The correlation of average IQ with race is one of the most established facts in cognitive science. Like it or not, the brute fact remains.
Average IQ is also strongly correlated with geography, almost certainly as a function of the race-IQ correlation (at least, until mass immigration flattens out regional differences). Thus, while sub-Saharan Africa scrapes the world barrel for average IQ, the Sahel and the Middle East are little better.
The big question is: is the difference due to genetics (race is, despite the frantic revisionism of non-scientific academia, a genetic fact) or environment? Certainly, the experience of the Irish and Italians in America (once at the bottom of IQ league tables, but no longer) suggests that environment plays at least some part.
A large part of the environment that nurtures IQ is culture. Irish and Italian kids are expected by their parents to study as hard as any other, though certainly not as hard as expected by Asian ‘tiger parents’, while black Americans still tend to disdain studiousness as ‘acting white’.
So, what cultural factor could be driving down the average IQ of the Islamic world? Well, there’s the answer.
It’s notable, for instance, that Jews have punched astonishingly above their weight in winning Nobel Prizes. Despite accounting for just 0.2 per cent of the global population, Jews have won 22 per cent of Nobel Prizes: 214 in total, out of the around 1,000 awarded. Meanwhile, Muslims (26 per cent of the global population) have won… seven.
So, do stupid people follow Islam, or does following Islam make you stupid?
To learn more, I got hold of a copy of the only full-length book I could find on Arab brains, Islam: An Evolutionary Perspective (AKA: Why Islam Makes You Stupid… But Also Means You’ll Conquer the World), written by a British-born Professor of Evolutionary Psychology named Edward Dutton. Dutton is a controversial figure who styles himself “The Jolly Heretic,” on the grounds that he enjoys investigating socially verboten ideas and areas of research.
Well, exploring the nexus between low-IQ and Islam certainly qualifies, in the inexplicably Islamophilic West.
Dutton’s best guess is that, with all its tedious rules, Islam fosters a low degree of environmental stimulation amongst those unfortunate enough to have to live under its sway, thus meaning that, quite literally, Islam makes its average adherent more stupid than average acolytes of most other faiths might be.
For instance, three of the famous Five Pillars of Islam, the mandatory rules for all Muslims, are not exactly conducive to high-IQ rates.
Consider, for instance, the onerous insistence of multiple daily prayer times.
Muslims have to pray to Allah five times per day, whilst facing East, toward Mecca. Although this makes them absolute geniuses at using a compass, it also wastes a significant portion of the day when they could be doing something more useful and cognitively creative, like reading books, kidnapping Jews, stoning apostates, or creating new forms of IED. Furthermore, the muezzin’s daily early morning call awakes the faithful too soon, disrupting the state of deep sleep in which dreaming occurs, which has been shown to adversely affect brain function.
The Muslim obligation of zakat – stipulated charitable donations – functions much like the welfare states in the West. That is, it inverts the usual workings of natural selection, encouraging the least-useful to stay useless and keep breeding.
Like many religions, Islam imposes dietary restrictions on its followers. But swearing off ham and bacon clearly hasn’t affected Jewish IQs, so what’s bringing Islam down? Try a month-long fasting regime.
Pregnant women are potentially exempt, but ladies in the early stages of gestation may not actually know they are with child, so might fast anyway. Unfortunately, studies prove that lack of nutrition whilst in the womb can make a baby come out looking and acting like Greta Thunberg – one particular study cited by Dutton purported to prove that “15 per cent of mental disability amongst Muslims can be explained by their mothers fasting in very early pregnancy.”
Then there are other cultural practices strongly associated with Islam that are also real downers, IQ-wise. Namely, marrying cousins and children (or both). Muhammad, the ideal human being that all Muslims must strive to emulate in every way, infamously married a six-year-old. Unsurprisingly, then, child marriage rates are particularly high in Islamic countries. Muslim inheritance rules also encourage the faithful to keep it in the family.
It is a noted fact that childhood trauma can reduce infant IQ levels by six points […]
The prevalence of cousin-marriage amongst Mohammedans is also a problem. Dutton reveals that “children of Pakistani descent in the UK accounted for about 3 per cent of births in 2014, but 30 per cent of those born with genetic disabilities,” such as being Pakistani. Inbreeding has been found to cause a massive 20-point average decline in IQ levels. On the bright side, however, it does also cause quite a lot of stillbirths.
Still, as the West indulges its suicidal proclivity for Islamophilia by importing more cousin-marryin’ morons than have ever lived in Appalachia, it might be reasonably asked: Who are the really stupid ones, here?
