Most jihadist are very well educated
- Almost half (48.5%) of jihadis recruited in the Middle East and north Africa had a higher education of some sort, according to a 2007 analysis by Diego Gambetta that is cited in Immunising the Mind, a new paper published by the British Council; of these 44% had degrees in engineering. Among western-recruited jihadis that figure rose to 59%.
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.
Speaking from anecdotal experience, that is exactly what I've seen. I was once training an engg student at work how to set ski bindings. We were looking at DIN settings, and he could not handle the fact that the numbers had commas instead of decimals and no units on the chart. He just slammed into a wall and shut down, even though all he had to do was match the number on the chart with the number on the bindings. He quit a few days after that, before officially starting his shifts. From what little sample I've seen, science students (especially physics and engineering) generally see things as very black and white. It either is, or isn't. People are either good, or bad. There is very little empathy for those who committed wrong. Many of them hated sociology and ethics courses, because "there's too much ambiguity."
I have a CS degree, and did most of a math PhD. I don't think I've ever known anyone who completely fit our stereotypes but, of course, stereotypes exist for a reason. I hated nearly all of my humanities requirements, but mostly because they were requirements.
You are going here, from talking about people having "difficulty grasping nuance" and "they have a hard time seeing things as more than black and white", how "it's easy for them to not have empathy for others positions" to talking about how "these people are really hard to deprogram", and giving the general implication that you, yourself, are looking at the world in a very black-and-white, stereotypical, and non-empathetic way. It sounds to me like you yourself are taking these worldviews that I assume you disagree with, specifically the idea of "atheism", "positivism", and so on, and wrapping them up in an easy-to-dismiss package of people who just can't help but view the world in the "correct" way.
My anecdote is I have an engineering degree, am left leaning and enjoyed my humanities courses. I took intro and intermediate philosophy classes and enjoyed them both. I'm most convinced that I probably exist. My English 101 or whatever it was class was really interesting, too. We read Douglas Coupland. I've since read several more of his books and enjoyed them all.