製造炸彈：為什麽這麽多恐怖分子擁有工程學位？
作者：本傑明·波普爾 2009年12月29日
https://slate.com/technology/2009/12/why-do-so-many-terrorists-have-engineering-degrees.html
大多數人不會將工程與宗教聯係起來。建造房屋和橋梁的混凝土行業似乎建立在世俗的科學原則之上。但今年聖誕節期間，機械工程師烏馬爾·法魯克·阿卜杜勒穆塔拉布發動的未遂襲擊提醒我們，這種組合在曆史上曾長期滋生暴力極端分子。
相關的軼事證據一直都很有力。“9·11”恐怖襲擊的策劃者穆罕默德·阿塔是一名建築工程師。哈立德·謝赫·穆罕默德擁有機械工程學位。據信是孟買恐怖襲擊幕後黑手的“虔誠軍”（Lashkar-e-Taibi）的三位創始人中有兩位是拉合爾工程技術大學的教授。今年夏天，兩位社會學家迭戈·甘貝塔 (Diego Gambetta) 和斯特芬·赫托格 (Steffen Hertog) 發表了一篇論文（PDF），為這一觀察提供了實證證據。他們研究了來自中東和非洲30多個國家的400多名極端伊斯蘭恐怖分子，這些人大多出生於20世紀50年代至70年代之間。此前的研究表明，恐怖分子往往比他們的同胞更富有、受教育程度更高，但甘貝塔和赫托格發現，尤其是工程師，成為暴力恐怖分子的可能性是金融、醫學或科學領域同行的三到四倍。排名第二的極端化程度最高的專業是伊斯蘭研究，但與工程師相比差距甚遠。
那麽，為什麽會有這麽多恐怖分子工程師呢？一個簡單的解釋是，工程學恰好是那些滋生暴力極端分子的國家中一個特別熱門的專業。但甘貝塔和赫托格在校正了各國工程專業的入學人數後，仍然得到了類似的結果。即使在西方出生或長大的伊斯蘭恐怖分子中，也有近60%的人擁有工程背景。
另一種可能的解釋是，工程師擁有技術技能和建築知識，這使他們成為恐怖組織的理想招募對象。但最近的研究發現，工程師在這些組織中擔任領導職務的可能性與他們實際操作爆炸物的可能性一樣高。無論如何，他們的技術專長可能並非那麽有用，因為恐怖襲擊中使用的大多數方法都比較原始。誠然，9·11事件的25名劫機者中有8名是工程師，但最終起作用的是他們使用美工刀和飛行學校的經驗，而不是他們高貴的學位。
甘貝塔和赫托格提出，阿拉伯國家一些工程師可能因為本國缺乏合適的工作而走向極端化。他們研究的畢業生成長於一個時代，當時人們認為，從競爭激烈的技術課程中獲得的學位能夠保證獲得高地位的工作。但現代化和發展的承諾往往因鎮壓和腐敗而受阻，20世紀80年代許多年輕工程師失業，倍感沮喪。沙特阿拉伯是個例外，在這個經濟不斷擴張的國家，工程師們很容易找到工作。巧合的是，沙特阿拉伯也是這項研究發現工程師在激進運動中占比並不高的阿拉伯國家。
還有什麽原因可以解釋這麽多工程係畢業生的激進暴力政治傾向？是否存在某些特質使工程師更容易參與恐怖主義活動？為了回答這個問題，甘貝塔和赫托格更新了一項最初發表於1972年的研究。當時，西摩·利普塞特和卡爾·拉德兩位研究人員調查了美國同行學者的意識形態傾向。根據最初的論文，與其他任何領域的教授相比，工程師更常將自己描述為“強烈保守派”和“虔誠的信徒”。甘貝塔和赫托格對1984年收集的數據重複了這項分析，因此可能更符合他們研究的恐怖分子樣本。他們發現了類似的結果：46%的（美國男性）工程師自認為既保守又信教，而科學家中這一比例為22%。
甘貝塔和赫托格指出，工程師群體中存在一種特殊的思維模式，他們鄙視模棱兩可和妥協。他們可能更熱衷於為社會帶來秩序，並將激進伊斯蘭教中提出的僵化的宗教律法視為實現這些目標的最佳途徑。阿卜杜勒穆塔拉布在網上發帖表達了他對世俗生活方式與極端宗教觀點之間衝突的擔憂。“如何才能找到平衡點呢？”他寫道。
恐怖組織似乎已經意識到了這種傾向——顯然是在阿卜杜勒穆塔拉布身上，但也普遍存在於工程師群體中。英國情報部門2005年的一份報告指出，伊斯蘭極端分子頻繁出入大學校園，尋找可能易受影響的“好奇”學生。報告特別指出，他們的信息傳遞目標明確，尤其針對工程師。
Build-a-Bomber Why do so many terrorists have engineering degrees?
Engineering is not a profession most people associate with religion. The concrete trade of buildings and bridges seems grounded in the secular principles of science. But the failed attack this Christmas by mechanical engineer Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was a reminder that the combination has a long history of producing violent radicals.
The anecdotal evidence has always been strong. The mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Mohamed Atta, was an architectural engineer. Khalid Sheikh Mohamed got his degree in mechanical engineering. Two of the three founders of Lashkar-e-Taibi, the group believed to be behind the Mumbai attacks, were professors at the University of Engineering and Technology in Lahore. A paper (PDF) released this summer by two sociologists, Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog, adds empirical evidence to this observation. The pair looked at more than 400 radical Islamic terrorists from more than 30 nations in the Middle East and Africa born mostly between the 1950s and 1970s. Earlier studies had shown that terrorists tend to be wealthier and better-educated than their countrymen, but Gambetta and Hertog found that engineers, in particular, were three to four times more likely to become violent terrorists than their peers in finance, medicine or the sciences. The next most radicalizing graduate degree, in a distant second, was Islamic Studies. So what’s with all the terrorist-engineers? The simple explanation is that engineering happens to be an especially popular field of study in the countries that produce violent radicals. But Gambetta and Hertog corrected for national enrollment numbers in engineering programs and got similar results. Even among Islamic terrorists born or raised in the West, nearly 60 percent had engineering backgrounds.
Another possible explanation would be that engineers possess technical skills and architectural know-how that makes them attractive recruits for terrorist organizations. But the recent study found that engineers are just as likely to hold leadership roles within these organizations as they are to be working hands-on with explosives. In any case, their technical expertise may not be that useful, since most of the methods employed in terrorist attacks are rudimentary. It’s true that eight of the 25 hijackers on 9/11 were engineers, but it was their experience with box cutters and flight school, not fancy degrees, that counted in the end.
Gambetta and Hertog propose that a lack of appropriate jobs in their home countries may have radicalized some engineers in Arab countries. The graduates they studied came of age at a time when a degree from a competitive technical program was supposed to provide a guarantee of high-status employment. But the promises of modernization and development were often stymied by repression and corruption, and many young engineers in the 1980s were left jobless and frustrated. One exception was Saudi Arabia, where engineers had little trouble finding work in an ever-expanding economy. As it happens, Saudi Arabia is also the only Arab state where the study found that engineers are not disproportionately represented in the radical movement. What else might account for the radical, violent politics of so many former engineering students? Is there some set of traits that makes engineers more likely to participate in acts of terrorism? To answer this question, Gambetta and Hertog updated a study that was first published in 1972, when a pair of researchers named Seymour Lipset and Carl Ladd surveyed the ideological bent of their fellow American academics. According to the original paper, engineers described themselves as “strongly conservative” and “deeply religious” more often than professors in any other field. Gambetta and Hertog repeated this analysis for data gathered in 1984, so it might better match up with their terrorist sample. They found similar results, with 46 percent of the (male American) engineers describing themselves as both conservative and religious, compared with 22 percent of scientists. Gambetta and Hertog write about a particular mind-set among engineers that disdains ambiguity and compromise. They might be more passionate about bringing order to their society and see the rigid, religious law put forward in radical Islam as the best way of achieving those goals. In online postings, Abdulmutallab expressed concern over the conflict between his secular lifestyle and more extreme religious views. “How should one put the balance right?” he wrote.
Terrorist organizations seem to have recognized this proclivity—in Abdulmutallab, obviously, but also among engineers in general. A 2005 report from British intelligence noted that Islamic extremists were frequenting college campuses, looking for “inquisitive” students who might be susceptible to their message. In particular, the report noted, they targeted engineers.
