[bungula]

Here's an exceptionally good hypotheses explaining why western educated Muslims tend to be radicalists:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/18b/reason_as_memetic_immune_disorde...

[seldo]

I think it would be helpful to summarize:

"Western education forces lifelong Muslims to more thoroughly analyze their beliefs, which until that point they just accepted without questioning. They then go to one extreme or the other: either they reject those beliefs, or take them to their logical conclusion and decide to convert/kill infidels."

It's interesting, but it doesn't address why this would happen to engineers in particular, rather than just all western educated Muslims.

[pchristensen]

Presumably because engineers are trained to be analytical and to trust their analysis, so they are more likely to follow through on the outcome of their soul searching.

[nwatson]

Or presumably, as in another post here, that engineers tend to be more educated in the west and work more in the west than those in other disciplines, and so have more exposure to the west.