Call Me Stormy

The Most Terrifying IQ Statistic

Clinical psychologist and commentator Jordan Peterson says the most terrifying IQ statistic in America is you can’t induct anyone into the military with an IQ under 83. Peterson says our U.S. Armed Forces has been on the forefront of intelligence since World War I, because they are onboard with the idea–especially during wartime–that you had to sort people effectively and without bias so you can build up the officer corp and, of course, so you don’t lose the war.

The motivation was equally as important during peacetime, where the military could take people out of the underclass and move them up into the working class or middle class, actually using the process to promote social mobility. So after 100 years of careful statistical analysis of the process, the results were stunning.

Says Peterson, “The Armed Forces concluded that if you had an IQ of 83 or less, there wasn’t anything you could possibly be trained to do in the military, at any level of the organization, that wasn’t positively counter-productive.” Learn more in this edition of Simulation.