"The Muslim Peril" (according to Mark Steyn)

I've just finished reading Mark Steyn's "America Alone; The End of the World as we know it" most of which sticks to the usual far-right paranoia outlined in similar books by Ann Coulter and Jonah Goldberg. But I was struck by how his argument for the inevitable decline of Europe was based on a claim that Europe would become Islamic in a few generations, using the 'logic' of extrapolating the currently higher birth-rate amongst Muslims compared to Non-Muslims to arguethat Europe would become dominated by Muslims and a Muslim agenda in the next few generations leaving "America alone".

After extrapolating wildly from a data set of birthrates that only goes back two generations, Steyn sets up his argument from a set of premises that conveniently overlooks biological, sociology and historical counter-factuals that contradicts him at every turn.

Steyn blames Liberals for allowing higher Muslim birthrates to develop by being 'lazy breeders' whose lack of future progeny will allow Western Liberalism to 'die out' in Europe. This claim seems to be treat Liberalism, a cultural meme if ever there was one, as if it was a genetic trait, as if no liberals have ever come from conservative families or vice versa, as if once a conservative always a conservative However all reputable biologists and sociologists would point out that extrapolating population trends for cultural memes such as “liberalism” and “religion” is nothing like extrapolating future population growth based on purely genetic traits such as eye colour. There are so many variables and unforeseen circumstances that affect the growth or decline of any particular cultural meme that extreme caution should always apply to calculations of trends for these memes beyond the very near future. When applied to such a variable and complicated area as continent-wide population growth even further caution is required when predicting the future. Those that refuse to be cautious like Mark Steyn, usually end up being badly embaressed as history denies their wild-eyed prophecies at every turn.

I think of many counter-factuals that denies his argument, but one historical argument that undermines his entire premise (that increased birthrates = increased cultural dominance) is the example of Catholicism in England. There was a lot of fear and prejudice directed towards Catholics living in England after the establishment of the Anglican Church in the 16th Century. This was based on a simple extrapolation that since Catholics easily out numbered Protestants per family it was inevitable that Catholics would replace Protestants in the population until they reached a tipping point a few generations hence and could take the country back for the Pope. This however is not what happened, and shows the fallacy of treating memes the same as genes. Not every Catholic child born into a Catholic family remained Catholic. Many converted to the Church of England, either through conviction, a desire to get ahead in the Anglican dominated state, or through inter-marriage and so the percentage of Catholics in the population increased a lot slower than was predicted and then further set back by the historical developments of the Enlightenment, the Industrial revolution and the rise of secularism and multiculturalism.

Catholics in Britain still have larger families than most groupings in the UK, but they are in no more danger of taking over the population through birth-rate than they ever were. The Catholic example has been repeated again and again throughout history regardless of whether the meme with the higher birthrate was Catholics, Orthodox Jews, or Conservatives. Now of course if you are talking about genes, rather than memes, then Steyns claims become more possible but even then, as the history of America has shown, ethnic and immigrant inter-marriage tends to be a natural deflator of even these population trends as the effect of the melting pot takes hold.

Steyn's book got quite a lot of press based on this contention and while many commentators were happy to describe his claims as "provocative" and "controversial", few actually bothered to dig down into those claims and examine the logic or maths that underpinned it. Of course those on the far-right have always been happy to exploit any fear and resentment amongst the general population of an 'enemy within' for political and personal profit. I just wish the mainstream media would do its job occasionally and accurately provide some substantive challenge and criticism when providing a platform for people like Steyn.