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Survey data indicates that engineering faculty at universities are far more likely to be conservative than people with other degrees, and far more likely to be

Survey data indicates that engineering faculty at universities are far more likely to be conservative than people with other degrees, and far more likely to be religious. They are seven times as likely to be both religious and conservative as social scientists. That's surprising to me. I'd like to know where they got that data, and look more into it. How likely are they to be conservative and religious than people with no degrees?

CookieMon 11y ago
> I'd like to know where they got that data Yes, given that the context seems to be people who go into engineering in Middle Eastern and North African countries which are too dysfunctional to employ engineers, you are left wondering whether the survey data was of those societies, or whether they extended some data to be an international truism. But I'm not paying $30 to find out. I too would have thought engineers less likely to be religious in the west than people with no degrees, or humanities degrees.
- nickff 11y ago
  From what I have seen of survey data in North American engineering magazines, their readerships (at least those who fill out surveys) seem to be fairly religious, as well as notably conservative and libertarian leaning. I have seen this consistently across a few trade publications for electronic and mechanical engineers, but do not have any citations handy at the moment of this post.
  - CookieMon 11y ago
    > fairly religious, as well as notably conservative and libertarian leaning These are words I would use to describe North America ;) So you'd want to remove regional bias by comparing engineers to people from the same demographic and region, i.e. not comparing liberal arts graduates in California against the petroleum engineering graduates from Texas.
- MAGZine 11y ago
  These authors have published papers along the same lines of the book, if you have access to academic resources. journal title: "Why are there so many Engineers among Islamic Radicals?" Hertog, Steffen has written a few articles along these lines.

CookieMon 11y ago

> I'd like to know where they got that data Yes, given that the context seems to be people who go into engineering in Middle Eastern and North African countries which are too dysfunctional to employ engineers, you are left wondering whether the survey data was of those societies, or whether they extended some data to be an international truism. But I'm not paying $30 to find out. I too would have thought engineers less likely to be religious in the west than people with no degrees, or humanities degrees.

nickff 11y ago
From what I have seen of survey data in North American engineering magazines, their readerships (at least those who fill out surveys) seem to be fairly religious, as well as notably conservative and libertarian leaning. I have seen this consistently across a few trade publications for electronic and mechanical engineers, but do not have any citations handy at the moment of this post.
- CookieMon 11y ago
  > fairly religious, as well as notably conservative and libertarian leaning These are words I would use to describe North America ;) So you'd want to remove regional bias by comparing engineers to people from the same demographic and region, i.e. not comparing liberal arts graduates in California against the petroleum engineering graduates from Texas.
MAGZine 11y ago
These authors have published papers along the same lines of the book, if you have access to academic resources. journal title: "Why are there so many Engineers among Islamic Radicals?" Hertog, Steffen has written a few articles along these lines.