SPOOKS are kept awake at night by the knowledge that there is no reliable way to spot a potential terrorist. Now, after trawling data since the 1970s, a study has found that engineers are three to four times as likely as other graduates to belong to a violent Islamic group in the Muslim world (see “There’s something about engineers…”).
The researchers suggest that this link may be to do with personality, and say there is some evidence that engineers are more likely to be intolerant of ambiguity, believe society can be made to work like clockwork, and to dislike…
