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Vladimir_M comments on Are Your Enemies Innately Evil? - Less Wrong
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Well, suicide bombers are more likely to have engineering degrees than the general public. There's also some evidence that engineers are surprisingly likely to be creationists. I don't think engineers are evil mutants, but it does suggest that there are certain modes of thinking that are likely to have bad results. To repeat fairly standard speculation in this regard, engineers aren't taught critical thinking and are taught to not tolerate uncertainty. This is not a good combination.
JoshuaZ:
I would be really curious to see the evidence you have for this latter claim. Could you give some concrete examples from engineering education or actual practice where, according to you, intolerance of uncertainty is taken to unsound extremes?
As for "critical thinking," well, that's a highly subjective category. Where you see a scandalous failure of critical thinking, someone else might see a relatively insignificant and excusable human error, and vice versa, even if you're both in complete agreement that the belief in question is factually false.
But in any case, could you point out an example of some actual educational program that teaches critical thinking in ways that engineers supposedly miss? I honestly can't think of what exactly you might have in mind here.
It isn't a great way of phrasing things and may just be wrong. Simplicio's description seems like a better guess for what is going on. The article I linked to also suggests a few other possibilities.