IQ by religion

[Sliceitup]

Personally, I have no expectations regarding which of these groups are 'better than' others in IQ. IQ is man's evaluation of how intelligent people are and sadly many with high intelligence according to man often have trouble with simple faith and trust in Jesus. What is more important than IQ is wisdom. James says wisdom is what we should seek after and God will give it to those who ask.

Why are atheists the group with the highest IQ? No one here tried to answer this. Assuming that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the Bible, why do the highest IQ people reject it? My answer is that the issue is not the Bible itself, but rather interpretations of the Bible. The Bible can be interpreted in many ways. And an interpretation that appeals to average people won't appeal to high-IQ people, and an interpretation that appeals to high-IQ people won't appeal to average people. As fewer high-IQ people chose religion as their focus, high-IQ Bible interpretations became less common. So now all that are available are interpretations suited for average people, and naturally high-IQ people reject them and become atheists. This wasn't the case in the past, so high-IQ people like Isaac Newton were religious Christians.

Those who place high IQ as being important in knowing God lack wisdom.

High IQ helps with having a deeper understanding of anything including God. So I disagree. And I think the terrible misinterpretations of the Bible that have become popular in the last 150 years are the result of the lack of high-IQ people involved in religion.

This makes a lot of sense to me.

[Ken]

Personally, I have no expectations regarding which of these groups are 'better than' others in IQ. IQ is man's evaluation of how intelligent people are and sadly many with high intelligence according to man often have trouble with simple faith and trust in Jesus. What is more important than IQ is wisdom. James says wisdom is what we should seek after and God will give it to those who ask.

Why are atheists the group with the highest IQ? No one here tried to answer this. Assuming that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the Bible, why do the highest IQ people reject it? My answer is that the issue is not the Bible itself, but rather interpretations of the Bible. The Bible can be interpreted in many ways. And an interpretation that appeals to average people won't appeal to high-IQ people, and an interpretation that appeals to high-IQ people won't appeal to average people. As fewer high-IQ people chose religion as their focus, high-IQ Bible interpretations became less common. So now all that are available are interpretations suited for average people, and naturally high-IQ people reject them and become atheists. This wasn't the case in the past, so high-IQ people like Isaac Newton were religious Christians.

Those who place high IQ as being important in knowing God lack wisdom.

High IQ helps with having a deeper understanding of anything including God. So I disagree. And I think the terrible misinterpretations of the Bible that have become popular in the last 150 years are the result of the lack of high-IQ people involved in religion.

I would propose a slightly different answer to the question.

Most people who are not religious and live secular lives do not actually label themselves atheists. They just sort of label themselves by default as whatever they were raised or simply just go along with the dominant cultural norms. "If most people believe in God then yeah....so do I, I guess. Even though I never give it any actual thought." So you get the very common "I'm not religious but I'm spiritual" mushy sort of answer.

To be an actual atheist in this culture means you are sort of an iconoclast and going against the grain to some extent. And that requires that you give more a moment's attention the subject and actually have coherent thoughts about it. So people who actively identify as atheist are likely to be more thoughtful about presence or absence of a higher power than the large numbers of people living secular non-religious lives and just going along with the flow without giving it any thought one way or the other.

I would suggest the same thing happens in the religious world as well. A whole lot of people just go through the motions and a smaller percentage are very thoughtful and intelligent about their beliefs. I'm not saying one has to have a certain level of intelligence to believe in God. But being able to intelligently study scripture and coherently express a whole theology does require some higher-order thinking.

[Soloist]

How does a bird flock keep its movements so graceful and synchronized? Most people assume that the bird in front leads and the others follow. In fact, bird flocks don't have leaders: they are organized without an organizer, coordinated without a coordinator. And a surprising number of other systems, from termite colonies to traffic jams to economic systems, work the same decentralized way. Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams describes innovative new computational tools that can qhelp people (even young children) explore the workings of such systems—and help them move beyond the centralized mindset.

Franklin, I would have to read the book but just from this I have a comment.

Just because we don't understand something doesn't mean there isn't something going on we haven't yet identified.

There are two well-supported and complementary explanations for why birds fly in formation. One is to conserve energy by taking advantage of the upwash vortex fields created by the wings of the birds in front. The other is to facilitate orientation and communication among the birds. These explanations are not mutually exclusive, and both have been backed by a variety of studies. The relative importance of each undoubtedly shifts as various factors, such as the season of the year or the purpose of individual flights, change. During local feeding flights, for example, energy conservation is probably much less important than careful orientation and collision avoidance are. During long-distance migration, orientation and communication remain necessary, but there is also much to be gained for each bird in the flock by optimizing its position to conserve energy.

With those two arguments I can accept the notion of a Self-organizing system but I don't agree that it disputes my statements.
Fat forms together in water and is expressing a constant we use regularly. Chemistry has many constants but this doesn't actually support the concept of self forming data.
That V the birds make contains no known data, the fat contains no added data from grouping, the traffic flow isn't data although it certainly can be expressed as data. crystalline structures certainly can contain data but are formed following chemical constants a creator established.
Self organizing system with examples of birds and termites do not support the inference that DNA can randomly group up into data of a useful grouping. We certainly have done a number of experiments without creating life. The incredible detail gone into trying just shows the improbability of life spontaneously occurring.

[Soloist]

Wife:
First of all, looking at the study of the 10 year olds, I saw a lot of people trying to praise genetics (history of IQ tests and eugenics in the beginning of the 20th century is horrible), but a few people were pointing out that there would be different upbringing and value systems. One funny comment gave an example that if there was a test for Haybaling, Amish might be able to beat everyone, but that doesn’t mean it was a special Haybaling gene that they had. I’m not saying that genetics can’t be partially involved, but they haven’t been able to single out any specific genes, and it’s hard to always see how much is environmental.

It would be interesting to see how this study was being performed, where, and why these people were being tested in the first place (certain groups more highly value achievement and education whereas others might be getting tested for other reasons.) Otherwise, I know for example that Jehovah’s Witnesses tend to discourage higher education, so I doubt that they put a strong emphasis on academic achievement with their children. I wasn’t able to see the numbers, but I gathered that the size of the dot represented the sample size, and I doubt they had a very large sample size for JW‘s or some of the other groups.

I also remember a talk from a practicing Jew, talking about how ironically, Jewish ladies get a better secular education because they don’t go as far on studying the Talmud, and it seems like the culture does value higher education. I’ve also seen a little of what RZehr is talking about with a lot of mainstream Jews being basically atheist, at least in the family that my sister in law is married into.

On a larger level, although I know plenty of intelligent Christians, it seems like a higher IQ correlates with more questioning and not just accepting simple answers, and while this can be a strength, it can make it harder to just have faith in things, especially with mainstream intellectuals tearing down anything that requires faith and can’t be proven.

His high intelligence level was almost the undoing of Adoniram Judson. He would’ve undoubtedly been rated a genius, and he was influenced by deism in college, and in an argument with his father, his father finally said that he couldn’t prove it or outdebate his son, but Adoniram was wrong. What it took for him to actually be convinced was not logic or worldly wisdom, but rather staying at an inn in a room next to a dying man, and the next morning, finding out that the man who had died had been his best friend from college who had led him to Deism, and who had presumedly died without hope in God.

As far as it goes, I have my doubts that standardized tests are always a good predictor of someone’s intelligence, because there are many types of intelligence. I always did really well on standardized tests and was in Quest and advanced classes at school and did pretty well on my asvab, but if you had me try to do anything hands on with for example, mechanics, electronics, or putting medical knowledge to practice, you might wonder if I have any brains at all.

[Ken]

As far as it goes, I have my doubts that standardized tests are always a good predictor of someone’s intelligence, because there are many types of intelligence. I always did really well on standardized tests and was in Quest and advanced classes at school and did pretty well on my asvab, but if you had me try to do anything hands on with for example, mechanics, electronics, or putting medical knowledge to practice, you might wonder if I have any brains at all.

By FAR the smartest person I have ever known was someone I knew in HS. He was off-the-charts intelligent by any sort of standardized measure of intelligence test. Could do complex mathematics without effort or even having studied it. Could read and understand anything instantly from law to medicine.

He was taking some advanced math/science classes at the local university when we were in HS and wound up with some sort of early admission to Stanford. A semester later he was back and I remember talking to him. "I just don't function well in a structured learning environment" is what he told me. I remember telling him: Phil, no one LIKES doing assigned readings and taking tests. But it's what you do anyway. He drifted through a long series of stupendously stupid decisions and mistakes that are too numerous to detail. Utter and complete lack of common sense of any kind. Eventually I heard that he had moved to the Seattle area where he was drunk driving at some point and killed a man in a car crash leaving a widow with children. he served some kind of time for that and then the last I saw him he was selling fish at the Pike Place Market. One of the guys who throw's fish while quoting esoteric philosophers and such. That was years ago. No idea what happened to him.

So yes, there are many kinds of intelligence.

[Josh]

Wife:
First of all, looking at the study of the 10 year olds, I saw a lot of people trying to praise genetics (history of IQ tests and eugenics in the beginning of the 20th century is horrible), but a few people were pointing out that there would be different upbringing and value systems. One funny comment gave an example that if there was a test for Haybaling, Amish might be able to beat everyone, but that doesn’t mean it was a special Haybaling gene that they had. I’m not saying that genetics can’t be partially involved, but they haven’t been able to single out any specific genes, and it’s hard to always see how much is environmental.

It would be interesting to see how this study was being performed, where, and why these people were being tested in the first place (certain groups more highly value achievement and education whereas others might be getting tested for other reasons.) Otherwise, I know for example that Jehovah’s Witnesses tend to discourage higher education, so I doubt that they put a strong emphasis on academic achievement with their children. I wasn’t able to see the numbers, but I gathered that the size of the dot represented the sample size, and I doubt they had a very large sample size for JW‘s or some of the other groups.

I also remember a talk from a practicing Jew, talking about how ironically, Jewish ladies get a better secular education because they don’t go as far on studying the Talmud, and it seems like the culture does value higher education. I’ve also seen a little of what RZehr is talking about with a lot of mainstream Jews being basically atheist, at least in the family that my sister in law is married into.

On a larger level, although I know plenty of intelligent Christians, it seems like a higher IQ correlates with more questioning and not just accepting simple answers, and while this can be a strength, it can make it harder to just have faith in things, especially with mainstream intellectuals tearing down anything that requires faith and can’t be proven.

His high intelligence level was almost the undoing of Adoniram Judson. He would’ve undoubtedly been rated a genius, and he was influenced by deism in college, and in an argument with his father, his father finally said that he couldn’t prove it or outdebate his son, but Adoniram was wrong. What it took for him to actually be convinced was not logic or worldly wisdom, but rather staying at an inn in a room next to a dying man, and the next morning, finding out that the man who had died had been his best friend from college who had led him to Deism, and who had presumedly died without hope in God.

#1. IQ tests are specifically designed to avoid being affected by level of education. (You can have a 3 1/2 year old take a WPPSI. Obviously level of education makes no difference.) WPPSI (preschooler) and WISC (child) scores track very closely to WAIS (adolescent & adult) scores.

#2. IQ is mostly inherited but does have an environmental effect mostly related to good nutrition etc. The latter has affected Americans universally in all social classes and demographics from the period studied from 1953 - 2006 (known as the “Flynn effect”).

As far as it goes, I have my doubts that standardized tests are always a good predictor of someone’s intelligence, because there are many types of intelligence. I always did really well on standardized tests and was in Quest and advanced classes at school and did pretty well on my asvab, but if you had me try to do anything hands on with for example, mechanics, electronics, or putting medical knowledge to practice, you might wonder if I have any brains at all.

IQ tests are very good at determining intelligence, also called “g factor”. Of course, every person is different, but over all people with higher IQs can learn different things more easily.

A simple way to think of it is like height. A higher IQ is like being taller. You can reach higher shelves. It obviously runs in families but also depends on proper nutrition; malnourished people will be shorter. Being taller doesn’t make someone superior to short people, but a taller person can obviously be a better basketball player. And a handful of things they can’t do as well like be a horse jockey.

[Sliceitup]

Wife:
First of all, looking at the study of the 10 year olds, I saw a lot of people trying to praise genetics (history of IQ tests and eugenics in the beginning of the 20th century is horrible), but a few people were pointing out that there would be different upbringing and value systems. One funny comment gave an example that if there was a test for Haybaling, Amish might be able to beat everyone, but that doesn’t mean it was a special Haybaling gene that they had. I’m not saying that genetics can’t be partially involved, but they haven’t been able to single out any specific genes, and it’s hard to always see how much is environmental.

It would be interesting to see how this study was being performed, where, and why these people were being tested in the first place (certain groups more highly value achievement and education whereas others might be getting tested for other reasons.) Otherwise, I know for example that Jehovah’s Witnesses tend to discourage higher education, so I doubt that they put a strong emphasis on academic achievement with their children. I wasn’t able to see the numbers, but I gathered that the size of the dot represented the sample size, and I doubt they had a very large sample size for JW‘s or some of the other groups.

I also remember a talk from a practicing Jew, talking about how ironically, Jewish ladies get a better secular education because they don’t go as far on studying the Talmud, and it seems like the culture does value higher education. I’ve also seen a little of what RZehr is talking about with a lot of mainstream Jews being basically atheist, at least in the family that my sister in law is married into.

On a larger level, although I know plenty of intelligent Christians, it seems like a higher IQ correlates with more questioning and not just accepting simple answers, and while this can be a strength, it can make it harder to just have faith in things, especially with mainstream intellectuals tearing down anything that requires faith and can’t be proven.

His high intelligence level was almost the undoing of Adoniram Judson. He would’ve undoubtedly been rated a genius, and he was influenced by deism in college, and in an argument with his father, his father finally said that he couldn’t prove it or outdebate his son, but Adoniram was wrong. What it took for him to actually be convinced was not logic or worldly wisdom, but rather staying at an inn in a room next to a dying man, and the next morning, finding out that the man who had died had been his best friend from college who had led him to Deism, and who had presumedly died without hope in God.

#1. IQ tests are specifically designed to avoid being affected by level of education. (You can have a 3 1/2 year old take a WPPSI. Obviously level of education makes no difference.) WPPSI (preschooler) and WISC (child) scores track very closely to WAIS (adolescent & adult) scores.

#2. IQ is mostly inherited but does have an environmental effect mostly related to good nutrition etc. The latter has affected Americans universally in all social classes and demographics from the period studied from 1953 - 2006 (known as the “Flynn effect”).

As far as it goes, I have my doubts that standardized tests are always a good predictor of someone’s intelligence, because there are many types of intelligence. I always did really well on standardized tests and was in Quest and advanced classes at school and did pretty well on my asvab, but if you had me try to do anything hands on with for example, mechanics, electronics, or putting medical knowledge to practice, you might wonder if I have any brains at all.

IQ tests are very good at determining intelligence, also called “g factor”. Of course, every person is different, but over all people with higher IQs can learn different things more easily.

A simple way to think of it is like height. A higher IQ is like being taller. You can reach higher shelves. It obviously runs in families but also depends on proper nutrition; malnourished people will be shorter. Being taller doesn’t make someone superior to short people, but a taller person can obviously be a better basketball player. And a handful of things they can’t do as well like be a horse jockey.

This is so true. I never understood it until I saw it up close. There was a time when I thought “extra smart people” were that way cause they worked hard, even though I always got good grades and didn’t necessarily work hard for them. Then I encountered someone who just simply knew things. Intuitively they understood stuff at a very young age that even adults didn’t always see. Their grasp of certain subjects was multiple grade levels above their own. You couldn’t stop the child from learning. They sought it out. It really changed my understanding of intelligence.

[Sudsy]

Personally, I have no expectations regarding which of these groups are 'better than' others in IQ. IQ is man's evaluation of how intelligent people are and sadly many with high intelligence according to man often have trouble with simple faith and trust in Jesus. What is more important than IQ is wisdom. James says wisdom is what we should seek after and God will give it to those who ask.

Why are atheists the group with the highest IQ? No one here tried to answer this. Assuming that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the Bible, why do the highest IQ people reject it? My answer is that the issue is not the Bible itself, but rather interpretations of the Bible. The Bible can be interpreted in many ways. And an interpretation that appeals to average people won't appeal to high-IQ people, and an interpretation that appeals to high-IQ people won't appeal to average people. As fewer high-IQ people chose religion as their focus, high-IQ Bible interpretations became less common. So now all that are available are interpretations suited for average people, and naturally high-IQ people reject them and become atheists. This wasn't the case in the past, so high-IQ people like Isaac Newton were religious Christians.

Those who place high IQ as being important in knowing God lack wisdom.

High IQ helps with having a deeper understanding of anything including God. So I disagree. And I think the terrible misinterpretations of the Bible that have become popular in the last 150 years are the result of the lack of high-IQ people involved in religion.

Personally, I have no expectations regarding which of these groups are 'better than' others in IQ. IQ is man's evaluation of how intelligent people are and sadly many with high intelligence according to man often have trouble with simple faith and trust in Jesus. What is more important than IQ is wisdom. James says wisdom is what we should seek after and God will give it to those who ask.

Why are atheists the group with the highest IQ? No one here tried to answer this. Assuming that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the Bible, why do the highest IQ people reject it? My answer is that the issue is not the Bible itself, but rather interpretations of the Bible. The Bible can be interpreted in many ways. And an interpretation that appeals to average people won't appeal to high-IQ people, and an interpretation that appeals to high-IQ people won't appeal to average people. As fewer high-IQ people chose religion as their focus, high-IQ Bible interpretations became less common. So now all that are available are interpretations suited for average people, and naturally high-IQ people reject them and become atheists. This wasn't the case in the past, so high-IQ people like Isaac Newton were religious Christians.

Those who place high IQ as being important in knowing God lack wisdom.

High IQ helps with having a deeper understanding of anything including God. So I disagree. And I think the terrible misinterpretations of the Bible that have become popular in the last 150 years are the result of the lack of high-IQ people involved in religion.

I don't believe having a deeper understanding of God has anything to do with one's IQ. Rather it has to do with revelation. God is the only one who is all knowing and man is far from reaching this state. Regarding high-IQ atheists, God says those who say there is no God are fools. Why do highest-IQ atheists reject the Bible ? Because it says there is a God and this requires revelation to grasp. In Romans 1 we read that God has made it plain to them - 'For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.'

There are high-IQ Christians that have written books and given sermons that other high-IQ Christians would not agree with. Does God reveal opposing beliefs to believers or do believers often rely on their own understandings using their own human reasoning abilities ?

Why are atheists the group with the highest IQ ? Because they lean on their own understandings. Scripture tells us to not 'lean on our own understandings' but rather to trust in God with all our heart. We are to acknowledge Him in all our ways and He will direct our paths. Prov 3:5,6. Scripture further says that there are ways that seemeth right unto a man but the end of that thinking is eternal death. What man needs is a revelation of the truths God wants him to have. Scripture says that we all only now know 'in part' and will not know completely what is to be known until Jesus returns. 1 Cor 3:9,10 likens us to young children in our childish reasonings.

In my natural mind I am continually impressed by the knowledge that is increasing in the world regarding earthly things. At the same time this earthly knowledge, although increasing rapidly, is not the spiritual mindset where a believer is to focus. Scripture tells us where to focus our thoughts and as can be seen here on this forum and many places elsewhere, believers don't obey this and are caught up with this world and how it is functioning, self included. The excitement of what man is achieving today in the natural world is impressing believers more than the excitement of what God is doing today in the spirit world and that is likely because in their church they are not seeing miraculous conversions in people's lives when becoming Jesus followers. Dead, no growth of new believer, churches.

So, high-IQ or low-IQ is not a factor in knowing God. That comes through a personal relationship with God through the Holy Spirit. When we give up on our own capacity to figure God out and humbly go to Him for our understandings and how to apply them (wisdom), He will show us what we need to know and will guide our steps through life. Will I always listen and get this right and will I always obey ? No, as here too, I act like a child when I don't listen and obey.

Scripture says that the reverent and obedient attitude toward God is the start point to having knowledge and wisdom. But fools despise this way of getting wisdom and instruction for how they live. Proverbs 1:7

[Soloist]

As far as it goes, I have my doubts that standardized tests are always a good predictor of someone’s intelligence, because there are many types of intelligence. I always did really well on standardized tests and was in Quest and advanced classes at school and did pretty well on my asvab, but if you had me try to do anything hands on with for example, mechanics, electronics, or putting medical knowledge to practice, you might wonder if I have any brains at all.

By FAR the smartest person I have ever known was someone I knew in HS. He was off-the-charts intelligent by any sort of standardized measure of intelligence test. Could do complex mathematics without effort or even having studied it. Could read and understand anything instantly from law to medicine.

He was taking some advanced math/science classes at the local university when we were in HS and wound up with some sort of early admission to Stanford. A semester later he was back and I remember talking to him. "I just don't function well in a structured learning environment" is what he told me. I remember telling him: Phil, no one LIKES doing assigned readings and taking tests. But it's what you do anyway. He drifted through a long series of stupendously stupid decisions and mistakes that are too numerous to detail. Utter and complete lack of common sense of any kind. Eventually I heard that he had moved to the Seattle area where he was drunk driving at some point and killed a man in a car crash leaving a widow with children. he served some kind of time for that and then the last I saw him he was selling fish at the Pike Place Market. One of the guys who throw's fish while quoting esoteric philosophers and such. That was years ago. No idea what happened to him.

So yes, there are many kinds of intelligence.

As far as it goes, I have my doubts that standardized tests are always a good predictor of someone’s intelligence, because there are many types of intelligence. I always did really well on standardized tests and was in Quest and advanced classes at school and did pretty well on my asvab, but if you had me try to do anything hands on with for example, mechanics, electronics, or putting medical knowledge to practice, you might wonder if I have any brains at all.

By FAR the smartest person I have ever known was someone I knew in HS. He was off-the-charts intelligent by any sort of standardized measure of intelligence test. Could do complex mathematics without effort or even having studied it. Could read and understand anything instantly from law to medicine.

He was taking some advanced math/science classes at the local university when we were in HS and wound up with some sort of early admission to Stanford. A semester later he was back and I remember talking to him. "I just don't function well in a structured learning environment" is what he told me. I remember telling him: Phil, no one LIKES doing assigned readings and taking tests. But it's what you do anyway. He drifted through a long series of stupendously stupid decisions and mistakes that are too numerous to detail. Utter and complete lack of common sense of any kind. Eventually I heard that he had moved to the Seattle area where he was drunk driving at some point and killed a man in a car crash leaving a widow with children. he served some kind of time for that and then the last I saw him he was selling fish at the Pike Place Market. One of the guys who throw's fish while quoting esoteric philosophers and such. That was years ago. No idea what happened to him.

So yes, there are many kinds of intelligence.

Yeah, my husband’s brother beat both of us on his asvab and I think he actually got a 99. At one point he identified as atheist, but now he just more honestly calls himself agnostic, and he very much hates Christianity altogether. In the military, he was a Chinese linguist, and he is pretty good at technology, but at this point, I think he’s unemployed, living with his new wife’s mother-in-law while his wife is taking disability and he has major anxiety issues. I’m not sure what all else was involved, but I think he told me once that one of the big reasons he didn’t go back to work at T-Mobile was because of Covid and them requiring in person again. He’s very smart and would be very capable, although he’s into some pretty weird stuff, and is our go to for anything fish tank related or Chinese. It seems like a lot of very intelligent people by IQ end up wasting their talents on drugs, lack of motivation or get sucked into atheism/agnosticism. Not all of them, and it can be a blessing, but it just depends on how you use it.

As far as it goes relating to IQ tests, I didn’t join this to debate, but it really depends on which IQ test the study used and it seems like even the professionals say that it’s not perfect and other things like motivation, education, ect can affect the results, and at least one of the current guys (Robert Sternberg) developing these tests have said that they don’t usually do well at testing common sense. People may have improved recent tests though, so it really just depends on what test they’re using, since you can take many of them online nowadays. Not saying it’s wrong, but just thought it’s a possibility, and it would be nice to see just how big of a sample size they got on some of the smaller groups.

[Soloist]

ASVAB tests for the uninformed is an aptitude test. The military uses it to see how capable you are for learning the skills they teach. The Airforce is very selective and I don’t off hand know their cutoff, I actually only know the Marine cut off is 40, at least during a time of conflict.
To qualify for Nuke or Fire control you needed greater then 85 and at least in the Navy they had an additional test to qualify for Nuke if you were below the mark.
This test is based somehow on averages of those taking the test. Basically I joined and got a 97 which would roughly mean I was more qualified then 97% of all the other applicants. My brother actually got a 98 which again to my understanding would be his general comparison to others.
My father got a 96.
If we assume that my father (who is a doctor) is above average and my brother and I are comparable then an assumption is that the quality of the applicants have dropped. The alternative is that both myself and my brother are more qualified then my father.
I was used as part of the rivalry in boot between two divisions, my VE score (verbal eloquence) was the highest they had seen at a 72.
(The ASVAB is broken up into sections as well I can’t remember them all and would have to look them up.)
Anyway the other division found a setback (someone who failed a section of boot camp and was restarted) who had a VE of 73. We countered with our own new guy named Whaley. He was a Mormon anyway he had an ASVAB score of 99 and he didn’t think he missed a single question. His VE score was 74. I don’t know what it peaks at but it’s not a 1-100. He of course was slatted to go nuke…
They really wanted me to go nuke or fire control but I wanted to be a corpsman. You only needed a 60 on the ASVAB to go corpsman, a cook needed a 50 for comparison.