Why do Moslems Underachieve?

Muslims make up 22% of the World’s population, according to the United Nations' Arab Human Development Report: "Half of Arab women cannot read; One in five Arabs live on less than $2 per day; Only 1 percent of the Arab population has a personal computer, and only half of 1 percent use the Internet; Fifteen percent of the Arab workforce is unemployed; 60% of Muslims are illiterate”. Only two Muslims have won the Nobel prize in a scientific field - Dr. Abdus Salam, in 1979 for Physics and Dr. Ahmed Zewail, in 1992 for Chemistry. Dr Salam a native of Pakistan , is not considered to be a Muslim in his home country as he follows the Ahmadiyyas sect of Islam.

Only 600 universities service a Muslim population of 1.2 billion in 57 countries. Half the universities concentrate on teaching Islamic education and science. India has 8,407 universities for 1 billion people and the United States has 5,758 for 280 million people. The combined annual GDP (purchasing power parity basis) of the 57 Muslim countries is under $2 trillion. The US produces goods and services worth $10.4 trillion; China $5.7 trillion, Japan $3.5 trillion, India $3 trillion and Germany $2.1 trillion. The oil rich states Saudi Arabia , United Arab Emirates , Kuwait and Qatar collectively produce goods and services worth $430 billion; Thailand alone produces goods and services worth $429 billion.

Underachievement by Muslims was not always the case claim Muslims and point to a glorious and illustrious time when the Arab Muslim empire was the most advanced and enlightened in the world. Many discoveries were made in the period 750 – 1250 AD according to Muslims. Critical analysis of this period shows that many of the advancements and discoveries we falsely attribute to Muslims were actually made by the ancient civilisations of the Mediterranean area, or by the ancient Chinese and Indian civilisations.

Muslims believe, that glass mirrors, were first developed by Muslim Spain in the 11th century. Around 1290 Venetians learned how to produce glass from the Spanish Muslims. The Romans invented the glass mirror around the 1st century. Research by Reinuad and Fave, indicates that Muslims chemists were the first to develop the formula for gunpowder and later produced firearms. The Chinese knew the formula for gunpowder and used it for military purposes during the Sung dynasty of the 12th century. Muslims boast that they laid the foundations for modern mathematics and two of its main branches, geometry and trigonometry. The Muslim contribution was merely to collect and combine the work done by the Egyptians, Greeks, Indians, Persians and Romans. The Indian civilisation gave us the concept of zero and modern numbers. Brahmagupta, an Indian mathematician, (598 – 665 AD) can be accredited with the initial work on algebra and negative numbers. The trigonometry terms sine and cosine have there origin in Sanskrit, the ancient language of India .

The underachievement and underperformance by Muslims is acute in the 57 Islamic countries. Muslims claim that they are recovering from a long period of colonisation and de colonisation and the effects of the removal of the Palestinian people from Arab lands. How about the achievements of Muslims who live and work in the West? Well the truth is not that much better than their cousins in Muslim countries.

The United Kingdom census of 2001 for the first time looked at the nation’s religious background. The findings showed that Muslims make up 2.8% of the UK population. Hindus 1%, Sikhs 0.6, Buddhists and Jews both make up 0.5% of the UK population. 31% of Muslims of working age have no qualifications, the highest of any religious group. As in many countries owing your own home is a major achievement and financial responsibility. 82% of Sikhs followed by 78% of Jews own their own home in the UK . Only 52% of Muslims own their own home, the lowest of any religious group. 14% of Muslims are unemployed, compared to 8% of Sikhs and 6% of Hindus. The underachievement of Muslims is even more bleak when you examine where most Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhist in the UK come from. 75% of Muslims, 97% of Hindus, 98 % of Sikhs and 69% of Buddhists in the UK are from or have ancestral links to South Asia . Therefore any cultural factors can be largely ruled out when comparing the achievement of Muslims with people from other religious groups. Muslims complain that they have to overcome language difficulties and face discrimination in the UK and state this as a factor in there poor performance. Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs face the same language and discrimination issues as Muslims, yet their achievements and performance is much better than Muslims.

The underachievement of Muslims should come as no surprise to those of us who understand the true nature of Islam. Everything a Muslim needs to know is in the Koran, Hadith or Sunnah. Muslims are not encouraged to seek knowledge and better themselves. Muslims are against progress, modernity and science. Those that control Islam do not want to see Muslims educated as an educated Muslim will apply commonsense and logic to the Koran and see it for what its is, a collection of distorted Bible and Torah stories and in print the mind of a 7th century Bedouin bandit leader.

More thoughtless neo-Nazi consistent babble. In an advanced and free society, there may be a strong correlation between genetically rooted ability and social class. But with few exceptions, Chinese society has been dominated by strict class and clan structures with little or no upward mobility. I wouldn’t want to speculate on how much if any genetic superiority over the population there was among 19th century Chinese leaders.

When you can post a paragraph, like that, you put yourself outside the compass of rational debate! National Socialism, like other forms of Socialism was premised upon an environmental determinant. (See The Lies of Socialism, in my debate handbook.) Hitler even ranted about the new "Classless/Casteless" Germany.)

It was precisely by denying genetic based aptitudes that Socialist theorists from Marx to Hitler, could justify persecuting the Jews, who test out--on average--well above average in both Europe and America in scholastic aptitudes. Do you think before you write, or simply echo whatever nonsense you were told in college? I do not want to make this personal, but, frankly, your ideological claims closely echo the Ashley Montagu line of cultural dogmatists. Do you realize where they stand in the ideological spectrum? Ever looked at his mentor, Franz Boas Communist Front record?

While upward mobility is a good thing, as individual aptitudes cover a wide range; what is speculative is any idea that, on average, those at the bottom of any society are going to have as useful aptitudes as those at the top. Yes, China would have benefitted--and would still benefit from upward mobility--but even without it, the generally educated Chinese, now here, test out a tad better in Math and Science, than equally educated Americans.

As for Iraqis, you issue this bogus challenge:

Find anything, any site, any where on the net the echoes the theory that Arabs are “genetically inferior” to European Americans. You can’t. It’s just your wild speculation from whatever personal issues you have that I have no interest in digging up.

1. I did not say that anyone was "genetically inferior." That would involve making subjective value judgments, which I avoid.

2. Nor did I generalize as to all Arabs, in stating what happened to the Arab civilization centered in Baghdad. I merely pointed out that those who organized and maintained that intellectual flowering were wiped out--something which you dogmatically choose to argue is of little or no significance. I have no doubt that among the great many Bedouin tribes, still wandering around, one might find some with very different aptitudes than the average urban Iraqi, today.

3. I am not going to waste time, checking on what has or has not been posted on the internet, to make an argument. My argument is based upon the obvious reality, that actions speak louder than words. And the proof is in the contrast between Islamic Mesopotamia in 1300 and in 2005. What has changed is the genocide, I mentioned.

4. Of course, what is demonstrated by action also shows up in intelligence tests--although to be candid, Iraq, while demonstrably behind European and Northern Asian nations, compares quite well with other Islamic nations, for which there is published data. (The data, on this, which I have immediately at hand, is from studies by Lynn and Vanhannen, National I.Q. and Economic Development: A Study Of Eighty-One Nations, The Mankind Quarterly, XLI, 415-435.)

Now again, it is you, not I, who are making adverse value judgments on other peoples. I.Q. tests measure largely what has been found to be important aptitudes for training people to fill useful mental roles in British and American societies. No one suggests that because, for example, the Bushman of the Kalahari might not do well on such a test, that they are therefore unworthy of respect. Few, if any, of us, even the brightest and most innovative, would have an equivalent chance for survival in the Kalahari desert. But you are trying to blame a religion for the failure of modern Iraq, and that is nonsense. We know the area flourished. We know the Mongols slaughtered those they overran there. Again, the religion is the same. It is hardly speculative--certainly not until you come up with something other than a constant--to explain the fall off, for me to point out the obvious.

You might also look at North Korea--perhaps them most rigidly controlled society on earth. Yet it has now developed some terrible weapons. Saddam could only hire foreign technicians to even try to compete on such a level. I could offer other examples of the fallacy of your point, but it would be over-kill.

For the lurkers, I would only point out the Left handed admission, which Gunnar Myrdal, the Swedish Socialist who compiled the book, "An American Dilemma," to attack American Race relations, made in 1944. Early in one of his early Chapters (I believe, the book is not in front of me), he laments that he cannot understand why Conservatives tend to reject the importance of environment, since they could still be Conservative and accept an environmental determinant of human performance.

Myrdal is right to the extent of the comment. But what should cry out to any reasonable man or woman, is what he leaves unstated. Sure, we can acknowledge that cultural environment does have a fairly significant effect on how any individual performs--certainly in what direction he performs--and still maintain that it is no business of Government to intervene in that cultural environment. But what is unstated is the converse. You cannot be a Socialist, demanding collectivist engineering of people's social environment, and believe that heredity and genes play a large and determinant role in human performance. Once you accept the importance of the genetic determinant, it becomes obvious that all Socialist levelling schemes are an assault on human excellence. And that is unconscionable.

"I did not say that anyone was "genetically inferior." That would involve making subjective value judgments, which I avoid. "

But you said their genetics were responsible for Islamic underperformance.

In #62 when you claimed “the great Islamic civilizations in the Middle Ages” failed because "Mongol conquests resulted in one of the greatest brain drains in history. The leadership group was simply massacred. Those left are the descendants--in many cases--of the lower classes."

I lampooned your implication that lingering genetic inferiority was to blame for Islamic underperformance, and you confirmed it in #152 by posting ""Lingering genetic inferiority"?!! What are you writing about? There is no lingering anything. The leadership lines of descent were wiped out! Your implication--i.e. that eliminated genes can somehow be replaced over time--is what is speculative. Beyond speculative, mere fantasy"

That’s where you claimed Islamic genetics are responsible for Islamic underperformance You said such a belief is “History” in #155 so I challenged you to find it online. Now you can’t be bothered to look. I’m sure you either looked and couldn’t find it or you’re beginning to sense what a kooky and racially charged idea that is (without “making subjective value judgments” which you avoid of course.)

"National Socialism, like other forms of Socialism was premised upon an environmental determinant. (See The Lies of Socialism, in my debate handbook.) Hitler even ranted about the new "Classless/Casteless" Germany.) Do you think before you write, or simply echo whatever nonsense you were told in college?"

Nazism is dependent on the belief of genetic inferiority, the same thing you think is responsible for Islamic underperformance (but without the “subjective value judgments” which you avoid of course.)

Your assertions, based on claimed knowledge of the Near East are absolutely not true! Any serious history will acknowledge the high level of culture in Baghdad, before the Mongol conquest. That was a new flowering, long after the collapse of earlier civilizations. You have simply embraced a selective choice of questionable assertions to try to downgrade one of the Abramic religions. That, not racial dogma, was the Nazi way. (The Nazis redefined "race" to mean acceptance of their Socialist dogma. You do not bother to look at that fact, you just parrot the line of other Socialists, that theirs was a race driven dogma. We deal with that bit of propaganda, left over from the 1930s and 1940s, in dealing with their other lies in The Lies of Socialism.)

The evidence correlating intelligence with heredity is confirmed by multi-discipline studies, over many generations. But it also conforms with observations that are available to anyone. In your denial, you have put yourself in the camp of the doctrinaire Socialists, but that does not make your argument anything but fantasy. There is an absolute absence of any evidence of human equality, whether in mental or physical traits--an absolute absence. Do you claim any data more accurate than the 87 IQ average citation, I offered for modern Iraq? Just what are you suggesting that it is? Or do you just blindly persist in denigrating their religion, without even considering the actual aptitudes of the people involved?

Incidentally, none of the Faiths that stem from the original Faith of the prophet Abraham (Judaism, Christianity & Islam) postulate that intelligence is the ultimate determinant of moral virtue, etc.. So between us, it is you, not I, who are denigrating the people of the region, when you assail their Faith. So can the childish smear tactics. As I suggested, above, they smack of "projection," not reason. But, again, point to any evidence that the contemporary Iraqi level of academic aptitude, on average, is any higher than the data I cited.

For that matter, point to any evidence that the average IQ in America has not been in a slow decline, since the upper and middle class birthrates fell. The intelligence level of any people, depends on who is having the babies--heredity. The Iraqis can at least blame a genocidal massacre. We are doing it to ourselves.

"National Socialism, like other forms of Socialism was premised upon an environmental determinant. (See The Lies of Socialism, in my debate handbook.) Hitler even ranted about the new "Classless/Casteless" Germany.)
It was precisely by denying genetic based aptitudes that Socialist theorists from Marx to Hitler, could justify persecuting the Jews,

That [cultural], not racial dogma, was the Nazi way. (The Nazis redefined "race" to mean acceptance of their Socialist dogma. "

Oh, those wacky egalitarian Nazis, always promoting their anti-racist views … Here’s a photo of a Nazi egalitarian measuring “environmental determinants” of Slavs:

They believed that ears were a good “cultural” indicator to differentiate potential Germanic Übermensch from Slavic “cultures”.

More on this here: HITLER'S PLANS FOR EASTERN EUROPE which including gassing these kids for their “cultural” views that might get in the way of their Nazi “classless” ideals.

I guess it’s classless if you deport or gas the lower classes.

Since you’re too busy to site something that echoes your “Muslims are genetically damaged because of Mongols killed the leaders” theory (that you insist is “history), I’m sure you’re too busy to site something that supports your blog claiming that Nazis and neo-Nazis are not racists.

In your battle to promote the roots for regional differences as genetic, you label those that also suggest environmental explanations as “being in the camp of socialists”. The general mix that determines a people’s potential is unknown. Here’s a decent summary of the evidence: I.Q. - Genetics or Environment Egalitarians believe intelligence is culturally determined, but you and (and neo-Nazis) think genes dominate our potential, quoting to me “that intelligence is the ultimate determinant of moral virtue”. You’re an unusual guy William.

I guess you wanted to narrow the focus of our disagreement with this articles criticism of Islam’s role in the underachievement of Muslems to Baghdad because it best fits your gene damage theory (that you along seem to hold). But even Baghdad’s ascension, stagnation and decline more closely follow the introduction of Islam than Mongol invasion. A good summary of that is in a Brief History of Assyrians . Although Peter BetBasoo places their “second golden age” from 33 A.D. to 1300 A.D, well into the conquest of Islam and ending with Timurlane, the foundation for their success was a culture assembled by Christians prior to Islam, and the decline was merely capped off by Timurlane’s invasion.

Armed with the word of God, Assyrians once again transformed the face of the Middle East. In the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries they began a systematic translation of the Greek body of knowledge into Assyrian. At first they concentrated on the religious works but then quickly moved to science, philosophy and medicine. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Galen, and many others were translated into Assyrian, and from Assyrian into Arabic. It is these Arabic translations which the Moors brought with them into Spain, and which the Spaniards translated into Latin and spread throughout Europe, thus igniting the European renaissance.
By the sixth century A.D., Assyrians had begun exporting back to Byzantia their own works on science, philosophy and medicine. In the field of medicine, the Bakhteesho Assyrian family produced nine generations of physicians, and founded the great medical school at Gundeshapur. Also in the area of medicine, Hunayn ibn-Ishaq*s textbook on ophthalmology, written in 950 A.D., remained the authoritative source on the subject until 1800 A.D.
In the area of philosophy, the Assyrian philosopher Job of Edessa developed a physical theory of the universe, in the Assyrian language, that rivaled Aristotle*s theory, and that sought to replace matter with forces.
One of the greatest Assyrian achievements of the fourth century was the founding of the first university in the world. The School of Nisibis had three departments: theology, philosophy and medicine, and became a magnet and center of intellectual development in the Middle East. The statutes of the School of Nisibis, which have been preserved, later became the model upon which the first Italian university was based.
When Arabs and Islam swept through the Middle East in 630 A.D., they encountered 600 years of Assyrian Christian civilization, with a rich heritage, a highly developed culture, and advanced learning institutions. It is this civilization which became the foundation of the Arab civilization.
But this great Assyrian Christian civilization would come to an end in 1300 A.D. The tax which the Arabs levied on Christians, simply for just being Christian, forced many Assyrians to convert to Islam to avoid the tax; this inexorably drained the community, so that by the time Timurlane the Mongol delivered the final blow in 1300 A.D., by violently destroying most cities in the Middle East, the Assyrian Christian community had dwindled to its core in Assyria, and henceforth the Assyrian Church of the East would not regain its former glory, and the Assyrian language, which had been the lingua franca of the Middle East until 900 A.D., was completely supplanted by Arabic (except amongst the Assyrians).

This is consistent with the Gattuso’s Thesis, and that with a dozen other authors I could find in a half hour. The success of the Muslim’s golden age came prior to the conquest of Islam and then stagnated under its rule.

The region’s golden age came before Islam, was propelled to its height by the same foreign works that sparked the West’s “golden age”, but Islam (translating to submission) minimized their role while Christianity that formed the foundation of the West was reformed by them.

Endlessly repeating your rant, and citing many bits and pieces of data, which appear to suit your purpose, does not make a cohesive argument. You have conveniently ignored the data I cited, including my essay which deals with the Nazi position on the far Left. Your showing someone measuring facial structure, and claiming that that represents National Socialism, is too silly to comment on. (Are you unaware that before the Leftist Boas school attacked Physical Anthropology, all schools of thought, sought to define human types, not only by personality traits, but by physiological structures. Your guilt by association is not an argument. Do you call physicians, who recognize that racial and ethnic factors are factors in susceptibility to disease, "Nazis"; or do you just limit that tactic to people who call you out, on demonizing a people's Faith?)

But, again, I am too tied up to thoroughly take your latest apart, point by point. But if anyone else, besides you and me, is still following this thread, I will try to find some time to do so tomorrow. In the meantime, when are you going to acknowledge that the Turks, after the collapse of the Islamic civilization in Baghdad, were a major competitor to Chrisian culture in Europe. When are you going to offer some data to refute what I offered on the average IQ of contemporary Iraqis? When are you going to explain away the correlation between intelligence and success, in every land, regardless of the cultural differences.

Sure, no one argues, that one Culture is as good as another in promoting progress. They are not. But Culture follows personality types--not the other way around. It does not generate them. The very free wheeling, libertarian, American culture of the period 1783 to 1860, reflected the types who settled here. You had to have a certain courage, adventurousness, and wits about you to cross a cold, stormy ocean, and settle in a wilderness. The original Americans were selected by such traits, and the culture they created reflected, who they were.

Why you seek to pretend that all people have the same potential, I have no idea. Perhaps, you simply seek a vehicle to promote hatred of Moslems. Perhaps, you see demonizing Islam as a pragmatic political strategy, much as Hitler demonized Jews as his way of winning the Socialist mobs in the German streets. But, whatever your reason, stop projecting your Nazi tactics on others. Most of us seek to understand, not demonize, nor fantasize. Your "data" does not enlighten, it clouds the actual issues.

But, time permitting, I will return tomorrow and take your latest, point by point, for anyone who is interested.

William Flax

"Citing many bits and pieces of data, which appear to suit your purpose, does not make a cohesive argument. You have conveniently ignored the data I cited"

Making a claim and then supporting it is fundamental to a cohesive argument. You “cited” no data (except for an IQ study that ignores cultural factors). I’ve asked for something 3 times that directly supports your egalitarian Nazi vision, but you refuse. You just point to your own unfocused and generally un-sourced opinion on you blog.

There you repeat your extraordinary claim that Nazis are not racists, while ignoring the evidence that they were, relying on the logical incompatibility of socialism and racism to extend egalitarianism to Nazis. But Socialism is inherently intellectually inconsistent and any violation of its ideals, like promoting racism, is expected when practiced to the extreme to which it was implemented in Nazi Germany.

The closest thing you have to support your non-racist Nazi hypothesis are two interesting quotes. The first you say is from Hitler calling for a “classless, casteless” Germany. As far as I can tell, Hitler never said such a thing. The phrase "classless, casteless " was lifted from Rorty’s " Philosophy and Social Hope ". Here are the google results of those two words plus the word “hitler” in any document (less those by you or Rorty): Results There appears to be nothing like that by Hitler. I think you’re confused.

The second quote that you close your essay with is by Professor R. Gayre (which also can’t be found on the internet) who you describe as “a distinguished Scot ethnologist” who wrote, “It was the disregard of biological ethnology and not the belief in it, which made the Nazi "racial" ideology possible.”. I see he’s widely known as a racialist and white supremacist.. Here’s a sample:

The Mankind Quarterly , dedicated to'race-science' and 'racial history', was established in 1960 by Professor R. Gayre of Edinburgh who believed that 'racial fundamentals' were 'all important' in human affairs. He maintained that scientific evidence proved blacks 'prefer their leisure to the dynamism which the white and yellow races show'.(25) Gayre's work owed a heavy debt to that of Hans F. K. Günther, a major Nazi race theorist. Indeed, Gayre's first important work, Teutotn and Slav, argued for improving the 'racial homogeneity' and 'Nordic' purity of the German nation.

You may agree with that. But referring to the only person who seems to agree with your egalitarian Nazi claim as just “distinguished” is indicative of the kind of blind reasoning from cherry picked data needed to support such your thesis. You have to fanatically grip your blinders to miss the Mission of Organizations like the Aryan Nation World Headquarters and its repeated references to “White Aryan Races” and “Non-white Races” or The American Nazi Party’s call for call for “White WORKER Power . You have to ignore Mein Kampf where Hitler creates the principal of culture creating and culture bearing races.

This is in a way a very distorted Fichtian idea of the German and Latin races being alive and dead races, it has however been severely distorted to give this theory. The example he gives is that of the Japanese and their modernization. He states that if all Aryan influence was removed from Japan they would soon begin to decline culturally again. It is true, he admits, that their development would continue for a short while, but eventually their culture and development would return to the rigid, frozen state it was in before the influence of the West. Thus we see that Hitler sees the Aryan race as the motor for the whole world's development, for without the Aryans no-one else has the ability to develop cultures. It is also this idea of the Germans as the superior culture-creating race that gives it the right to enslave lesser races.

It takes extraordinary obsession to ignore all that. You’re so emotionally committed to genetic that you can’t read disagreement clearly. You accused me of, “pretend that all people have the same potential” but I said nothing that implies it. I don’t doubt that the Turks took longer to decay under Islam than nations further from its heart. I don’t doubt that the decayed Arabic cultures and institutions have an adverse impact on their IQ. I don’t doubt that race affects IQ either. IQ affects culture and then culture (plus genetics) affects IQ The relationship is circular rather than linear. I showed that to you in the I.Q. - Genetics or Environment link that you failed to read:

Environmental differences in how children are raised also play a significant role on intelligence. Socio-economic status (SES) has been shown to play an important part of development. One study indicated that children from a home with a low SES, upon being transferred to a home with high SES, improved their test scores as much as 16 points (Wahlsten, 1995). Another study shows that home environment also plays a significant role. This study, conducted by R.A. Hanson, indicated that Stanford-Binet IQ scores were greatly associated to many environmental factors that remain stable, in the home. These variables associated to intelligence in each age period are: ‘freedom to engage in verbal expression, language teaching, parental involvement, and provision of language development models’ (Hanson, 1975). Cognitive development appears to be stimulated by the development of language. Such home variables as quality of language models available to the child, opportunities for enlarging vocabulary through appropriate language usage, and opportunities for language practice were also found to be important factors showing a ‘.69 correlation between total ratings of the home environment and general intelligence’ (Hanson).

No point in reading something you don't like, right? That essay goes on to support a lot of racially dependent IQ factors, but isn't blinded to either by "subjective value judgments" ;^)

Since this thread has now deteriorated to you and I, there is no point to my spending much time on your theories--or your demagoguish claims that I am supporting some sort of Nazi theory. That is a dishonest argument, and you should know that it is.

I will point out to you, the source of the "Classless/casteless society," reference, however. It is in the Nazi propaganda film, "Triumph of The Will." I do not know, or care, whether it is available on the Internet. The Internet is not the source of all knowledge. However, the film has been aired on Turner Classic Movies, on Cable TV--not because Ted Turner is a closet Nazi--but because the cinematographic techniques are impressive. And there is Hitler, expressing Elfman like sentiments, including his "casteless/classless" society claims.

But you are attaching the cart to the wrong horse. It is you, not I who are using spurious evidence to put a Faith and its adherents down. Hitler used racial claims, much as the Communists used economic claims--purely for propaganda. That he did so, does not make him the issue on racial questions--or as, here, for there are several prominent ethnologies in the Near East--on ethnological or class questions. On the other hand, before you smear adherents of Islam as a destructive force in the lives of the people of the Near East--paralleling Hitler and Marx, before him's, demonization of the German Jews, as corrupting German society--you need to postulate some theory of the aptitudes of the people involved.

The burden is on you, who advance a hypothesis, to show that the people had the same aptitudes as those to whom you would compare them. Even taking the genocide against the Moslems in the late 14th Century out of the equation, you will not find any evidence of an equality in aptitudes, anywhere in the traits of any advanced species of life. Until you isolate that factor, you theory is pure conjecture. Since it ignores a mountain of evidence--whether you can find it on the internet or not--if becomes pure fantasy.

An analogy would be the parent who bullies his son, because he is not good in sports, even though the father thinks that he should be. Another analogous situation would be those parents who blame the school where their child attends, for the failure of that child. There is no evidence of human equality; but it is easier to blame a school, or a Faith (Judaism or Islam) than it is to actually analyze the dynamics involved. The ugliness of the possible results was well illustrated by what the Nazis did to the millions of European Jews, whose only actual offense were to be members of a very talented minority.

I must confess that I have never read Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, but I know many who have and came away with the idea that Christianity played a major role in the Fall of Rome. But did it? There are others who have analyzed the changes in the Roman population, over the centuries. And it is clear that the original Romans had almost died out by the time of the Fall. Is it more likely that embracing a religion which at other times was linked to progress, took Rome down, or that changes in the gene pool were the principal factor?

You have not made your case, and embracing environmentalists, trying to argue against the imporance of human differences, does not make it for you. Nor does accusing Libertarian minded American Conservatives, who are offended at your religious bigotry, of being Nazis. You sound like an echo of the Montagu/Allcott crowd, in the tactics you use. (See my article on that Myths & Myth Makers In American "Higher" Education.)

Finally, your comments about the late Col. Gayre, reveal your ignorance. You can quote from the Leftist side of the argument, until you are blue in the face; but Gayre was the British intelligence operative, who first warned of the Nazi/Soviet pact that led to the invasion of Poland. He later taught for years in India, and founded the Mankind Quarterly specifically to add balance to the debate over the Nature/Nurture question. Calling him names will not answer his argument, nor those of the impressive group of scientists who contributed to his Quarterly. Why you would expect a man who died in 1996, and who had a major stroke when he turned 80 in 1987, to be posting on the internet, I do not know.

"On the other hand, before you smear adherents of Islam as a destructive force in the lives of the people of the Near East--paralleling Hitler and Marx, before him's, demonization of the German Jews, as corrupting German society--you need to postulate some theory of the aptitudes of the people involved. The burden is on you, who advance a hypothesis "

Your first post on this thread was near nonsense and then degenerated into things like that.

You’re acting from a paranoid world view, pretending people who disagree with your racialist ideology must be under the spell of social environmentalists for disbelieving that the genetic damaged Muslim world can best progress by "by practicing selective mating". Then you say people favoring fundamentalist Islam's role in Muslem underachievement must be “paralleling Islam as a destructive force in the lives of the people of the Near East—paralleling Hitler and Marx”. Okay… Thanks for the laugh.

So you say that the burden’s on me as I simply post articles critical of Islamic fundamentalism's influence as they appear while you maintain a blog devoted to promoting Nazis as egalitarians. Funny to see you you accuse me of “projecting” after saying that.... Here are the google results for " Nazi racism", and here they are for “egalitarian Nazis”.

You claim Robert Gayre, believed that Nazis were not racists enough. I see that in addition to being "distinguished" in your eyes, he's a widely known white supremacist, promoted apartheid , claimed that blacks are genetically prone to being lazy and he testifed as an expert in a hate speech trial of British neo-Nazis that blacks were “worthless” as a group . But he must have been testifying against those “egalitarian” neo-Nazis, right?

When the only person on the World Wide Web promoting the premise that Nazis and Neo-Nazis aren’t really racists , you have to question who’s the kook with the “burden of proof”. Good luck with that…

What a mixture of baloney and smear techniques.

As I pointed out to you--so busy quoting Leftists on the Net, rather than anyone who knows the people involved--you would not be worth answering, even if there was anyone but you and I, still interested in your thread.

But stop lying about Col. Gayre. You are insulting the British under-cover intelligence Officer, who brought back the news of the Soviet/Nazi pact which led to the War. He was well enough thought of in Britain at the time, that he served as the British representative on the committee which established the postwar educational systems in Italy and Germany, after serving as an artillery officer in the War.

His work on ethnology was not his only academic field. He was an expert on Heraldry, and as such--although himself a Protestant--was the English language advisor to the Vatican on matters of Heraldry. (He had been instrumental in blocking a Communist attempt to seize Church lands, at the end of the War, before teaching in India--a land rich in ethnological concepts--for some years.) The contributors to the Mankind Quarterly included some very distinguished scientists.

If you want to argue anthropology, and others are interested, we can certainly do so. But do not smear people who disagree with you. Any suggestion that Gayre--a Baron of Scotland--was somehow sympathetic to the Nazis, is contemptible, in the extreme. The Nazis were Socialists. They were not what you think they were.

As for myself. I do not maintain a "blog." My website is strongly anti-every form of Socialism, especially Communists, Nazis and others who seek to impose New World Orders on the wonderfully diverse peoples of the earth. I do not promote environmentalism as a determinant of human success or failure, and have never suggested egalitarianism was a goal; so can the garbage. Again, it is you who are using the tactics of half-truths and innuendo (the stuff of the Big Lie) to demonize a Faith and that smacks of Hitler and the Nazis. Your citation of Google as an authority on either history or science is about par for the course. (You cannot really think that that is an argument!)

You continue to pursue a series of half truths, none of which has the slightest relevance to your utter failure to advance any evidence, whatsoever, that the people in the Near East, today, have equivalent aptitudes to the people in Christian Europe or to Americans of European origins. Without some evidence of that equivalence, your attack on Islam as the reason for Near Eastern stagnation is hopelessly flawed.

You seem unable to grasp the fact that the burden is on you, not I, here. But although no one else seems to have any continuing interest in this thread, I will respond to your latest assertions, briefly.

A productive debate depends on resolving conflicting evidence. Ours failed when you refused to cite a source for what you said was “history” and then refused to discuss the timeline that conflicts with it. You then refused to process how racist neo-Nazi web sites conflict with your claim that Nazis are not racists.

I am sure any of the great Encyclopedias of the 19th Century, in the era when Near Eastern studies started to come back into vogue, would have material on the Mongol slaughters in Mesopotamea. Nathaniel Weyl, in his 1967 article in the Intercollegiate Review, on "Aristocide As A Force In History," cites the Mongol conquest as one of the major dysgenic catastrophes. He also refers to it in several of his other writings, which I do not have immediately at hand.

I have, personally, discussed in this thread, your claims of a time line, which contradicts the hypothesis of Weyl and others; pointing out the capacity of the Islamic Turks in 1571, long after the collapse of the great Arab civilization in the Near East.

What you seem unable to grasp, moreover, is that it would not matter--as an example of the failure of your essayist to offer a convincing case--whether the shortfall in certain aptitudes was the result of a slaughter (genocide) or simply the sort of decline in average aptitudes, which we have witnessed in America, as a result of the Welfare State, and the incentives on the least productive to have the most babies. The burden, again, is on you, not I, to sustain any basis for your underlying assumption of equivalence.

As for your reference to "Neo Nazi" websites? What on earth does that have to do with anything? Have I cited a "Neo Nazi" web site, as part of my argument? Hardly. I have denounced your demonization of Islam, which too closely parallels the real Nazi technique of demonizing Judaism. What whackos post on the web is totally irrelevant. I also cited Col. Gayre's personal testimony, based upon his first hand familiarity with Nazi anthropology, garnered while he was in Germany before the War as a British intelligence operative.

What Gayre was pointing out in the article, which I quoted--was that Nazi anthropology was political, not scientific. It was as flawed as was the Boas/Montagu school over here. While the Nazis did not claim as did Boas/Montagu, that there was such a thing as equality among peoples, they completely abandoned genetics--in the Mendalian sense--by postulating a new Master Race, based upon a type of spiritual rebirth in Nazi dogma (I am paraphrasing for brevity.) That is every bit as much an environmentalist aberration, as the Columbian school here's postulation that after hundreds of thousands of years, apart, we are all still somehow the same (in terms of educable aptitudes).

The Nazis were into the idea of "One Germany," with one leader and one Will. That is hardly consistent with the considerable ethnic diversity of the German population. While the Jews--who were a creative elite were demonized--they were far from the only minority. Nazi "racism" was pure politics--just as Soviet economics was pure politics.

Google’s an index to sources, not a source. I showed you one link to 50 google references to racist remarks by your friend rather than post 50 links because you refuse to process anything that disagrees with your claims anyway. Life is short. Whatever honorable military or intelligence record he has in addition to that is no more relevant to the process of resolving our disagreement than are his piano skills.

Google is a business which sells ranking to anyone--well almost anyone, as there have been complaints from Conservatives who were refused the right to sponsor listings on certain subjects. Col. Gayre, was a major opponent of the Boas/Montagu school of environmentalist propaganda. I am sure that there are those who have smeared him on the web. Does that refute any argument he made. Of course not. His Assistant Editors Henry E. Garrett, the leading Psychologist involved in intelligence testing in America at one point, and R. Ruggles Gates, a British Professor Emeritus at Harvard, who was an outstanding Physical Antropoligist, have also been smeared. That hardly refutes their arguments!

Are you so naive that you are unaware of the recent attacks on the authors of "The Bell Curve?" The Socialists in the life sciences go into a panic mode, whenever anyone seeks to actually study comparative group aptitudes. The reason should be obvious. All Socialist experimentation with human society is premised upon the idea that social environment, culture, molds the individual. Otherwise, Socialism would be understood to be what it is, a war against Nature, and a conspiracy against human excellence. But, while there is an inertia like effect derived from culture, that culture has been created by the people who embrace it--or their immediate progenitors, etc.. It reinforces the group dyanmics already in place, as a result of Nature.

As I pointed out to you, earlier in this thread, Myrdal, the Swedish socialist who wrote an "American Dilemma," is right in his assertion that Conservatives could accept an environmental determinant, and still be Conservatives. But he is silent on the converse. You cannot justify Socialism and acknowledge that the data shows a 2/3 to 3/4 genetic determinant in human performance. (If you doubt it, go to a good Library, and read up on the studies of Identical vs. Fraternal Twins.)

I have also, earlier in this thread, cited numerous examples of the fact that aptitudes trump cultural repression to a considerable extent--as a comparison of the high IQ, but terribly repressed North Koreans--ability to develop the Atomic bomb and rockets of their own--in comparison with the slightly less repressed Iraqis, where with huge Oil revenues, not available to the Koreans, Saddam had to hire French and German technicians, to try to get WMDs. (By the way, you do realize that Baathist Iraq was not the repressive theocracy, your essay was directed towards. The stultification of Iraq was a mixture of Socialism and lower average IQs than the European norms.)

One might also cite the series of Arab/Israeli Wars, where the Socialist Arabs fared more poorly than the more Islamic Monarchial Arabs--although the predominantly European heredity of the Israelis, clearly outperformed in every conflict, despite being outnumbered.

You have bought a pig in a poke. But enough of this. You and I are preaching to an empty auditorium. You may want to keep this going, like a playground taunting match, but I have better things to do. If our paths cross in a more active thread, dealing with Nature/Nurture questions, I will be happy to go into more details.

Thank you for eventually sourcing the claim you say is history. That enables us to do more than simply flame each other’s ideas. In Aristocide As A Force In History , Weyl says the idea he’s advancing is a “virgin philosophy of history”. I see that with 22 google references to the term aristocide, it hasn’t grown legs since 1967.

Weyl theorizing on lingering genetic damage of Middle Eastern genocide consists of just 5 sentences out of the nine page article. He spends more time exploring the general idea of aristocide where “Dysgenic catastrophes caused by war often occur when a more primitive culture concurs one more civilized.” It’s interesting, but appears to suffer from internal inconsistencies.

Weyl devotes more time to the case that Brittan’s War of the Roses and subsequent purges "decimated the English aristocracy", but fails to note that it immediately went on to become the preeminent world power.

Weyl makes a case made for Roman and Grecian aristocide, yet Italy subsequently led the renaissance.

He describes the dysgenic effect of Spanish Inquisition that “bore down most heavily on the talented, the prosperous, the successful and the well educated”, but fails to note that it was followed immediately by Spain’s own Golden Age. That’s another counter indicator.

Weyl says that the “extermination of twelve million Christians and Jews by Nazis is no doubt the supreme instance of aristocide in history” but we see 60 years later that Jews have the highest IQs in the world.

Taken alone, various explanations “might” account for one of those other peoples’ subsequent success compared to the Middle East aristocide while already well into process of continuing decline, but taken as a whole it looks very implausible.

I think effective aristocide would be dependent on the following:
1) An overwhelming correlation between genetic potential and aristocracy that’s at best marginally or sporadically available outside free societies based on equality of opportunity, justice and liberty.
2) A systematic effort to not just eliminate resistance but the eliminate aristocracy like what was done in Cambodia.
3) A multi-generational effort to eliminate those that display potential from recessive genetic talent.

So I think that Weyl aristocide thesis is both 1) internally inconsistent and 2) technically improbably for the reasons listed above. I have very limited time or interest to study this, but I’m sure that if I can spot these flaws, that those who do and publish can see the same. That would explain why Weyl’s aristocide theory never took off. Even Weyl acknowledges that his primary source for the claim that conquest disproportionately kills city residents, and in turn aristocracy, blames the cultural “trauma” of Mongol conquest rather than genetic damage for Eastern Europe missing the renaissance, reformation and enlightenment (Peiker writing in Cambridge Medieval History).

I think that promoting a more radical political theory comes with greater responsibility to reconcile it with contradictory evidence. But you dismiss competing and more widely held Muslim underperformance theories as products of socialist conspiracies. I’m sure as a racialists your sensitive to accusations of racism, which I’ve seen little direct evidence of from you. But your belief that racialism does not lead to racism, which may or may not be true, has apparently led you to reflexively deny evidence to a correlation between racialism, eugenics, Nazism and racism. You dismiss it as leftist conspiracies and suggest the lack of support on the net is google censorship. You’re operating in a state of self censorship if you refuse to acknowledge the significance of a plethora white supremacist and racist assertions in virtually every neo-Nazi publication. I suspect you wouldn’t follow a link to this if I cited it so I have to actually post it to even get you to close your eyes as you page down:

Above: The Nuremberg laws had strict genetic rules as to who was a Jew and who was not: a person was only classified as Jewish if they had more than two Jewish grandparents. This chart, issued by the Reich Health Office in 1936, is an overview or "admissibility of marriage between Aryans and non-Aryans." The white circles represent "pure Germans", the circles with black indicate the proportion of Jewish blood. Allowable (zulassig) was a marriage between full Aryan and a one-quarter Jew; not allowed (verboten) was a marriage between a one quarter Jew and a three quarters Jew - an interesting example of how the laws actually sought to dissipate the Jews into Germany.

If you won’t trust the author of that because in your mind socialist can’t be racists, how about taking it from someone that you’ve already cited:

Little has been written about Marx's racial views, the contempt in which he held not only non whites, but whole groupings of Europeans, especially the Slavic peoples. In his book, Karl Marx: Racist, Nathaniel Weyl showed how Marx privately developed an entire racial hierarchy and racial view of history by the 1860's. In the middle of that decade, Marx was casting about for some scientific or pseudo scientific justification for his racial notions, which he found in the work of P Tremaux. He and his friend and financial benefactor Friedrich Engels went so far as to advocate wars of extermination against the White Race and the destruction of the Russian people.

So according to your primary source for the genetically damaged Muslims theory, at least “some” socialists can be racists. I understand you to say that Nazi anthropology was a politically compromise, but I think everything’s compromised in a Nazi society. And it’s their most outrageous compromise, their racist “anthropology” rather than any logical extension from their compromised socialist ideology that is virtually synonymous with the name “Nazi”. Egalitarian agendas and conspiracies will inevitably exist, but that’s not the reason for linking racism with Nazis. I think the supposed continuum of far left egalitarians and far right racialists is actually circular, reaching a common ground of collectivism of different flavors. Both result in beliefs that either the race or the state determine identity, and both create elaborate rationalizations and practice self censorship of contradictory evidence.

To further purify the race, those women of mixed blood were to be sterilized, and those with ideal Aryan characteristics were bred like livestock. But how to determine whether an individual had the ideal Aryan characteristics? The Nazi Bureau for Enlightenment on Population Policy and Racial Welfare recommended the classification of Aryans and non-Aryans on the basis of measurements of the skull and other physical features. They measured the parts of the head and face as well as comparing eye and skin color to color charts.

I’m nothing like an authority on genetic/environmental determinants or on Islam, but I’ve looked into some twin studies and found them to be small, rare and generally suffering from sampling problems. Even accepting your 2/3 to 3/4 genetic determinate claim, that seems sufficient to explain lower IQs among cultures where rote memorization of a religious text that literally means “submission” and where everything external to it is considered of subordinate value if any value at all. Intelligence potential under a philosophy named “submission” or a reformed philosophy guiding poor intelligence potential - what’s worse to the progress of a people? Over a millennium, its affects appear to be worse than 50 years of dictatorship judging from the Korean nuclear program that you bring up.

As far the Turks 15th century incursion into Europe goes, assuming that has significance beyond the Mongol successful conquest of Islam, it appears to correlate well with Europe’s Reformation and Renaissance, consistent with what Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na 'Im promotes for Islam

I think it’s fare to acknowledge after all this that I could be partially wrong. Maybe in a larger sense the role played by a brain drain is somewhat to blame. Maybe there’s a brain drain from people escaping not just the Moguls, but escaping cultures crippled by Islamic fundamentalism. How many talented people imigrate from the Middle East each year? I don’t know , but I doubt it’s material yet. The explanation promoted in this article by Thierry Gattuso make more sense to me. There are many supporting opinions that I could cite .

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