http://conservativefrontline.com/dr-ben-carson-a-muslims-brain-is-different/

“I’ve worked with Muslims, I’ve trained Muslims, I’ve performed brain surgery on Muslims. I can tell you that, anatomically, a Muslim’s brain is wired differently than ours.”

Carson continued, “The orbital cortex is the area involved with ethical behavior, moral decision-making, and impulse control. The Muslim brain has very low orbital cortex activity, which means less than normal suppression of behaviors such as rage and violence. Add to this their belief in Sharia Law and you have recipe for disaster. No, I would certainly not advocate for a Muslim to ever be president of the United States.”

An American black man using 'scientific' racism to suggest Muslims are inherently more violent.

This just gets better and better.

Out of the top three current GOP leaders in the polls- each of whom have NOT held any elected political office- this guy just highlights to me what scares me about the overall GOP electorate has become in this century.

Sorry if that sounded like a mouthful. I had to say it.

In a sense he has to be right: of course Muslim brains are different, in some respect, from non-Muslim brains. How could it be otherwise? Although I highly doubt that the difference is visible to a brain surgeon.

I would highly doubt that there is a brain characteristic common to Muslims that distinguishes them from people of other religions, considering that Islam is a belief system, not a genetic trait. Now, I would be more willing to believe that it might be possible to distinguish between the brains of religious people vs. those of non-religious people, since that's more of a broad stroke in terms of thought process and behavior. But among religious people, I highly doubt that someone could determine which specific religion a person follows by looking at their brains. Islam is pretty similar to Christianity overall, so it might stand to reason that the followers of those belief systems have some common traits in terms of how their brains function, whereas on the other hand it might stand to reason that there would be more of a significant difference between the brains of a religious person and that of someone who rejects that sort of faith based thinking entirely.

I would highly doubt that there is a brain characteristic common to Muslims that distinguishes them from people of other religions, considering that Islam is a belief system, not a genetic trait.

Who said anything about genetics? But listen to what you just said: Islam is a belief system. And where are beliefs stored? In our kidneys? They're stored in our brains.

But among religious people, I highly doubt that someone could determine which specific religion a person follows by looking at their brains.

In principle, one could, but it may be the same "in principle" in which one can tell what music is recorded on a CD by looking at its underside. That's what I meant when I said that I doubt the difference between Muslim and non-Muslim brains (and we know there must be such a difference) could possibly be visible to Carson, as a surgeon.

I know Carson is an unscientific idiot; I was just facetiously pointing out that, probably by accident, the specific main claim he's making here is probably true. Poor impulse control and a propensity to violence probably are probably correlated to some weak degree with being a male Muslim (I suspect the precise opposite much be true of female Muslims), or at least being a devout male Muslim, because the religion positively encourages these traits (in males).

But I take Carson's claim that he can spot these differences by looking at the brains of Muslims about as serious as the claim that he could spot them by reading their palms or the bumps on their heads.

Poor impulse control and a propensity to violence probably are probably correlated to some weak degree with being a male Muslim (I suspect the precise opposite much be true of female Muslims), or at least being a devout male Muslim, because the religion positively encourages these traits (in males).

Oh, so you're one of those. This explains a lot.

I knew this would be my most controversial paragraph, and perhaps I ought to have known that your reply would concentrate solely on this paragraph (which contains the only things I said that could possibly be disputed).

And I suppose I might have guessed you'd dismiss it with glib tribalism ("one of those" - the enemy - no need to engage here), and no thought whatever.

I've argued with enough Bill Maher/Sam Harris types to know it's a dead-end road. Ultimately that sort of position is derived from an irrational/racist Islamophobia that has little basis in fact. I take more of a Glenn Greenwald approach to the topic.

Now, you won't get an argument from me that Islam certainly has its harmful traits, but it's not significantly worse than Christianity or Judaism.

I don't see what is wrong with thinking that people from a group would have similarities in personality. It seems pretty logical that it could be one of the reasons for them choosing to be in that group in the first place.

It wouldn't surprise me that extremist muslims would be less intelligent on average, and that this is why they decided to become extremists, not the other way around.

People following dogmas in general would also probably be less intelligent on average, or at least have a particularly meek or superstitious personality.

Racist outed by a fake news story from a 'satirical' website. You are such a sad little man.

Not saying that your story is false, but can you post any articles on this that were printed in the reputable media like the Wall St Journal, etc?

These comments, if actually spoken, sound much like Gen. Wm Westmoreland's famous 1973 statement in Hearts and Minds, "The Oriental doesn’t put the same high price on life as does the Westerner."

I hate to sound like a finger wagging prude, but this is a rather juicy quote that would certainly be picked up in the mainstream press. Unless you can find at least one article in the reputable media that reported this story, it seems like a buncha malarkey to me.

It's bullshit. The original source for this article is a satire site. http://nationalreport.net/dr-ben-carson-muslims-brain-different/

Sarah Palin endorses solar powered flashlight. http://nationalreport.net/sarah-palin-signs-deal-endorse-solar-powered-flashlight/

DNA test reveals Jared Fogle to be a Duggar. http://nationalreport.net/prison-dna-test-reveals-jared-fogle-may-forgotten-duggar-child-last-seen-1984/

So yeah, that's what I was thinking above. So, Mr. Ella, unless it's in the WSJ it's crap! That's what I say as a patriot and Republicanite.

So, are people these days so quick to believe anything they read from any news website, no matter what it is?

Yep. National Report is one of those fake news sites. So many dumbasses get fooled by these kind of sites.

Even without his undeniable bigotry, Ben Carson would be palpably unqualified to be President. Republicans run so many of these candidates who have zero experience in elective office or any other public sector position. It irks me quite a bit.

Republicans run so many of these candidates who have zero experience in elective office or any other public sector position.

It's not the "Republicans running" these candidates like it was centrally planned. These guys are quasi-independents. The Central Committee and behind the scenes guys did their darndest to discourage anyone other than Bush and Christie to run (and maybe Walker but I'm not sure.)

Ben Carson knows more about brains than any of us.

I doubt it. Sam Harris said it best: "A neurosurgeon who can't think like a scientist is just a glorified plumber (no offense to plumbers)."

Pseudo science and eugenic politics at the absolute worst.

You know there was a time when I used to look up to Ben Carson. Of course that's before I realized what a miserable loon he is.

When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness.

Guys, Ben Carson didn't actually say this. It's a fake article from a fake news site.

Well, I don't want to cast stones against the OP but the link to the original post doesn't work.

When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness.

The OP's link works if you delete the extra characters at the end of it. But here's the original article. http://nationalreport.net/dr-ben-carson-muslims-brain-different/

National Report is a fake news site.

Thank you.

It's strange, because this parody stuff is actually considerably less silly than much of what Carson really has said:

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/ben-carsons-scientific-ignorance

Sure why not? I'm assuming he's referring to conditioned aspects of the brain rather than organic. Obviously a Muslim brain which has been conditioned since childhood is gonna be different from a Christian brain, which is gonna be different an atheist brain, which is gonna be different from a Scientologist brain, etc. Whether or not this is a good or bad thing is a different matter.

Forensic scientists easily distinguish the race and sex of brains in crime scenes. Anthropologists easily distinguish the race and sex of skulls. It's not even controversial except in contexts where it doesn't fit the narrative.

Now, you won't get an argument from me that Islam certainly has its harmful traits, but it's not significantly worse than Christianity or Judaism.

How is a ranking of bad ideologies at all to the point here? Let's bend over backwards and grant, for the sake of argument, that Islam is the least bad of these three creeds.

Nonetheless, it still tends to have a bad effect on people, which you just admitted, and that's all I'm claiming. I can't see how we disagree here, unless you're taking issue with the specific bad effects I'm claiming. It's not even to the point here whether or not Christianity and Islam are worse in the specific areas I'm saying Islam is bad. Criticising me by bringing that up would be like criticising my claim that cigarettes cause cancer by saying, "Thalium causes cancer more."

* * *

As a side note, and note that this is a completely separate issue, it would be highly surprising if all three religions were equally bad - that would be like expecting any three people to be equally tall, or equally smelly, or equally fond of cheese. And I would say Islam, at least at this particular point in history, is worse than Christianity and Judaism (it's almost a statistical certainty that one of the three has to be worse than the other two).

And it's pretty clear you do favour the Gleen Greenwald path here: namely, obfuscation. You implicitly admit that Islam is indeed worse by using the weasel phrase, "not significantly worse" - which in this context means "not much worse, and I can always quibble about how much counts as "much", if I have to."