Natural Selection-of a different sort Today Steve Sailer notes:

Now, if you are a highly reasonable and urbane Arab man of the world, like, say Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, I suspect your base opinion would be that Islam is all Arabia has and without it, chaos would ensue. Sub-Saharan Africa was largely held together by fear that if you broke the social rules, somebody would place a curse on you. Then, modern ideas came along and moral behavior collapsed into the AIDS epidemic.

An important point. Though I criticize Islam, the Hindu caste system or Sino-totalitarianism, I do so only because I feel they are inimical to Western liberalism. On the other hand, Aztec civilization or the brutality of the Pax Mongolica don't concern me because their visions were not successful. Western science has generally displaced its competitors from the other civilizations, but Western culture as a whole has not won the day. The key to the possible victory of the West will be this: Is Western science partially dependent for its vitality on Western culture? If the answer is yes, than pure raw efficiency will win out over brutality or fanaticism. If the answer is no, than perhaps we should pray to whatever gods we believe in and enjoy the brief interlude of liberal hegemony in the long history of humanity. I am skeptical in that case that the West's ideals would last long against the blind absolutism of Islam or the unbending utilitarianism of China over the long run.