Study Ties High IQ to High KIA Rate

[unhappycamper]

Study Ties High IQ to High KIA Rate
December 23, 2008
The Herald

Scottish scientists have found that being intelligent is of little advantage in the front line of battle.

A study conducted by history and psychology experts at Edinburgh University has found that Scottish soldiers who lost their lives in the Second World War were more intelligent than those who survived.

Of 491 Scottish servicemen that the study found had taken IQ tests when aged 11 and who had been killed in the war, 470 (96per cent) had an average IQ of 100.8.

However, several thousand survivors who had taken the same test averaged 97.4.

It is thought the higher death rate for smarter individuals may help to explain studies which found a dip in intelligence among Scottish men directly after the war.


Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/news/article/study-ties-high-iq-to-high-kia-rate.html?col=1186032310810

[Ian David]

1. Then my sitter-in-law's microcephalitic Army boyfriend must be unstoppable. n/t

[enough]

2. This is fascinatingly counter-intuitive.

I'd like to hear the reaction of DUers with military experience. Does this make sense to you?

[TahitiNut]

4. Competence leads to assignments with responsibility.

The "dim" find themselves assigned to duties where others are less dependent on their slowness and where they can be more closely guided and supervised. The 'point' is usually more autonomous than the ammo toter for the platoon's crew-served weapon (machine gun).

It's worth noting that the delta in IQ is very small -- less than about 5 points -- which exceeds the variance an individual might see taking the test a couple of times. Clearly, the target population had fairly similar exposure and larger unit assignments. (We're apparently not talking about populations distributed between high-skill support roles and combat arms specialties.)

[valerief]

3. And that's how Bush got to be POTUS. nt