Most jihadist are very well educated
All jokes aside, what do you guys think of this phenomena? that people who have been disciplined in very intense fields of academia also have the upshot of resorting to extremism and irrationality. Of course being very smart in terms of math or physics doesn't equate to real world common sense, but that can't be the sole reason to this counter-example. Are extremist ideologies this powerful? I mean toxic
The Gambetta paper, which Gawker doesn't link because Gawker so I will, actually found more than their title claimed; engineers were heavily represented among right-wing terrorists, but not especially common among left-wing terrorists. Their conclusion was that the Right drew people with a need for cognitive closure, as does engineering. If that is true than studying engineering isn't influencing people to become terrorists, people who might be inclined to become terrorists are also inclined to study engineering because they both fulfill the same need.