Talk:Salem Hypothesis

Engineer vs Scientist
There's a very interesting discussion here about the difference between an engineer and a scientist - and I would contend, as an engineer, that it's pretty significant.

Engineering is all about real solutions in a real world. An engineer's work doesn't need to be 'true' - it needs to be 'good enough'. The great works of engineering aren't 'true', they are good at what they do (and I include 'good' in an aesthetic sense as well as a more practical sense).

Science on the other hand, is all about 'truth' - about refining the hypothesis so that it's a more and more accurate model of the truth.

OK, as such, and remember I'm an engineer, I would suggest that training as an engineer does no imply training in the scientific method. As such I would suggest that engineers are less likely to be rigourous and therefore more likely to support Creationism.

Yes, I know what I've written is contentious but...

Silver Sloth 14:31, 1 July 2009 (UTC)


 * As an engineer, I have to agree with Silver Sloth on this one. Around here (at G.E), the engineer speak of what is called SWAG, meaning a Scientific Wild-Ass Guess.  Basically, it's where you try something out until you can make it work.  Once it works, you've found the solid method and reason it did simply by making educated guess after educated guess.


 * Let's look at it from the other direction. If somebody believes in creationism as a highschooler, he's more likely to go into engineering than into biology, as he wouldn't get a degree as long he holds to his beliefs.--89.134.141.176 (talk) 18:40, 3 September 2011 (UTC)


 * The Wikipedia article on Salem Hypothesis attacks the engineering community for not being more outspoken against Creationism, but if you look at it in reality, engineering has a great historical tradition of being more apathetic when it comes to, what I guess you could call, the politics of science and tend to have a mutual respect for their peers, regardless of personal opinions.  When I went to Dunwoody College of Technology this mutual respect amongst the engineering community, as well as this general scientific apathy, was actually something brought up in our textbooks and lectures in the first year.The Goonie 1 18:42, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Actual data
I am sure I have seen some actual data on this once, any one have any? 10:50, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Not that I'm aware of. Although those petition projects (the ones that were countered with Project Steve) may have a large demographic of engineers. 10:53, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
 * http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/thermo_patterson.html It's linked to in the "hypothesis explained" blog under "external links". 10:55, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
 * No I remember it was four categories. The general public was less than 50%, engineer about 70% and biologist 95%. 11:03, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll read the article though, thanks. 11:04, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Engineers and fundamentalism in general
There is strong evidence of a connection between engineers and terrorists as well, and probably fundamentalist viewpoints in general. . Researcher (talk) 04:49, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Really? So I'm a terrorist and a fundie now, eh? Nice!!! 04:50, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
 * More accurately, engineers tend (and, yes, that's a horrible weasel word) towards world-views that emphasize eternal accepted truths and rigid roles. In other parts of the world, that leads to terrorism.  In the US, creation science. In China, extreme nationalism. Researcher (talk) 04:55, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I know, I know. But I love the Salem Hypothesis, because, as an engineer, I defy its logic! 04:56, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

A chemical engineer PhD from my university joined the local equivalent of Al-Qaeda. He didn't get an obituary in the campus paper when he blew himself up to avoid arrest. 05:15, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, makes me worried about all the nuclear engineers I know.... 05:17, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Hadn't heard of this before, but it definitely fits my experience. In my experience, it seems like most fields tend to attract certain types of crankery, some for obvious reasons, with engineers being by far the crankiest and chemists probably being the least cranky (list not in order, though):


 * Engineers: Fundy-ism, creationism, global warming denial, science/engineer woo (free energy!), psychology woo (mostly stuff related to pick-up artist bullshit like Emotional Freedom Technique or other weird "brain exercises" because they lack the ma-cheese-mo, zing!), Ray Kurzweil/sci-fi futuristic woo, economic/financial woo (saw a decent number lose a lot of money on weird financial schemes or at online casinos after they came up with "brilliant" blackjack/poker "systems"), general crankery.
 * Physicists (especially the theoretically oriented ones): Quantum woo (the more materialist flavors like quantum consciousness), science woo, future woo, global warming denial, weird metaphysical bullshit that sorta kinda dances the line between philosophy and religion (there was even a club at my undergrad school just for physics/philosophy double majors because there were so many of them)
 * Doctors: Alt-woo and quackery (of course), fundy-ism, creationism, New Agey woo
 * High-tech related fields (computer/software engineers, comp sci, programmers, web dev, etc.): "Silicon Valley libertarianism," Objectivism, global warming denial (most likely overlapping with the politics), pseudolaw, conspiracy theories, psychology woo (ma-cheese-mo again, oh snap!), future woo, science woo, econ/financial woo, general batshit craziness
 * Archaeologists: Pseudoarchaeology (obvious), Atlantis, ancient astronauts, UFOlogy, fundy-ism, creationism (most of these people are nuts or fundies with degrees from diploma mills, but sometimes good archaeologists go rogue or have a side-hobby in crankery like Atlantis)
 * Psychiatrists: alt woo and quackery, psych woo, mental illness denial (never understood how they deal with the cognitive dissonance of denying the legitimacy of their own field)
 * Mathematicians: Fundy-ism (I think mathematicians might be just behind engineers in this department), creationism, weird bullshit mathematical "proofs" for god/magical pixies/the Matrix/whatever or other types of pseudomath.
 * Biologists: Enviro/nature woo like Gaia hypothesis
 * Geologists: Global warming denial
 * Chemists: Alt woo and quackery

I get the feeling that the number of engineer cranks is probably in large part due to the fact that there are just more engineers, though. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 05:53, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Strong Salem Hypothesis
An education in the Engineering disciplines forms a predisposition to Creation/ID viewpoints

Isn't this putting the cart before the horse? Even the cited source says that "creationists who are unable to reconcile their faith with the facts of say, biology, physics, geology, or cosmology gravitate towards fields like engineering which they see as less of a threat to their faith" - i.e. the creationist viewpoint predisposes them towards engineering, not vice versa. This would seem to make a lot more sense than the idea that an education in engineering somehow conditions people into being creationists. 23:04, 27 January 2010 (UTC)


 * The strong Salem Hypothesis does seem to overreach somewhat, but I would rather it was left as it is often quoted. In some ways engineers are conditioned to be creationist as they are being trained to create things. Maybe this does rub off, I know I tend to think of things in a mathematical way due to my education. 23:11, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Baron-Cohen's "Empathizing-Systematizing" Axis? Plus the Big Five (especially Conscientiousness and Openness)
In "The Science of Evil" (a pretty badly misnamed book) Simon Baron-Cohen, a prominent researcher on autism, postulates that personality types vary -- among other ways -- along an axis he calls empathizing-systemizing, with autistic spectrum individuals very high on the systemizing end. Strong systemizers (which includes all engineers!) want to always know the rules for everything and want those rules adhered to. They tend to have a low tolerance for uncertainty, vagueness, and lack of closure. A decent scientist, on the other hand, respects rules but seeks out openness, uncertainty, and the edge of the unknown. Or to put it in terms of the "Big Five" personality scheme, Engineers are very Conscientious and sometimes not very Open, while Scientists are Open -- and may or may not be conscientious (most scientists I have known have been messy/sloppy in their personal habits, though they can be rigorous when necessary to keep the lab running and the data nicely spread-sheeted. Or at least they have conscientious lab managers and grad students to take care of that for them!)

Anyway, it occurs to me that a possible (partial) explanation for this Salem Hypothesis may be that the strong "follow the rules, this is how it IS, no uncertainty, don't deviate from the design!" personality type might find the absolute certainty offered by fundamentalism (and the creationism that sometimes accompanies it) as very reassuring and attractive, particularly in times of social and/or personal tumult and stress, whereas the more open inquiring mind is happy to go "Nah, I don't actually have any idea what happens after I die, but I'll find out eventually one way or another, right?" kind of open attitude. Also, not to say that engineers are terrible people (not the ones I know anyway), but the common correlation between "engineer" and "lack of social skills" (or "failure to comprehend how other people can have different ideas how to get stuff done than you do, and not actually be wrong") is a low-empathy trait, and being low-empathy on Baron-Cohen's scale might also make fundamentalism more attractive, as it's a lot easier to condemn those who don't Follow The Rules to the eternal torment of Hell if you're not actually that bothered by sensing the enormous suffering this would cause many good people if it were true. You're also more likely to be willing to do stuff like carry out a suicide bombing in an open-air market if you aren't empathizing with all the innocent shoppers who will be out in the market that day, and the pain they and their loved ones will suffer due to your attack.

In short, maybe engineers find fundamentalism and creationism comforting because they offer nice neat rules and procedures you can follow to get the desired result (immortality with or without seventy-two houris at your beck and call, primarily), and neat concrete answers ("Goddidit!") to very complex and rather messy biological processes, like speciation and adaptation and whatnot. Strong systemizing, plus high Conscientiousness, plus low empathy and low Openness, and voila! One Andy Schlafly for you!

(And yes, Simon is related to Sacha, but not too closely (cousins or maybe second cousins), and they're not much alike except for both being really good at what they do.)

You think part of the problem is that...
...people in general are under-educated about the difference between a scientist and an engineer? Like, all those creationist engineers who are claiming they have a science degree; does anyone else think they might seriously believe that? I noticed that most "mad scientist" characters in fiction are actually engineers (I've only ever seen one such character spend storyline time testing a hypothesis, and that was Hojo from Final Fantasy VII), maybe this points to a general lack of understanding of what a scientist is and is not.

Yeah, I know the "Engineers and Woo" page talks about this a bit. I'm just bringing it up here as well. Sensual Endeavor, the sexy pony ;) (talk) 21:13, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Explanation?
Wouldn't the simplest explanation be that being born to religious households and being born to non-religious households has little to do with expected intelligence, and that intelligent people born into religious households might avoid fields that would contradict their worldviews, and so steer towards physics or engineering rather than biology? CorruptUser (talk) 21:18, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think so, some objections: intelligence independently strongly predicts religiosity, many of the "science" they proclaim to understand has nothing to do with religion(evo-psych, global warming, the like), and finally, have you met any engineers? we're self-important jerks. ikanreed You probably didn't deserve that 21:32, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

A Salem Hypothesis for M.D.s?
I've already raised the issue on the talk page of the more general article on engineers and woo, but I think there may be a similar tendency among (some) M.D.s. Any thoughts on whether this is actually so and whether we need an independent article on M.D.s or simply add a section here/and or in the engineers and woo article? ScepticWombat (talk) 11:37, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Narrow field of interest
Someone brought up an interesting point when I was discussing the Salem hypothesis with them - that most of the engineers they had worked with (being an engineer themselves) seemed to have a very narrow range of interests, even with respect to the S, T and M in STEM. I wonder if a lack of appreciation of other fields plays into it. Queexchthonic murmurings 16:46, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

A newer comment
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/4b962x/til_more_than_twice_as_many_members_of_violent/d17aslm Worth adding? 15:13, 21 March 2016 (UTC)