# Intellectually, What Does Islam Offer The West? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 12, 2015, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectually-what-does-islam-offer-the-west/724949 "2015-07-12T15:22:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectually-what-does-islam-offer-the-west/724949/181 "2015-08-13T00:29:38Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > Islam isn’t a genetic group, nor is it confined to a single “race”. I fail to see the relevance of this tangent. You’re right, and I regret my contributing to it. ---
**Author:** ![Construct](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@Construct](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Construct)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectually-what-does-islam-offer-the-west/724949/182 "2015-08-13T01:29:14Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > I have made no claim of conspiracy and I see no point in debating point with which I have no agreement. > > Intelligence is clearly something about which many people are interested. With that interest, people are going to study it in different ways–including trying to measure it. Once a method of measure was introduced, it directed all future behavior among those who study it. There are certain (disparate and inconsistent) correlations between the method used measure intelligence and other social phenomena, which have resulted in a reinforced view that the measure actually works. That the measure of what is regarded as intelligence and the measure of the other phenomena correlate due to other factors simply gets dismissed. The notion of _g_ is simply accepted without any actual explanation of what it is. (Interestingly, there is no attempt to measure a _g_ equivalent for athletic prowess as everyone recognizes that certain abilities preclude other abilities, but the multiple varieties of intelligence are blithely summed up in one number, despite the fact that they are also recognized as being diverse.) > > Any claim that group X is “smarter” than group Y is suspect based on the issues that we still do not know what is being measured, that the various tests administered to different groups have not been demonstrated to actually cross cultural boundaries successfully, and that the tests administered to the same ethnic groups produce differing results when administered in different locations or in different years. > > I have no problem with the idea that different groups might display different results on tests. When such tests are presented as evidence of group level intelligence, they are, for the reasons presented above, silly. When the test scores indicate of one group show up at levels that would be considered dysfunctional in another group, yet both groups actually function, the test results are clearly wrong. You may not have explicitly stated a conspiracy, but you do believe that the observations made by an entire field of science were fraudulent. That’s pretty close, especially since a fraud of that size would surely require cooperation. Quoting Wikipedia, “the existence of g as a statistical regularity is well-established and uncontroversial…” The principal problem with your comparison to athletics is it’s ahistorical nature. _g_ was created because researchers noted that performance on many different measures of intelligence were correlated; that is, those who performed well on a memory test likely performed well on a reading comprehension test as well. This precipitated the creation of the general intelligence factor and is why researchers believe that it singly is primarily responsible for performance on IQ tests. The difficulty with suggesting that _g_ is truly uncorrelated with various measures of life outcomes is that all of our efforts to include other variables do not diminish the significance of _g_ to 0. That is, even when you include a person’s race, gender, household income, prenatal nutrition, parasite load, lead exposure, etc. in an analysis, you still find that _g_ is a substantial determinant of life outcomes. Therefore, either _g_ is real or it is a very useful abstraction for other variables we cannot imagine and cannot measure. Your claims of cultural bias are also misplaced; these claims have been raised for decades and especially since the 1994 publication of _The Bell Curve_. The principal problem with claims of cultural bias is that naturalized representative immigrant groups tend to retain average IQ scores similar to those of their parents, and that tests designed specifically to be cultural-bias free (like the Cattell Culture Fair Test) still show a Black-White IQ gap similar to that shown on widely used tests. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectually-what-does-islam-offer-the-west/724949/183 "2015-08-13T01:53:43Z")
> [@Construct](#): > > You may not have explicitly stated a conspiracy, but you do believe that the observations made by an entire field of science were fraudulent. No. I suggested that they were wrong. it is not the first time it has happened and it won’t be the last. In the Western U.S. firefighters spent the better part of 100 years trying to fight every forest fire, never letting any small fires clean out the underbrush so that every fire that got away from them turned into a disaster. When firefighters from the East suggested that they allow or even encourage small burns, the Easterners were met with hostility. After several years, enough people had enough information to prove that Eastern method was better. There was neither a conspiracy nor stupidity on the part of the Western firefighters, just a wrong path from which it was difficult for them to switch. Inventing straw man accusations of conspiracy to attribute to my position does nothing to make your position stronger. > [@Construct](#): > > Quoting Wikipedia, “the existence of g as a statistical regularity is well-established and uncontroversial…” It is established among psychometricits, whom I believe are are misguided. > [@Construct](#): > > Your claims of cultural bias are also misplaced; these claims have been raised for decades and especially since the 1994 publication of _The Bell Curve_. The principal problem with claims of cultural bias is that naturalized representative immigrant groups tend to retain average IQ scores similar to those of their parents, and that tests designed specifically to be cultural-bias free (like the Cattell Culture Fair Test) still show a Black-White IQ gap similar to that shown on widely used tests. “Culturally fair” tests are written and examined by psychometricists growing up in one culture looking at other cultures. I expect them to be written with a sincere interest in accuracy. I have seen no indication that the authors achieved their goals. At any rate, this is turning into a hijack. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectually-what-does-islam-offer-the-west/724949/184 "2015-08-13T02:28:00Z")
> [@Construct](#): > > No;[see this post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=18584058#post18584058), for example. > > Ashkenazi Jews have an average IQ approximately one standard deviation greater than the average IQ of Whites. A controversial explanation for this observed phenomena explains that it is the result of selective evolutionary pressure on Ashkenazi Jewish populations. This is asinine. You earlier claimed: > [@](#): > > **Construct** > Do you accept or deny the scientific consensus that people of Middle Eastern descent are less intelligent than people of European descent? You do realize that Jews are “of Middle Eastern descent” don’t you? ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectually-what-does-islam-offer-the-west/724949/185 "2015-08-13T02:41:47Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > The correlation is not definitive in the case of Islam. There are many hundreds of millions of gentle, genteel, ordinary, decent, kindly, and peaceful Muslims. as there are in all the major religions. But there is a disproportionate level of violence directly related to Islam that is not found in other religions. It correlates with the actions of Mohammad who was a violent person. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectually-what-does-islam-offer-the-west/724949/186 "2015-08-13T02:58:04Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > \*I’m \*grasping at absolutes ? That’s pretty rich, coming from you. > > I think \*\*tomndebb \*\*has a great point there. If Islam is and was horribly terrible all the time, and it’s fundamental and intrinsic to Islam because of the Koran and Muhammad and whatever else, such that Islam is bound to be about all suicide bombers all the time ; then how come it demonstrably hasn’t been about that over the past thousand years, give or take a decade ? How come ISIS is a \*new \*blip on the radar ? > Surely we should have seen intransigent, ultra-dogmatic violence the whole time, in every place a Muslim community emerged. You, tomndebb and many others keep projecting the view that others see Islam as horribly terrible all the time. That is an illogical argument to make to counter the premise that Islamic terrorism is based on Mohammad’s actions. He set the precedent for such behavior. That a great number of Muslims choose not to follow that path does not mean the path doesn’t exist. The dogma has always been there. If you desecrated a Quaran yesterday or 100 years ago the result would be the same. You’d be executed. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectually-what-does-islam-offer-the-west/724949/187 "2015-08-13T03:36:38Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > as there are in all the major religions. But there is a disproportionate level of violence directly related to Islam that is not found in other religions. It correlates with the actions of Mohammad who was a violent person. You are using language badly. Yes, there might be a higher level of violence, per capita, among Muslims. But this violence is found in the other religions. There is Christian terrorism, Jewish terrorism, etc. No religious group is immune from this. There is no evidence that this is “correlated” to the actions of Mohammed, any more than a Christian terrorist is “correlated” to Jesus. Bad people will act on their own interpretations of Holy Writ. The Koran is no more violent than the Bible is. (See Kings and Chronicles!) ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectually-what-does-islam-offer-the-west/724949/188 "2015-08-13T06:54:56Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > You, tomndebb and many others keep projecting the view that others see Islam as horribly terrible all the time. That is not our projection; that is a legitimate reading of your posts. > [@Magiver](#): > > The dogma has always been there. If you desecrated a Quaran yesterday or 100 years ago the result would be the same. You’d be executed. In the 1840, Protestants in several U.S. cities rioted, burning houses and churches and murdering Catholics because Catholics simply wanted to use their own translation of the bible in school classes. The Catholics did not even want to burn any copies of the Authorized version. They simply wanted to read from their own Douai-Rheims (Challoner) translation. Do you have an actual example of any Muslims rioting over the burning of a Qur’an or a desecrater being executed prior to 2010? ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectually-what-does-islam-offer-the-west/724949/189 "2015-08-13T10:34:49Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > You, tomndebb and many others keep projecting the view that others see Islam as horribly terrible all the time. You do realize that, while Jon Stewart has left the building, we still have the ability to ROLL TWO-TWELVE on you ? > [@](#): > > That is an illogical argument to make to counter the premise that Islamic terrorism is based on Mohammad’s actions. He set the precedent for such behavior. In that case, we should have seen Islamic terrorism all along, shouldn’t we ? > [@](#): > > The dogma has always been there. If you desecrated a Quaran yesterday or 100 years ago the result would be the same. You’d be executed. Which has nothing to do with terrorism. Penalties for blasphemy, ranging from fines to prison to burning at the stake to being drawn and quartered by an angry mob are not unheard of in the context of other religions, up until very recently. Anyway, I hereby assert that Americans are gun-toting lunatics who go on random murderous shooting sprees, because George Washington set the precedent by initiating gun violence on a large scale. Retort. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectually-what-does-islam-offer-the-west/724949/190 "2015-08-13T11:26:06Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > In that case, we should have seen Islamic terrorism all along, shouldn’t we ? Yes we should. It goes all the way back to Mohammad himself conquering and then killing his enemies. > [@Kobal2](#): > > Anyway, I hereby assert that Americans are gun-toting lunatics who go on random murderous shooting sprees, because George Washington set the precedent by initiating gun violence on a large scale. Retort. Then you should have no problem citing one person doing it in the name of George Washington. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectually-what-does-islam-offer-the-west/724949/191 "2015-08-13T11:32:23Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Yes we should. It goes all the way back to Mohammad himself conquering and then killing his enemies. OK, we’ve established that Muhammad conquered places, which has nothing to do with terrorism but whatever. Go on, what else ? You have a 1300 year-long gap to work, and about 50 countries to cover. Chop-chop. > [@](#): > > Then you should have no problem citing one person doing it in the name of George Washington. I don’t need cites ! It’s just common sense, and you’re too blinded by your PC crap to admit it ! When’s the last time \*you \*cited any of your stupid claims ? ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectually-what-does-islam-offer-the-west/724949/192 "2015-08-13T11:38:26Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > OK, we’ve established that Muhammad conquered places, which has nothing to do with terrorism but whatever. Go on, what else ? You have a 1300 year-long gap to work, and about 50 countries to cover. Chop-chop. > > I don’t need cites ! It’s just common sense, and you’re too blinded by your PC crap to admit it ! > When’s the last time \*you \*cited any of your stupid claims ? Should have gone with Thomas Jefferson and his “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants” quote. Clearly he’s inciting violence there. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectually-what-does-islam-offer-the-west/724949/193 "2015-08-13T11:45:22Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Should have gone with Thomas Jefferson and his “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants” quote. Clearly he’s inciting violence there. Nah. That would have involved demonstrating a cursory knowledge of history, historical characters or historical text, and how would that fit in the satire ? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectually-what-does-islam-offer-the-west/724949/194 "2015-08-13T13:35:51Z")
> [@Construct](#): > > The point is to establish that intelligence differences between different racial groups, likely routed in genetics, exist. That discussion would really belong in a different thread. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectually-what-does-islam-offer-the-west/724949/195 "2015-08-13T17:10:10Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > OK, we’ve established that Muhammad conquered places, which has nothing to do with terrorism but whatever. Go on, what else ? You have a 1300 year-long gap to work, and about 50 countries to cover. Chop-chop. What gap? It’s a 1300 year reign of terror that directly mirrors Mohammad’s life and convictions. That you haven’t had to deal with a caliphate doesn’t mean the system doesn’t exist in other countries. What other religion today has leaders demanding the deaths of people over cartoons or novels? This isn’t an obscure phenomenon and poverty has nothing to do with it. > [@Kobal2](#): > > I don’t need cites ! It’s just common sense, and you’re too blinded by your PC crap to admit it ! > When’s the last time \*you \*cited any of your stupid claims ? I can cite a never ending number of terrorist acts done in the name of Islam. Let’s start with [today](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33901796). Yet another truck bombing. The Sunni jihadist group, Islamic State (IS) took credit for it. This is hardly a rare event. I’ll ask you again for a cite regarding anyone killing people in the name of George Washington. Shouldn’t be hard for you to do. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectually-what-does-islam-offer-the-west/724949/196 "2015-08-13T17:50:54Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > What gap? It’s a 1300 year reign of terror that directly mirrors Mohammad’s life and convictions. Lest I project the image that others see Islam as horribly terrible all the time… > [@](#): > > That you haven’t had to deal with a caliphate doesn’t mean the system doesn’t exist in other countries. OK. I don’t know what this has to do with anything, or how exactly a caliphate differs from an absolute monarchy backed by a religious establishment (which I did have to deal with… well, not _me_ obviously, but my country :)), but sure. > [@](#): > > What other religion today has leaders demanding the deaths of people over cartoons or novels? This isn’t an obscure phenomenon and poverty has nothing to do with it. Well, since it is such a clear phenomenon that has nothing to do with modern factors, and indeed Islam has been a 1300 year REIGN OF TERROR!!1!, it should be very easy for you to flip your textbook to any year and point to “leaders demanding the deaths of people over cartoons and novels” in those 1300 years, yeah ? \*\* Tomndebb \*\*cited a fairly well known anti-Catholic incident happening in Britain in the mid-19th century. He asked you to cite a similar case involving Muslims before the 2010s, which, again, should be easy for you. Neverending reigns of terror all over the world and whatnot. I’ll join in the asking. > [@](#): > > I can cite a never ending number of terrorist acts done in the name of Islam. Let’s start with [today](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33901796). Yet another truck bombing. The Sunni jihadist group, Islamic State (IS) took credit for it. This is hardly a rare event. Can you cite a never ending number of terrorist acts done in the name of Islam **prior to the 2000s**? ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectually-what-does-islam-offer-the-west/724949/197 "2015-08-13T18:39:53Z")
> [@Construct](#): > > you can continue to deny reality until you’re decapitated on the streets of london. But in the end, you’ll see the truth. I’m always amused by the “When you’re dead, you’ll see I’m right. And you’ll regret it!” style of argumentation. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectually-what-does-islam-offer-the-west/724949/198 "2015-08-13T18:55:50Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > I’ll ask you again for a cite regarding anyone killing people in the name of George Washington. Shouldn’t be hard for you to do. Would McVeigh count? Not for Washington, obviously, but we could probably replace him with “the Founders” in **Kobal2** ’s argument and it would work. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectually-what-does-islam-offer-the-west/724949/199 "2015-08-13T22:19:59Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > What gap? It’s a 1300 year reign of terror that directly mirrors Mohammad’s life and convictions. This is silly. It demonstrates a serious ignorance of actual history. Muslim conquests were no more bloody than Christian conquests, Hindu conquests, Mongol conquests, or any other large attempt at empire building. On the other hand, we have such examples as the differences between Muslim and Christian conquests: When the Crusaders took Jerusalem, they murdered nearly all the inhabitants, (including the Christians). When Saladin retook Jerusalem, he did engage in the standard practice of enslavement and ransom, but he did not murder the citizens. Constantinople was conquered by Western Christians and by Muslims. The primary difference was that the Muslim leader set a limit of three days for his troops to loot while the Christian leaders set no limits. The Muslim conversion of Southeast Asia was brought about by missionary work while most of the Christian conversion of the Americas was brought about by conquest with a touch of genocide. (Europe and India were each converted by a mixture of missionary work and conquest.) Not that long after the conquest of Iberia, Cordoba in the tenth century became a center of learning that welcomed Muslims, Christians, Jews, and pagans. No similar center, welcoming people of all beliefs, arose in Christian Europe until after the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century. The caricature of Islam spending 1300 years in bloody conquest is just dumb because it is is contradicted by the facts of history. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2015, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectually-what-does-islam-offer-the-west/724949/200 "2015-08-13T23:57:18Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Lest I project the image that others see Islam as horribly terrible all the time… > > OK. I don’t know what this has to do with anything, or how exactly a caliphate differs from an absolute monarchy backed by a religious establishment (which I did have to deal with… well, not _me_ obviously, but my country :)), but sure. well then cite a current absolute monarchy backed by a religious establishment that delivers death threats over blasphemy? > [@Kobal2](#): > > Well, since it is such a clear phenomenon that has nothing to do with modern factors, and indeed Islam has been a 1300 year REIGN OF TERROR!!1!, it should be very easy for you to flip your textbook to any year and point to “leaders demanding the deaths of people over cartoons and novels” in those 1300 years, yeah ? \*\* you think they handed out milk and cookies for blasphemy? > [@Kobal2](#): > > Tomndebb \*\*cited a fairly well known anti-Catholic incident happening in Britain in the mid-19th century. Yes? And? Did you forget the Crusades? If only it was 2 centuries ago you’d have a point. > [@Kobal2](#): > > Can you cite a never ending number of terrorist acts done in the name of Islam **prior to the 2000s**? Seriously? The various sects of Islam have been fighting each other since Mohammad left the building. The 1993 WTC bombing. The 1983 Beirut bombing. [A few more between those two.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Islamist_terrorist_attacks) What does any of that have to do with the idea that Islam has a violent side of it built into the religion? When you peal away all the layers you come to Mohammad and it’s a blank check for those inclined. that a large portion of Islam isn’t engaging in the activity of it’s prophet is a testament to humanity but it doesn’t mean Islamic terrorist groups don’t exist. The traditional method of containing that violence has been with an iron fist and the Arab Spring has changed all that. There simply is no hierarchy within religion with any control. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectually-what-does-islam-offer-the-west/724949.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intellectually-what-does-islam-offer-the-west/724949.md?page=11)