In part one, I quoted Martin Kramer as saying a surplus of young men is the central problem of Middle Eastern Muslim societies. The 9/11 attack and everything since in the War on Terror is a byproduct of their astonishing birthrate. Bad as this is, an historical perspective says Darwinian selection is also threatened, and with it, us.
Young Men are the Problem (Part II)
By Frank Hilliard
Why did Greece fail? Why did Rome crumble? Why did Northern European societies sprint ahead of the rest of the world and develop industry, commerce, science, inventions and armaments? And is the progress of the West, as we call ourselves, threatened by current developments?
There is a theory that answers these questions developed by Gerhard Meisenberg, a professor at Ross University in Dominica, from work done by Oswald Spengler and quoted at VDare by Richard Hoste. Here's the first part of the argument, presented by Hoste:
At the most primitive level of development, people have only magical explanations of the workings of the universe. Manliness and patriarchy are in style. Intelligence is selected for, as the very weakest die out. The intelligent tribe's population grows. More people means more inventions. The population then grows further, because people still have their old habits and haven't yet realized that more children means a lower standard of living. The "Flynn Effect", an absolute rise in IQ likely caused by improved nutrition, takes hold and people become even smarter.
Thus although high intelligence is no longer selected for, improvements in environment mask any decline in the gene pool. The society's higher IQ leads to even greater progress.
But this doesn't go on forever. There is only so much that nurture can do to improve cognitive functioning. So, although IQ improved by about thirty points in the twentieth century, with most of the gains coming at the middle and left of the bell curve, the Flynn Effect has now hit its limits in the modern West.
OK, so we top out on smarts; what's the problem with that you ask? We stop having babies because, being smart, we realize there's no benefit to us as individuals and since we no longer believe in God, no benefit to society either.
Meisenberg quotes Spengler: "Children do not happen, not because children have become impossible, but principally because intelligence at the peak of intensity can no longer find any reason for their existence...When the ordinary thought of a highly cultivated people begins to regard 'having children' as a question of pro's and con's, the great turning point has come. For nature knows nothing of pro and con."
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