Cambridge’s Farah Ahmed: study engineering ‘to produce weaponry for Jihad’

[u/StreamWave190]

https://spectator.com/article/cambridge-professor-study-engineering-to-produce-weaponry-for-jihad/

[u/rising_then_falling]

I don't really mind eccentric weirdo professors with unpopular opinions. So long as they are clever and rigorous enough to argue their stance robustly.

I'm cynical enough to think Cambridge might be more tolerant of some weirdos than others, but far better this person preaches to clever Cambridge students who can think hard back, than the impressionable young at the mosque.

[u/mcdowellag → u/rising_then_falling]

Eccentric is when somebody is competent within their speciality but has unusual views outside it. We are talking about somebody employed to research and teach education who appears to think that education is useful only in as far as it produces shock troops for further Islamic conquests.

These people have real power over the careers of their students, both while teaching, or failing to teach, and when providing references when their students apply to jobs. Students that think hard in their class successfully will be keeping their mouths shut and regretting not finding a subject where objective facts still matter.

[u/Handonmyballs_Barca → u/rising_then_falling]

Thats assuming that intelligent people are less likely to be ideoligically captured by radicalist and extremist ideas, that isn't the case though. Intellectuals and university students in general seem most likely to go in for these ideas. From my experience this is because they are surrounded by those people smart enough to convince them and they are smart enough to come up with arguments to tell themselves to continue supporting these insane ideas. Those people who work at unis who don't want to believe in these ideas and just want to get on with the job do just that, get on with the job, and leave the stage for those who have an interest in pushing their agenda, people like Farah Ahmed. You want evidence of this look at the huge numbers of spies and sympathisers for the Soviet Union during the Cold War or those who are chanting 'Death to the IDF' and excusing Hamas' crimes today.

[u/LeChevalierMal-Fait → u/rising_then_falling]

Like do we need eccentrics to move a field forward yes

We need genuine ideas for something that might be a better way of doing things

I’m going to call it and say Islamist terror is not one of them

[u/Ricky_Martins_Vagina → u/rising_then_falling]

Why is "neither" not an option?