(via LGF & GNXP)   The GNXP guys & I nearly simultaneously found this article speculating on whether suicidal/genicidal memes were being systemically introduced in Palestine.   The GNXP folks give a deeper treatment of the primary topic of the article.   While interesting, I found this little quote tucked away in the article to also be very telltale:

In January 1981, Great Sheikh of Al-Azhar (the head of the Islamic world's most famous university) stated that "Parents must follow the lessons of Muhammad and not listen to medical authorities because the latter often change their minds. Parents must do their duty and have their daughters' clitorises removed." (See www.religioustolerance.org.)

Basically, "trust the Koran over science because science changes over time."    Whereas (we presume) the Koran is correct over time.   Now clearly not every follower of Islam, or for that matter, not even every Fundamentalist believes this (not to mention the quote is from back in 1981!).  However, there are far more than a few individuals in those societies who promulgate this meme and they have far more sway than our equivalents here in the West.

I argued in a previous post that societies who have a difficult time with the "emergent" nature of Truth in science have a correspondingly difficult time with the "emergent" nature of Governance in a pluralist Liberal Democracy.    This fundamental difference in attitudes towards scientific inquiry translates into a significant cultural barrier towards democracy.