Comments on: Dancing Fast and Squinting Hard

By: Vince P

Vince P — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 23:47:51 +0000

Stepehn is the point of your first paragraph that since you would be insufficiently motivated by a violent revelationaly zeal you find it unlikely that the Muslims would be? Considering that the Muslim/Arab mindset is nothign like that of a Westerner, I fail to see how your own experiences can serve as a model to explain the Muslims.

Regarding your second paragraph , considering that only 5 people total from Middle Eastern countries have won a Nobel Prize , then I think it’s entirely unlikely that the educational culture of the Middle East is one oriented to the hard physical sciences.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 22:08:25 +0000

I’ve not read the paper being criticized, so can’t comment on its scholarship. However, one of the alternative hypotheses offered–that once radicalized, Islamists set about pursuing engineering degrees because of the usefulness of such knowledge–sounds rather suspect. First of all, it seems to suppose that pretty much anyone can go into engineering, at least for the introductory part of the discipline. Now, my intellectual interests have always been in the humanities, but when I started college lo so many years ago, most of my friends aspired to be engineers. And at least half had dropped out of engineering programs by the end of their first year. It was then, and I imagine still is, a demanding discipline at the undergrad level–unlike poli sci, which was my choice at the time. I don’t think a commitment to violent revolution could have altered my basic interests and skills enough to get me through the first year or two of any engineering program.

On the other hand, looking over some of the excerpts from the article in question, it appears that comparisons were made between the percentage of more-or-less engineers in selected terrorist populations and the general population. Perhaps the better comparison would be engineers vs other academic disciplines in terrorist and general populations. The university I attended in the early ’80s had an exceptionally large contingent of Middle Eastern students, and most were (or seemed to be, to their fellow undergrads)enrolled in engineering programs. Is it possible that primary and secondary education in Islamic countries concentrate (in their secular aspect, of course) on math and basic sciences, i.e. subjects that serve to prepare one for engineering programs in college? In that case, we might simply be seeing a phenomenon whereby a self-selected “best and brightest” from college cohorts that are predominantly engineering-oriented tends rather naturally to be itself engineering-oriented.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 20:13:48 +0000

Apparently you can get a PhD in sociology without having a basic understanding of statistical inference.

By: David Foster

David Foster — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:43:40 +0000

Just to stir the pot a bit…aren’t most of the members of China’s senior leadership engineers by training?

This is probably largely a function of the development stage of the society, in line with Steven’s comments…there probably aren’t a lot of literary scholars being turned out by China’s universities. But that many not be the only factor…dominance of American politics by lawyers started a long, long time ago.

By: Shannon Love

Shannon Love — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 05:45:55 +0000

I too think it might just be a matter of engineers being the type of people who get things done. After all, engineers are trained to identify a problem and then solve it, not talk it to death.

By: Ginny

Ginny — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 04:14:56 +0000

If you want to do something you train yourself to do it; if you want to get others to do it, you encourage them to train themselves to do it. Engineers do things, we don’t.

On the other hand, Said had a wide (and largely unfortunate I suspect) influence – especially in the “studies” area. That was a way to get other things done. Look at the thinking of those trained in those areas and how they are likely to vote on issues that concern jihadists.

I do know that chasing baking soda down the sink with vinegar is useful. That is it. Perhaps the bombers that didn’t blow themselves up came from engineering after some minor Darwinian culling of humanities majors.

As Kinky Friedman puts it, the predictability of funds for social resesarch always ceases to amaze me.