January 26, 2026 at 11:45 AM

Islam as a violent Super-organism

@HenryCastaigne

To read this bio, please join Ricochet.

Sam Harris is famous for viewing DNA as being more important than the actual physical vessels that replicate the DNA. He theorizes that the organism that sustains the DNA is secondary to the DNA itself. This is sort of like how E.O. Wilson focuses on the super-organism rather than the individual. Wilson is a famous biologist who studies ants. He popularized the idea of a super-organism, a term used to describe creatures that prioritize their colony or hive above their individual survival or reproduction. These two theories fully explain why it makes perfect evolutionary sense for an individual ant to value the colony above its own individual life. The ant colony has the ant’s DNA, so it makes sense for the ant to die for the colony. In our own bodies, we sacrifice cells all the time to maintain the whole.

Religions often act like vast and mobile super-organisms. Think of all the Christian martyrs who died spreading the faith—this is not dissimilar to ants dying while expanding a colony. The individual believer may die, but their death contributes to the expanding church. The ultimate goal is to ensure the replication of their faith.

Islam is a complicated kind of super-organism, with its own method of replicating the hive. Some ants cooperate with bees, beetles or caterpillars. This usually benefits both groups. However, at times when the ant colony is in desperate need of food or when a bee hive is weak, the ants turn against their "partners." Often, we find some kind of ant hive that behaves mutually and cooperatively with another species, but then turns against them once they have established a more powerful hive.

This is why culturally Islamic people are problematic, even if they aren’t very devout and why they should be encouraged to convert to Christianity, Buddhism or other socially beneficial religions. When culturally Muslim people have kids, sometimes those kids become intensely religious for whatever reason. When that happens the violent parts of the Quran can kick in and things go bad. Peaceful Muslims still perpetuate the violent DNA of Islam even if they themselves have no interest in violence.

Religious expression is like genetic expression in that it’s an incredibly complicated process and dependent on environmental circumstances. But the constant regression to violence in the Islamic state is based on the Quran and Sahih Hadiths.* These texts are the ‘dominant DNA’ of Islam, if you will. Islam continually becomes bad because one of the main sources of Islamic DNA express themselves into violent phenotypic examples of Islam.

Nigeria has Boko Haram. Afghanistan has the Taliban. Iran has the Shia version of radical Islam. Even America and Britain have the Muslim Brotherhood. While there are important differences in these groups, Islam constantly evolves into violent "extremist Islam." Though Islamic radicalism varies radically in different situations, it eventually programs Muslims to turn against non-Muslims. In particular, Islam expresses itself as violent when they perceive weakness. Ants tend not to attack beehives when the hive is healthy and large, for example.

The idea that religions are infinitely flexible is a myth. Such texts are a self-replicating cultural DNA that continue to influence real-world behavior. Just as the information of DNA can make ants (or people) more violent, the information of Quranic texts leads to violence. I urge moderate Muslims or people who are culturally Muslim though not pious to convert to a different religion or abandon Islam altogether.**

At the moment, it looks like the Iranians will overthrow their regime and establish a country with a large degree of freedom. It is possible that Iran will have a significant Christian minority soon. Zoroastrianism might also be rising in Iran, the religion that represents the traditions of Iran without religious oppression.

I wish the proud people of Iran a new start towards a future of peace, prosperity and scientific innovation. But Iran’s flourishing will be directly correlated to its rejection of Islam. As it is for Iran, so it is for the whole world.

*Shia Islam is a little different, but it ends up the same.

** Buddhism and the Baha'i religion are also good. It is not particularly important to me what Muslims convert to as long as it isn’t Islam.

This post was promoted to the Main Feed at the recommendation of Ricochet's members.

To read this bio, please join Ricochet.

Eb Snider@EbSnider37w

Wilson is perhaps best know at the founder of the field of "Evo Psych" or Evolutionary Psychology. In the early days it was called sociobiology. He thought of applying the same methods of analyzing the animal kingdom to humans. He offers explanations for perceived phenomena. Some I think much more robust than others. As you mentioned he apparently was an expert in insects.

I read his book On Human Nature (1978) which contains various chapters dealing with humans as analyzed for the first time in a sociobiological sense. There is a chapter on Religion. It's the OG text of the field, though various things have been developed since then. Note that he also hates Marxism and views it as a region without any real scientific or biological backing. It's a "sociology with the biology". Here are some quotes from his religion chapter:

It is obvious that human beings are still largely ruled by myth. (cut)
three great mythologies: Marxism, traditional religion, and scientific materialism.

Note that he views the growing scientific materialism as a type of religion too because it creates a type of faithful framework by which to operate. Today we might call it "scientism". But he takes a broad view of religion. Wilson also believes humans are hard wired with a predisposition toward religion.

The highest forms of religious practice, when examined more closely, can be seen to confer biological advantage. Above all they congeal identity. (cut)
key process the "sacralization of identity"

According to Wilson the religion formation has 3 parts (I'll use his language):

(1) First mechanism is objectification which creates an attractive framework on which to festoon symbols and myths

(2) Commitment is the second process. Commitment is pure tribalism enacted through emotional self-surrrender

(3) Finally there is myth: the narrative by which the tribe's special place in the world is explained in rational terms consistent with the listener's' understanding of the physical world.

Wilson writes this that could be viewed as applying to the Abrahamic religions:

Pastoral societies are highly mobile, tightly organized, and often militant, all features that tip the balance toward male authority. It is also significant that herding, the main economic base, is primarily the responsibility of men.

This passage can be viewed in different ways, but notice there is a strong implication that practical economics have a deterministic element of how authority is organized. The mobile elements also strongly apply to early Islam or Ishmaelites as the religion might have actually started. There's a strain of thought that Islam was created and even the term Muslim was created some significant period of time after the initial expansion of the original group.

Now conventional Islam has the penalty of death for those who leave the faith. The prohibition of other groups proselytizing and building new churches is another buttress to its hold on power. So it's a bit of a Hotel California where you can check-in, but never leave, and not get visitors. Islam also has teachings that they are superior to all. Harris also once made a good point about how little foreign literature is translated into Arabic to be offered to their populations. Looking at other large Islamic areas would be worth investigating with this angle.

Discussion (129)

To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Bob Thompson@BobThompson37w
Since the big difference between Christianity and Islam is the violence you describe, and the vital difference is the view of individual value in Christianity versus the group in Islam, a way for Christians to be successful might be economic dominance over Islam. The militant response is doing it the Islamic way.
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Bob Thompson@BobThompson37w
The Communists and the Globalists who have been dominant in Davos in the past got a different message this time. The message is that America is leading in a different direction that pits free individual enterprise economic power against the global collective that is joined with violent Islam in a collective violent approach that does not value individual sanctity.
Can Christian led economic power prevail over global/Islamic oneness and militancy?
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Eb Snider@EbSnider37w
Wilson is perhaps best know at the founder of the field of "Evo Psych" or Evolutionary Psychology. In the early days it was called sociobiology. He thought of applying the same methods of analyzing the animal kingdom to humans. He offers explanations for perceived phenomena. Some I think much more robust than others. As you mentioned he apparently was an expert in insects.
I read his book On Human Nature (1978) which contains various chapters dealing with humans as analyzed for the first time in a sociobiological sense. There is a chapter on Religion. It's the OG text of the field, though various things have been developed since then. Note that he also hates Marxism and views it as a region without any real scientific or biological backing. It's a "sociology with the biology". Here are some quotes from his religion chapter:

It is obvious that human beings are still largely ruled by myth. (cut)
three great mythologies: Marxism, traditional religion, and scientific materialism.

Note that he views the growing scientific materialism as a type of religion too because it creates a type of faithful framework by which to operate. Today we might call it "scientism". But he takes a broad view of religion. Wilson also believes humans are hard wired with a predisposition toward religion.

The highest forms of religious practice, when examined more closely, can be seen to confer biological advantage. Above all they congeal identity. (cut)
key process the "sacralization of identity"

According to Wilson the religion formation has 3 parts (I'll use his language):
(1) First mechanism is objectification which creates an attractive framework on which to festoon symbols and myths
(2) Commitment is the second process. Commitment is pure tribalism enacted through emotional self-surrrender
(3) Finally there is myth: the narrative by which the tribe's special place in the world is explained in rational terms consistent with the listener's' understanding of the physical world.
Wilson writes this that could be viewed as applying to the Abrahamic religions:

Pastoral societies are highly mobile, tightly organized, and often militant, all features that tip the balance toward male authority. It is also significant that herding, the main economic base, is primarily the responsibility of men.

This passage can be viewed in different ways, but notice there is a strong implication that practical economics have a deterministic element of how authority is organized. The mobile elements also strongly apply to early Islam or Ishmaelites as the religion might have actually started. There's a strain of thought that Islam was created and even the term Muslim was created some significant period of time after the initial expansion of the original group.
Now conventional Islam has the penalty of death for those who leave the faith. The prohibition of other groups proselytizing and building new churches is another buttress to its hold on power. So it's a bit of a Hotel California where you can check-in, but never leave, and not get visitors. Islam also has teachings that they are superior to all. Harris also once made a good point about how little foreign literature is translated into Arabic to be offered to their populations. Looking at other large Islamic areas would be worth investigating with this angle.
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Subcomandante America@TheReticulator37w
Henry Castaigne (View Post):
He theorizes that the organism that sustains the DNA is secondary to the DNA itself. Sort of like how E.O. Wilson focuses on the super-organism rather than the individual.
I'll think about whether those two sentences are contradictions or not.
E.O. Wilson is dead, btw.
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Subcomandante America@TheReticulator37w
ReplyingtoBob Thompson
Bob Thompson (View Comment):
Since the big difference between Christianity and Islam is the violence you describe, and the vital difference is the view of individual value in Christianity versus the group in Islam, a way for Christians to be successful might be economic dominance over Islam. The militant response is doing it the Islamic way.
I don't think either is how Biblical Christianity views success.

Scroll for later comments

+124 more comments

Join the conversation

You're seeing five of 129 comments. Sign in, or join for just $5 per month, to read them all and add your own.