To illustrate the collective intellectual dystopia that are the Arab countries, the country of Greece (11 million people) translated five times more books into Greek in 2009 than did the entire Arab world combined (population of 367 million). A 2003 UN study of Arab knowledge (the last study which broached this topic), found that the Arab world accounts for only 1.1% of total book consumption, despite making up 5% of the world population.
So, again, why do I bring this up? Because it is, quite literally, a matter of life and death:
- We are now witnessing the emergence of extreme Idiocracy in the Arab countries where the price of intellectual passivity has led to the dumbest ideas dominating the region with the backing of oil dollars.
- An unfortunate fact of nature is that if you do not provide people of any value, they will, at best, ignore you. At the worst, they will invade, conquer, and enslave you.
- More directly, the deficiency in scientific literacy and subsequent lack of technological output by the Arabs has led them to humiliation and subjugation by adversaries employing superior technology, greater organization, and more convincing propaganda.
- The Arab revolutions of this decade have categorically failed due to any concomitant intellectual revolution arising alongside protests that could replace the existing social order–leading to a rotating door of cynical despots who rule through fear.
Lastly, I choose to write about this topic because I believe that hope is not lost. If I thought that the modern Arab IQ disparity was simply a matter of latent, intractable, and inbred dysgenics, I’d consider this subject an open and shut case and write about something else.
To be clear, I share the same belief reflected by the scientific consensus that IQ is largely heritable, while also strongly affected by environmental factors.
The Arab-Israeli Conflict in Context of IQ
The Arab-Israeli conflict illustrates the destructive impact of Arab intellectual malaise and dysgenics (I will discuss dysgenics in the Middle East in another edition of this blog). In the story of colonizer and colonized, intellectual ability–especially when it is perceived to be latent to the genetics of the conqueror and not the conquered–is a particularly sensitive topic.
The picture I am about to paint will likely perturb many readers of all ethnicities, as truths often do. In any case, this topic warrants discussion given what is at stake. Also, I am an empiricist, so if you hold dear the ideas that God or Marxist-derived theories of social justice will improve the sorry lot of the Arabs, I suppose you can ignore this blog entirely and go back to your mental masturbation and futile agitations.
Disclaimers aside, let’s begin…
Arab Intelligence
According to IQ and the Wealth of Nations, Arab populations have a mean IQ of approximately 85. Donald Templer of Alliant International University replicated this finding. This places Arabs about a full standard deviation’s distance away from European populations, who have a mean IQ of 100, and two standard deviations away from the Ashkenazi Jewish population, who have an average IQ of about 115.
It is worth noting that an IQ of 85 or lower used to be regarded as mentally retarded by cognitive scientists until this threshold was shifted down to 75 in the 1960s. There is general agreement, however, that anybody with an IQ within the range of 80 can possibly be categorized as mentally retarded.
Applying these statistics, Egypt, which was historically Israel’s chief adversary up until the late 1970s, had a 1967 population where somewhere between 33-50% of its individuals could be categorized as mentally retarded by European standards. This cognitive deficit is reflected by the extreme poverty that characterizes Egypt today (GDP per capita $3,314 per year), its political instability, and the decisiveness with which its people were defeated on the battlefield by the Israelis in multiple wars.
Does this imply that the Egyptian nation can be characterized as “retarded”? No. What it does imply, however, is that the talent pool available to Egypt from which it could cultivate strategists, technologists, entrepreneurs, and manufacturers has been extremely limited throughout its modern history. It also implies that Egypt has had to deal with dysgenic problems related to low intelligence that Israel does not have to face, such as aforementioned elements of poverty, civil war, sedition, and decreased competitiveness in the world economy.
Ashkenazi IQ and Israel
In 1967, there were roughly 1.6 million Ashkenazi Jews in Israel. This is a population whose IQ is about 115. Assuming that IQ distribution in the Ashkenazi population can be modeled after a typical Caucasian bell curve, this would suggest that roughly 15% of their population is “gifted” by European standards, implied by an IQ score of 130 or above.
This relatively high degree of intelligence explains the prosperity and stability which Israel possesses within its borders. Israel is one of the technological capitals of the world–Intel develops their chips there, and some of the world’s best aviation and military technology has been developed and manufactured by Israelis in Israel. On the battlefield, the best their adversaries have managed to affect against their military machine is stalemate, and the Jews have repeatedly embarrassed and humiliated the Arabs throughout the course of their short history.
Why IQ Matters
Perhaps it goes without saying that, if you want a sophisticated military with advanced technology and hundreds of thousands of personnel at your disposal, you need smart people to design, manage, and coordinate it. Modern militaries have an extremely high number of variables to account for–picture all of the troops, tanks, watercraft, fighter jets, supply trains, communications networks, and maintenance logistics that need to be accounted for. Then factor in the extreme pressure that military leaders are under in existential wars like the one fought by the Arabs and Israelis in 1967. The responsibilities are absolutely massive and the room for error is extremely small.
Furthermore, air forces–the crux of modern military superiority– require very intelligent personnel to operate effectively. The US air force, for example, requires its fighter pilots to have an IQ that is between one and two standard deviations above the average population. The people actually building the aircraft are essentially geniuses.
Comparing the Populations
I am assuming that the Arab and Israelis both follow a Caucasian distribution curve of intelligence for this comparison. I am also (perhaps arbitrarily) choosing to make a numerical comparison of the number of people within the “gifted” intelligence bracket rather than simply “smart.”
If we stack up every country involved in the 1967 war by total population, then count the number of intellectually “gifted” (IQ greater than or equal to 130), individuals in the population, we observe:
Egypt
Total population: 33 million
Gifted population: 33,000
Syria
Total population: 5,760,000
Gifted population: 5,760
Jordan
Total population: 1,278,000
Gifted population: 1,278
Israel
Ashkenazi population: 1,700,000
Gifted Ashkenazi population: 255,000
So, in other words, the total gifted population in Israel in 1967 was more than six times the number of that in all of its Arab adversaries’ countries combined. This qualitative difference in intelligence has translated to an overwhelming advantage for Israel, and the Arabs would do well to learn this lesson.
Facebook comments:
Daniel de Porto: If the Arabs were more intelligent, they wouldn’t believe all the lies their leaders tell them about Jews. They’d recognize the intellectual and spiritual superiority of the Jews and stop trying to fight them. Instead, they’d find a way to get along with the Jews, so they can benefit from their benevolence and improve the quality of their own lives and that of their children and grandchildren.
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Christopher Donnellan I mean, if Jews were truly superior. Israel would be giving the U.S. and Germany foreign aid, unlike the aforementioned countries pouring billions into Israel to keep it afloat, year after year… Many Jews would be paragons of virtue, living saints, instead of producing the Bernie Madoff’s and. Jonathan Pollard’s of this world.
Daniel de Porto: First of all, the only country giving money to Israel is the U.S., and that money can only be used to purchase weapons from American companies, thus benefiting these American companies financially.
Second, Israel is America’s greatest ally in that region and greatly benefits from the intelligence Israel shares with them.
Third, not only America, but the entire world benefits from the amazing breakthroughs in technology, science, medicine and agriculture that has emerged from Israel in the 67 short years it’s been in existence.
Fourth, people seem to forget that the state of Israel has only been in existence for 67 years. America was not the global superpower it is now back in 1843, when it was 67 years old. Also, unlike Israel, America was not surrounded on every side of its borders by enemy states that vowed to destroy her on a continuous basis. They were allowed to grow and thrive on their own. Imagine how successful Israel would be now if they were bordered by friendly non-Muslim countries?
The fact that Israel still exists at all and has the success it has says volumes on the tenacity, ingenuity and brilliance of the Jewish mind. Israel is America’s best friend in the region and they’re damn lucky to have her!
I think you are bright enough to realize that for every Bernie Madoff, there are thousands of Jews that have benefited society. And for every Bernie Madoff, there are also hundreds of thousands of Gentiles that committed much greater crimes against humanity.
