Not a very orginal observation and a half baked explaination. Alan B. Krueger made a similiar observation with a more through thesis in his book "What makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism." The basic idea is that terrorists have middle class background, get sent to college where they study a technical subject, they get involved in some activism organization, become radicalized, can't use their technical skills to get the good job they had hoped for when they get to school because of some societal structure impediment (you are not from the right family, not the right ethnic or religious group), they then take up the cause of the poor common man and rise rapidly in their terrorist organization because they have skills beyond manifiesto writing and bake sale organizing, then their half formed ideology become the group strategy.

Perhaps they would be better served if their technical classes were balanced with a strong liberal arts program, like they do at Annapolis. At least their communiques would be better written.

As an engineer myself, I have to wonder if the explanation isn't more simple... its not that engineers are more likely to be terrorists, just that of all the potential terrorists, engineers are the ones who are most likely to succeed. We have been taught to logically think through various scenarios for failures, have mitigation plans for them, and to develop overall robust solutions. Engineers may not be more prone to terrorism, just good at it.

There's an older line: Electrical engineers make weapons. Civil engineers make targets ... perhaps they need to add in, chemical engineers make weapons. Aeronautical engineers make targets.

While you're at it, you might as well factor people like Gerald Bull into your history, if only to grab the North American factor, someone whose background conforms well to the first two commenters, in the sense he had a goal he wanted to achieve, something he really wanted to build, and that drove him.

And there's been some good engineers killed doing the right thing in war. See Frederick Cuny.

Have terrorists caused more damage to society than Wall Street bankers or political leaders? The German and Japanese elites caused their societies to be destroyed in WWII, but their rise to power was fueled by The Great Depression. Engineers have enough to study and their educations have already been liberalized. How about making economists and financial experts take real mathematics, history, and ethics courses? How will our society emerge from this minidepression when engineering and production are outsourced to India and China? The people who are causing the most damage to our society are our business leaders and bankers who lobby our governments for tax breaks and then move their companies operations overseas anyway, or worse, buy politicians with donations. Those are the true psychopaths in power. If some poor engineer or doctor wigs out and kills people, that's a singular tragedy, not necessarily a terrorist incident. The 9/11 attacks might not have happened with strengthened cockpit doors and policies not to let cockpits be compromsied. Such attacks will not happen again because the flying public will not let them happen again. Hijackers will be killed by the passengers. Contrast this with Wall Street. We will have another financial crash because no financial reforms have been put into place to mitigate risks and the government is tapped out. The United States might not survive the next financial crisis intact. That possibility should terrify everyone.

Tom, chemical engineers are safe, they're too busy making piles of money to be really political.

Why are the time stamps showing what seems to be UTC time and calling it EST (local time)? What else is wrong with the server if your time zone data is off? Your log files will not be synced with your other systems' logs. If this system is compromised, forensic analysis will be crippled because file time stamps will be severely skewed.

... my family had this very same discussion this past weekend.

But it was more broad. In the sense that it's interesting that all of these terrorists are students of the "hard sciences" and none was a liberal arts or humanities major in school.

Certainly a popular retort in Muslim circles is that the likes of Zawahiri or Bin Laden aren't REAL scholars of Islam. Instead their brains have been compromised by training in hard sciences and this means that they don't have the ability to understand sacred texts that contain a wide array of grammatical nuances.

But then the "spiritual fathers" of these violent ideologies were the likes of Sayyid Qutb, who was a school teacher by trade. Or Mawdudi, who was a journalist and editor.

Who knows?

I remember reading YEARS ago that the Samurai took up artistic endeavours during times of peace so their souls were balanced in nature, and they didn't become brutes.

The underlying tenant of modern Islamism, it is very much a 20th century movement, is that the past hundreds of years of Islamic jurisprudence hammered out by graduates of the traditional Islamic schools, Al Azhar, Al-Karaouine, etc. is illegitimate and full of bida'a, or innovations. So it's not just that the leaders of these Islamist groups don't come from the traditional religious establishment, it's that they resent it very much.

There is also the possibility that many terrorists deliberately study engineering specifically so that they can be better terrorists. If I wanted to figure out the best way to blow up the Eiffel Tower I wouldn't study international relations. Also it could be that terrorists simply aren't very willing to hear alternative views, which would prejudice them against liberal art classes. I know that in my college most of the Criminal Justice and Political Science students were liberals, while the few conservatives took business and computer science*.

* I use the phrases 'liberal' and 'conservative' simply because only a few of us actually belong to political parties at that age.

. . . are extremely conservative, usually way off towards the extreme-libertarian, Ayn Rand side of things. And the fact is, they can't tolerate ambiguity. the idea that certain truths are perspectival, for example, makes them blow a fuse. the idea that cultures decide on certain values and meanings, and act accordingly, thus making them real factors in historical development, also blows a gasket for them. Whether that's got anything to do with making them turn terrorist, seems doubtful. But they really are pretty untrustworthy when they try to apply their minds to the humanites or the topics the humanities (such as "political science") study.

The simple answer might be that engineering just happens to be quite popular in Middle Eastern universities and seems to be the discipline for those studying abroad from the region as well. Probably because a technical degree is supposed to offer graduates a guarantee of status and good employment.

The problem that many young engineers run into is that promise doesn't materialize, and many view that as primarily a result of repressive and corrupt governments that the West, and primarily America, supports.

Therefore, it makes a good talent pool of disillusioned young men seeking meaning with their life, that tends to be conservative in nature, that is ripe for recruitment by radical Islam.

I think the conclusion is too simple, engineers are terrorists. I personally know some engineers who have decent work in companies. Maybe it's a mix of their knowledge and their belief. No one will dream to be a terrorist if he don't have valid reason why he will sacrifice his life to do this unjustifiable act.Ethan Brown

Engineers are a first generation rise from a blue collar and working class and therefore stand near a fault line of fairness - more directly touched by injustice where it occurs.

The professional training tends to focus upon results assurance and design integrity. (without other considerations)

It tends to ignore or avoid fussy social issues or holds such professions that are well paid for manipulating higher income from fussy issues in contempt.

It understands that the creation of the sanitary sewer has done more for mankind's quality of live than....(for the fuzzy guys to fill in.)

Engineers=terrorists?

What a headline... A little bit too heavy...

Miniwaschmaschine

Forgive my ignorance, but is this "article" a stab at humor, or a deliberate attempt to contribute while not contributing at all?

Again, I may be missing some deeper point here... Educate me, please.

I think no relation between engineers and terrorists...

Goji

Because they feel not satisfied with someone or country and they have capable to do their bad intention.
Are they not realized that they are an asset to their country?Damn it if don't know about it!

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Education is the acquisition of knowledge; what people need is wisdom - the appropriate application of that knowledge. Extreme components (religious, political, etc) can be very persuasive to persons who harbor a grudge or prejudice.

RROD

Why terrorists are mostly engineers?An interesting question (I'm an engineering major),but to answer it is quiet simple---because engineers can make stuff;because engineers know where the weak points of the target are;and because engineers have a diverse thinking pattern from those government types.

The same reason that engineers make good soldiers, managers, CEO's and inventors.....logical thinking, thorough grounding in maths and sciences, organization and disciplined thought process along with an ability to recognize patterns in nature along with actually having skills to do something with the ideas in their heads......just gotta make sure that the weird ones are thown away and the productive ones are pursued to avoid becoming a terrorist....:-) !

(Disclosure: Have a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering and it has opened a lot of doors, often technical education does carry a certain credibility with a majority of the people.)