Edward Dutton - Islam: An Evolutionary Perspective (Brevis)

As we come into the third decade of the 21st century, the human sciences are in a peculiar state. Good quantitative knowledge about human naturegood enough for the kind of robust speculation that energizes scientific discovery, sometimes good enough to have immediate predictive valueis accumulating very fast. Yet even as our understanding advances, public discussion of topics in the human sciences is fiercely constrained by obscurantist political taboos. Indeed, as knowledge advances, the constraints seem to tighten and the taboos, multiply. When, at the turn of the century, earnest editorialists in respectable broadsheet newspapers were assuring us that There Is No Such Thing As Race, I thought we had reached peak obscurantism; the taboos could surely not stand much longer on such patently false foundations. Now, 20 years on, those editorialists are telling us that There Is No Such Thing As Sex. What next? There Is No Such Thing As Age? No Such Things As Day and Night?

Fortunately, the armies of obscurantist orthodoxy dont have things all their own way. A small defiant cadre of human-science researchers have been laboring to bring our new understandings to general attention. Indeed, we now have a new generation of these dissidents. David Becker, Davide Piffer, and Michael Woodley of Menie are following the trails blazed by Hans Eysenck, Arthur Jensen, Richard Lynn, Helmuth Nyborg, Bruce Charlton, J. Philippe Rushton, and Tatu Vanhanen.

Edward Dutton is one of the liveliest and most engaging of this new generation of academic dissidents. His YouTube channel, The Jolly Heretic, presents entertaining commentary informed by wide and deep reading in evolutionary psychology and anthropology. Edward Dutton is what Bill Nye the Science Guy would be, if that gentleman dared to present the human sciences with uninhibited objectivity. Dutton is particularly good on the subject of religion, the topic of his Ph.D. thesis. It was inevitable that he would, sooner or later, give us a book on Islam. And here it is.

Why do Muslim nations have lower mean IQ than non-Muslim nations they are genetically close to? How does religiosity relate to ethnocentrism? Does the custom of purdah increase paternal investment? (Dads not cads.) Does it cause vitamin D deficiency in women? Does a month of compulsory fasting affect pregnancy? Why did Muslim creativity decline after A.D. 1000? How does slavery affect the gene pool? Our author offers reasoned, well-informed arguments on these and a host of other questions we have all wondered about at some time or other. And what are the prospects for European societies being transformed by mass Muslim immigration? Shall our flagging civilizational energies be reinvigorated by a new infusion of religiosity? Or are we doomed to inherit those improvident habits... and insecurity of property that Winston Churchill says exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live? We shall find out. Until we do, here is Edward Dutton to weigh the probabilities for us from a deep, solid base of learning and insight.

John Derbyshire

Huntington, New York

December 10, 2019