Replies

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.