The actual document shows four scores for IQ: 120, 120, 108 and 132.

See what happens when dumb asses are not at the helm!

Goodbye GW - you will NOT be missed!!

Fred Kaplan of Slate.com cited a study by the RAND corporation on the correlation between ASVAB scores (the military IQ test) and the ability to perform military tasks. It was concluded that innate aptitude trumps experience and training. In other words, smarter soldiers make better soldiers!

The sad thing is that this is such a painful thing for so many people to admit that knowing this will do us absolutely no good.

I have much higher IQ scores - but Sullenberg is a much better pilot.

> smarter soldiers make better soldiers!

Not really. One has to be rather dumb to sign up with the military in the first place. "Join the military - see the world - meet the different people - and kill them".

Even when there's a good reason to go to war, the military isn't really hot on getting smart people on board - the smart guys aren't really good at following orders, and tend to think for themselves.

the military isn't really hot on getting smart people on board

Your prejudices are at variance with reality. The Naval Academy tried pretty hard to recruit me (IQ 148). Further, the average recruit has above average intelligence (contrary to your statement about needing to be dumb to sign up in the first place).

the smart guys aren't really good at following orders

Any citation for that? Or just more of your own personal theories? I know you're not the only one who thinks this way (Einstein had some nice anti-military quotes right in line with your ideas) but the statistics just don't back you up.

>>the smart guys aren't really good at following orders, and tend to think for themselves.
The military is an entirely different social environment from anything anyone who would say something like that has ever experienced. Nonconformity is not only frowned upon by superiors, but your base-mates will also reject you; moody loners aren't considered cool. Also, anyone who sticks through basic training also has a huge feeling of investment in the military which they stand to lose by not toeing the line.

They manipulate you so that even your intelligence becomes their asset.

Not saying it's bad... it is what it is. The military does give nice scholarships and stuff to people who join, and it is a good option for a lot of people who have no clear plan after highschool.

Plus there are social advantages. All my relatives are positively fawning over my cousin who joined, keep talking about how much of a straight-shooter he is and why can't I be more like him. He hasn't done anything, he just looks important in a uniform.

> the statistics just don't back you up.

Really? Source, please.

Oh, of course I don't have statistics. I merely have personal experience (which I trust more than I would trust any "research" coming from head quacks). You see, I used to be an officer (Major, reserve; my military specialty is ballistic missile defense). I didn't volunteer, though.

I certainly used my head to advance in the military... with the express goal to make my involevement as short and as less degrading as possible.

> They manipulate you so that even your intelligence becomes their asset.

The psychological manipulation only works if you're not aware of it being used on you. If you know that you're being manipulated and how they attempt to manipulate you, the natural psychological reaction is to resist stronger (this effect is called reactance). It is possible to break somebody's psyche and perform successful indoctrination and brainwashing even over determined resistance, but that takes a lot of skill and time (that's, essentially, an application of Stockholm syndrome (i.e. resolution of cognitive dissonance between inflicted degradation and core system of values by adjusting the core values to justify such degrading treatment by captors). It's much easier to do with younger, less experienced, and dumber people (who simply don't understand the two-penny tricks played on them).

It is a well known fact that smarter people tend to have higher survival rates in concentration camps, simply because it takes longer for them to succumb to the psychological pressures and stop fighting. This was well established by the "experimentation" in Gulag. There were cases when prisoners actually came to be in control of huge government projects (i.e. Korolev was running Soviet missile program while being a prisoner; Timofeev-Resovsky had successfully maintained laboratory and conducted research in Nazi Germany furing WWII - all the while being a Soviet citizen - he then was re-arrested by Red Army and sent to Gulag, only to come back to found the field of radiation genetics and going on to shield a lot of Soviet geneticists and molecular biologists from the Lysenkoist purges).

> it is a good option for a lot of people who have no clear plan after highschool.

Which says what about their intelligence?

> Plus there are social advantages.

Yep. Being constantly brainwashed by the statist propaganda (which makes heroes out of State's agents) does that to people. But, then, this only says something about (again) intelligence of the typical representatives of the social strata you're in. Note that for the real elite sending children to military is considered a last resort option - for those loser kids who wouldn't survive without discipline and have no real skills or talents. (It is somewhat different for royalty - the important part of the royalist mythology is the King as a military protector, so having male heir apparents to gain military creds is not considered optional - hence the spectacle of the British prince (who is not bright, by accounts of people who know him closely) serving in Iraq).

avery, your main fallacy is thinking that anyone who's smart is automatically going to have the same values and beliefs as you. You also completely exaggerate the treatment of recruits at the hands of the military, equating boot camp to the gulags, a comparison that just doesn't stick.

The military is in fact very good at manipulating the right kind of smart people, because they're not only aware of the changes, but they believe they're positive. For a lot of those kids, feeling that they're actually somebody who can do big things, that their accomplishments are praiseworthy is totally worth it. The worst thing that's ever done to people is humiliation, and possibly extreme physical exertion, beyond psychological barriers (that's the whole "I didn't know I could do it until the army showed me I could!" thing) Nobody dies, and its in the military's best interest to make sure that you come out of it OK. The recruits are pretty much aware of this from the second they set foot in there. That their job is deadly and may require them to kill is only a secondary consideration.

I'm not defending the military, just stating the facts about it. Also, this explanation is about today's military, and not those from WWI and most of the wars throughout history. Those were probably more like gulags and relied on stockholm syndrome to get conscripts to submit and willingly obey orders. But then again, those armies were basically using their troops as cannon fodder, and didn't want or need smart people in the ranks trying to keep themselves from dying. Nowadays we've got complicated weapons and tactics whose focus is, partly for political reasons, on survivability of the troops, and they require smart people to put them into practice. This reinforces itself because now the troops have a considerable training investment in them, and it's in their best interest to make sure that as few are killed as possible.

I think anyone who joins the military is misguided, and it's a horrible idea.. But for these people the feeling of belonging and living a life worthwhile is just as important as being a smarter-than-thou douchebag is to you.

Also the fact that you didn't volunteer indidicates you were serving under a very different set of circumstances than most recruits I talk to. In the US at least, we phased out the draft almost 40 years ago, though I don't know how it is outside the US.

The big mystery to me was why such a highly qualified pilot was flying what seems to be a lesser route (New York to North Carolina?) and plane.

I'd think his qualifications and seniority would qualify him to be flying something like New York to London or New York to Los Angeles and a 747 or whatever the most prestige plane is (777?), something like that.

Is this a more prestigious route than I'm aware of? Or are pilots flying the more prestigious routes even more highly qualified than him?

A second point is that we're probably already investing far more in airplane safety than we should be, skewed by biased fear of those type of accidents.

"This was well established by the "experimentation" in Gulag. There were cases when prisoners actually came to be in control of huge government projects (i.e. Korolev was running Soviet missile program while being a prisoner; Timofeev-Resovsky had successfully maintained laboratory and conducted research in Nazi Germany furing WWII - all the while being a Soviet citizen - he then was re-arrested by Red Army and sent to Gulag, only to come back to found the field of radiation genetics and going on to shield a lot of Soviet geneticists and molecular biologists from the Lysenkoist purges)."

Fascinating information, I'm interested in more details. Reminds me of the (apocryphal?) story I heard about a squad of soldiers being sent to kill Trotsky, that he turned into his supporters with a speech.