IN 1919, after the First World War, the US army began to subject their recruits to IQ (or “cognitive reasoning”) testing.
It was found that people with an IQ of below 83 were incapable of being inducted into the army; they could not be trained to be useful soldiers.
It was also found that extra training for those below par applicants could not improve their IQ scores sufficiently and these attempts were abandoned.
That IQs are fixed and can vary only slightly with age is generally accepted as fact, which brings me to my question.
Now that candidates for our next election are being selected, would it not be prudent and in our countries best interests to subject those nominated to IQ testing?
To provide solutions to all our problems, the sensible action would be to staff our parliament with the best brains in the country, which is far from the case at present.
I am not sure what the limiting IQ scores should be for a politician, but it should at least be more than that required for the US army-let’s say at least over 100!
It would also be an advantage if politicians were required to pass basic general knowledge and history tests, plus do a course on ethics and basic numeracy, they should at least know the difference between a billion and a million!
To expose corruption, frequent lifestyle audits for all prospective and sitting parliamentarians should be mandatory.
I stand to be corrected, but, to my knowledge, no member of MENSA was ever the leader of a country and a high IQ does not necessary make one a good person, far from it, but it is a predictor of success; we need the best people to solve our problems, not “cadre deployments”.
C B Rogers
Waterfall
