and deities behind the forces of nature that oppress and kill them, destroy property & crops, etc. regularly.

    I guess you’re saying that nothing has changed.. among the ignorami.

  10. At the heart of this essay is a canard that engineers aren’t that interested in the Liberal Arts. We’ve all heard this said over and over, for so many years, that many seem to accept it without actually testing to see if it is true. (The anecdote given is just that… and the plural of anecdote is not data.)

    I’ll give a counter anecdote: My husband was a computer programmer… who also has two degrees in music. I’m a prolific high tech inventor, with nearly a hundred US patents issue… Oh… and together, we have a library of nearly 10,000 volumes, mostly liberal arts, history, etc.

    Consider: MIT is one of the best liberal arts institutions…

    I have another item to consider… what characteristic is the SINGLE most common for terrorists? IT’s not religion, education, age, ethnicity, etc… Its SEX. Nearly all are MALE.

    Lets talk about it.

  11. The first requirement for being a scientist is honesty.
    So let’s be honest.
    Terrorism correlates with Islam over 100 times more than with any other factor including education, poverty, race, nationality.

    1. Vivarto: “Terrorism correlates with Islam over 100 times more than with any other factor including education, poverty, race, nationality.”

      Well of course: in Islamic regions, the terrorists are Islamists. In the USA it is Christians who are the terrorists; in much of central and south Africa it is also Christians who are the terrorists. Why even mention it?

    2. Desertphile, sorry but you are very mistaken.
      In America many more people died from Islamic terror than from all other terror combined.
      Still many more attempts of terror on mass scale have been prevented. Some of them would have killed more people than 9/11.

      Besides I am wondering if you are including Paris and Brussels, Stockholm, Colon, Madrid, London, Bombay, etc into the “Islamic regions”.

      Unfortunately our media is lying about this. Strangely opposing Islam is supposed to be a “right wing” politics. While leftist have allied themselves with this darkest force on the face of our planet.

    3. In America many more people died from Islamic terror than from all other terror combined.”


    4. Desertphile,
      You think that by asserting “NO” the facts chang?
      You forgot about 9/11 my friend.
      And also tens of Islamic attacks that have been prevented since then.
      Another thing is that our media is lying about this.
      For example the Fort Hood shooting is classified as “Work Place Violence” rather than Islamic terrorism. Even though the murderer there shouted Allahu Akbar while killing his fellow Americans.
      Many other terror attacks have been misclassified in the same way.
      And still, even after 9/11 there are more victims of Islamic terror than of “Christian”.
      I’d be happy to point you to statistics.
      For example “only” 8 people have been killed by anti-abortion idiots since 1990s.

      Unfortunately our media is dishonest and does not report the truth about the Islamic terror.

  12. The only true correlation is discrimination and disenfranchisement.

    Has nothing to do with Islam, other than the fact that snobby white assholes like Vivarto use that as an excuse to discriminate against others who don’t look and act like himself.

    1. Brainstorms: “Has nothing to do with Islam, other than the fact that snobby white assholes like Vivarto use that as an excuse to discriminate against others who don’t look and act like himself.”

      Exactly so. If Syria were predominately Christian, it would be Christians running around bombing and shooting The Wrong Kind Of Christian— not Muslims. Almost all terrorism is engaged in by people who believe (falsely or accurately) they are “evening the score.” When Saudi Arabians attacked targets in the USA in year 2001 it was in retaliation for three decades of abuse at the hands of the USA.

      Religion gives the excuse, not the motive.

    2. Brainstorms, you are clearly not intelligent.
      First of all, how do you know that I am White?
      Secondly, what does Islam have to do with the skin color?
      It is an ideology, not a race.
      FInally, no, it is not a question of being disenfranchised.
      Poor, and disenfranchised Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Christians do blow themselves up in restaurants, or commuter trains.
      Only Muslims do.

  13. 100 is a nice round number, which facilitates is passage out nice round orifices.

    Speaking of science, correlation is not the same as causation. And in the social sciences in particular, we learn to be suspicious of convenient monocausal explanations of complicated phenomena.

    1. Obstreperous Applesauce,
      100 is a figure of speech, the reality is likely worse than that.
      Do some math.
      I Sweden 85% of assault rapes are committed by Muslims who constitute 5% of the population. This means that in Sweden Muslims are 107.7 times more likely to be rapist than non-Muslims.
      The numbers from Norway, Denmark, Britain are simmilar.
      Back to the subject. You are indeed correct. Correlation is not the same as causation.
      There is correlation between drunk driving and the number of deadly accidents.
      We cannot say that drunk driving causes death, as there are many other factors involved.
      Killing under influence of Islam, or under influence of Alcohol is not fully explained by that influence alone, however, just like we ban drunk driving, we should also ban Islam.

  14. Desertphile, you have been misinformed.
    Terrorism has everything to do with Islam.
    The founder of Islam, prophet Muhammad was a terrorist, a child abuse, rapist, and a mass murderer. He commanded his followers to fight for the sake of establishing the rule of Allah (Sharia) on the whole Earth.

    Now there are many countries that have mixed Christian populations. Germany about 30% of the population are Catholics, and 30% Protestants. They are not killing each others. In Syria however Sunnis are murdering Shiites and Alawites, they have been murdering each other for the last 1400 years.

    Now Christians have committed horrible crimes in the past, but they were not following the example of their founder – Jesus.

  15. Desertphile, Brainstorms:
    vivarto is simply the ignorant bigoted asshole version of the climate denier on a different post. Interacting with this low life will do nothing, as facts mean nothing to them.
    Disengage and he’ll slither back to the hole he came from.

    1. dean,
      You are committing a logical error of ad hominem.
      You are attacking me (and rather crudely), saying nothing about the subject matter.
      Now INTELLIGENT people seek out those with opposing views, rather than abuse them.
      To you however, having a different view from yours, equals to “ignorance”, “asshole”, “bigoted”.

      You will never know the truth about Islam.
      Nor about the climate for that sake, since in both cases your pre-conceived conclusions preclude you from honest exploration of the subject.

      I am surprised to find people like you on a science blog…

    2. “Disengage and he’ll slither back to the hole he came from.”

      I like that idea. Done.

      As for Muslims being the problem, there are scores of towns and villages in central and south Africa completely depopulated by Christians who swept through and killed everyone in the past four years.

  16. I am surprised to find people like you on a science blog

    I am sure that is because you are as uninformed on science as you seem to be on terrorism.

    I did not, by the way, make an ad hominem. I simply described you, using the evidence you provided in your comments.

    You will never know the truth about Islam.

    I really have no interest in religions, but I’m pretty sure you don’t know jack squat about Islam either, besides the dogma you’ve been fed by the far right.

  17. Brainstorms, you are clearly intelligent.

    Vivarto, I never said you were white.. or blue, or green. You’re guilty of the very thing you’re attacking everyone else here.

    You are ASSUMING ad hominem (likely because you realize the criticism is fitting?)

    I said, “… snobby white assholes like Vivarto use that as an excuse…” which does not mean “Vivarto is a snobby white asshole” (which could be true); it means, “snobby white assholes who embrace and act on the same abhorrent attitude displayed here by the likes of Vivarto”.


    You tell me; I made no such connection in what I stated.


    Your statement; I didn’t change your words. This is the only thing you wrote that is accurate.

    I am surprised to find people like you on a science blog… So, Vivarto, you may slither away again. Back to your dark hole!

  18. Another troll who has nothing of value to add to the topic of a posted article (this one about engineers) but prefers instead to ride a hobby horse in frenzied ignorance.

    VIvarto at 21:

    P1. Admits to bull sh**ting.
    P2. Changes subject.
    P3. Claims to change the subject back with falacious argument by analogy.
    Elsewhere spews stock Islamophobic bile, and waves banner of climate denialism.

    (By comparison, a more thoughtful approach to the study of certain aspects of terrorism: )

  19. @14.,16,,19, 21,22. Vivarto :

    See :

    For an actual factual assessment of the percentages of who is behind terrorism in the United States of America.


    & specifically

    Based on our review of the approximately 2,400 terrorist attacks on U.S. soil contained within the START database, we determined that approximately 60 were carried out by Muslims. In other words, approximately 2.5% of all terrorist attacks on U.S. soil between 1970 and 2012 were carried out by Muslims.* This is a tiny proportion of all attacks.

    So, Vivarto, you are factually in error which doesn’t surprise many readers here but may surprise you and, well, now you know.

    See also links from there regarding Europe.

    .. less than 1% of terror attacks in Europe were carried out by Muslims.

    I doubt even with the recent attacks this figure or percentage has changed much.

    1. Thanks for the link.
      It appears that you are the only intelligent person on this forum.
      Everyone else could simply not handle views different that theirs. Instead of factual discussion they reacted with rude and often exceedingly crude personal attacks on me, rather than staying with the subject.

      You on the other hand, provide reasonable objection to my proposition. Something that we can analyze together. Let’s look at it carefully.
      The first thing that comes to my mind is
      Why are they excluding 9/11 from their statistics. Why start statistics after 9/11?
      Second question your article claims that: “Jews who committed acts of terrorism based on their religious passions, just like Al-Qaeda and company.”
      Googling for Jewish terrorism I only found articles on JDL, but no actual list of terror attacks. Also, I believe that comparing Jewish terrorism can be compared to Al Qaeda is a fallacy. Jewish religion does not command Jews to force Judaism on non-Jews. Islam does so explicitly and so do the words of Muhammad. (Hadith) These are binding commandments for Muslims.
      Next: The article claims that 300 Americans were killed in terror attacks since 9/11. I’d very much like to see the list of the attacks. Without the list, I don’t know what to think about this.
      Another problem with the report is that they are mixing general mass-shooting with terror attacks. It is not relevant to our inquiry.
      Next problem. They claim that there have been only 33 killings by Muslims since 9/11. I found 90 confirmed killings with additional 334 wounded.
      I have the data in my Excel spreadsheet, paste it below, but unfortunately the formatting will be lost.
      You can copy it and paste to your own spreadsheet and analyze. Then compare with FBI database. Each case is exactly described including the date and the location, so that you can take samples and test them.

      Here is the tabe.
      As I said above. You can copy it, and then paste into your Excel or other spreadsheet for easy viewing.
      Thanks again for staying on the subject.
      Date Location Dead Wounded Description
      2002.09.21 Atlanta, GA 1 0 Muslim terrorists gun down an employee at a liquor store.
      2002.09.21 Montgomery, AL 1 1 Muslim snipers shoot two women, killing one.
      2002.10.11 Fredericksburg, VA 1 0 Another man is killed by Muslim snipers while pumping gas.
      2002.10.22 Aspen Hill, MD 1 0 A bus driver is killed by Muslim snipers.
      2011.09.11 Waltham, MA 3 0 Three Jewish men have their throats slashed by Muslim terrorists.
      2013.02.07 Buena Vista, NJ 2 0 A Muslim targets and beheads two Christian Coptic immigrants.
      2014.06.01 Seattle, WA 2 0 Two homosexuals are murdered by an Islamic extremist.

    2. American press is not reporting on Muslim horrors in Europe.
      1% in quoted in article is a lie.
      Have you heard about
      400 children rapedmy Muslim gangs in Oxfordshire?
      How about 1,400 children gangraped and exploited for prostitution in Rotherham?
      In all of Britain over 10 thousand children raped and forcibly prostituted by Muslim gangs.

      Have you heard just this last New Year Eve what happened in European cities?
      In Cologne alone, nearly 1000 girls and women beaten, robbed, and sexually attacked on the street, right in front of the famous cathedral and the railway station. Several rapes roported, at least one confirmed gangrape, right there on the street.
      Have you read that Muslim rape have made Sweden the Rape capitol of the World. 30 years ago, they were among the safest countries in the world. Everything changed when they opened the doors to Muslim mass immigration.

  20. StevoR,
    I took your challenge seriousry and searched for the list of terror attacks motivated by Judaism. I found none.
    I did find one mentally ill Jewish teenager, Joshua Ryne Goldberg, posing as Jihadi, KKK, and other personas on the Internet. There is not indication that his crime was related to Jewish religion. He is not in a mental hospital.

    Your reference claims that there were more Jewish terror attacks that Islamic. If we don’t find such list, we should consider the information in your source unsubstantiated. Likely a propaganda lie.

  21. “y and searched for the list of terror attacks motivated by Judaism. I found none.”

    Well, apart from those in Palestine and the occupied territories….



    The subject isn’t “Are engineers more likely to be terrorists in the USA”. Your artificial insistence on changing the thesis is a lie and another DERP for you.

    Herpy derp.

  22. American press is not reporting on Muslim horrors in Europe.

    Uh, Charlie Hebdo? Je suis Charlie? Ring a bell???

    Of course, the rightwing nutjob “news” in Fox insist that there are terrors that don’t even exist. Such as Birmingham, W Mids, being a muslim city.

    So you’re not even wrong, you’re ANTI-wrong. They’re not merely reporting the horrors, BUT MAKING MORE UP!!!!

    But I get it, they’re darkies and don’t believe in your god, so they’re all evil satan worshippers.

  23. American press is not reporting on Muslim horrors in Europe.





  24. I totally agree that program, by the way, was very heavy in the liberal industry. Students maintain considerable skill at the graduate level, especially in the graduate level, focusing on their skills, which are often improved with the intelligent experience among most elderly students. But at the same time, they all wanted to meet the requirements of the liberal arts of the universities, and we added that they are primarily involved with each other and their core areas, including self-reflections and other liberal arts.

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