Last weekend I received Edward Dutton's Islam: An Evolutionary Perspective - as turnaround from such Islamic literature as this one. Wikipedia HATES him!!
I can see why. In its first fifty pages, Dutton wastes no time in setting his text to the Right of Steven Pinker and even Gregory Cochran. It cites Richard Lynn and Philippe Rushton. Wew.
The book starts well in explaining the basics of psychometry. It assumes its readers all know the term "bell curve". Probably a safe assumption, for Dutton readers (who are Unz readers); but the term is loaded, so it turns off the rest of us. I should have dumbed the text even further down by illustrating the Exp(-x^2) curve, explaining this "Gaussian distribution" as fundamental to statistics as a mathematic. (Perhaps with smaller words.) Also, where the text cites Lynn and Rushton, maybe it were better to cite their sources, since more-primary is always better. We are on the Hadith Principle, and all.
Also of interest: the Dark Triad. Dutton posited that low-IQ implies low-empathy. So now we see that psychopathy is for morons. (Narcissism and Machiavellianism aren't. Explaining, perhaps, Ibn Khaldûn.) Maybe this nuance will enter into a future edition.
Dutton asks the right questions about religion - as a whole. Is any given religion good for IQ? What is "religion" in context of a community - what are "best practices"? What does Islamic orthopraxy do for IQ and for the Umma? If Islam is good for the Umma, what IQ would best suit Islam?
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