For instance, IQ scores are bad at predicting wealth but are the best predictor of adult poverty we have.
And the US military uses them extensively. They generally don't allow anyone in with an IQ score below 90.
They were never meant to predict genius. The point is to organize people efficiently when you're slotting them for guard duty or heavy equipment operation or officer candidate school. Someone who points out BS about non-Kosher pigs and obscure integer sequences is being clever for the sake of it. IE, "Look how smart I am."
And, as you say, the military considers about 100 million Americans dangerously too stupid for the army. They didn't do this out of arrogance.
In most cases where these tests are used, it is far more mportant to separate the above median from below median, or +2 STDDEV from median, etc, and not to pick winners in the Krelboyne Super Bowl.
Even assuming there is a total ordering of intelligence, how would a single 300-question test rank 300 million people? Why fill half the test with questions that 99% of takers will get wrong, just to differentiate among the top 1% of scorers?
Or perhaps that being smart doesn't make you an enthusiastic state thug?
http://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/sto...