You don't have to be pretty smart to realize that it's a hell of a lot more expensive and requires a significant amount more work to create a dirty bomb vs a conventional bomb. Or rather you don't have to have any intelligence because both those things are physical limits.

... so you aren't arguing the premise there (ie, that dirty bombs are inefficient for terrorists). So your argument is distressingly close to "terrorists would be ineffective if they did [this], so we should ban it to stop them making mistakes". I doubt you believe that, I'm just drawing your attention to the fact you have to attack the premise to get anywhere on this issue.

godelski is arguing that terrorists who can be convinced to try and use dirty bombs will be less effective than if they had chosen other, more damaging, options.

> They are going to try anything that can generate terror in large scale

Sounds they better write blog posts about google and facebook tracking

1 in 5 Islamic terrorists have engineering degrees (that’s nearly 10x the rate of engineers in the general population) and a further 2 out of those 5 have degrees in Islamic studies. That 3/5 of terrorists and doesn’t include those with other degrees. Suicide bombers are probably patsys, but they aren’t anywhere near the majority.

These people are smart, but are still indoctrinated. Despite the “religion of peace” propaganda, a clear reading of the Koran shows certain duties that cannot be avoided if you accept the premise that (unlike most of the Bible) it God’s exact words and also the final truth. The proof of the pudding is in the eating and the smarter the reader, the more inescapable those conclusions become.

It’s also not a fringe idea. Imagine if everyone in the US or everyone in the EU suddenly started believing suicide bombings of civilians is at least sometimes justified. That’s around the total number of people who actually believe that across the globe (even more believe in terrorism when targets and/or methods are changed).

More generally though, lots of very smart people get indoctrinated into cults every day. If our life history were just a bit different, you or I probably would have joined one too no matter how smart we are.

One of the biggest hurdles in the manufacturing of dirty bombs is that they are made from highly active sources. You can more or less safely manipulate a plutonium ball to manufacture a conventional a-bomb. But you just can't do it with highly active sources like cesium-137 without a significant amount of shielding during assembly and transportation. With this kind of source, acute radiation poisoning is a matter of hours, even minutes.

> Terrorists are not known to be the most logical people, to be honest

Terrorists want blood and guts on national TV, not a statistical raise in cancer over 30 years.