Jordan Peterson claims the following:
You can’t induct someone into the Armed Forces in the US if they have an IQ of less than 83. IQ means Intelligence Quotient. It’s an indicator of how effective the brain is in reasoning.
Peterson claims the armed forces needed an accurate predictor of intelligence in order to be able to efficiently organize the hierarchy such that war can be conducted efficiently—literally a matter of life and death—and they chose IQ testing. And after 100 years of careful analysis, they concluded that a person with an IQ below 83 was essentially helpless.
There wasn’t anything [such a person] could possibly be trained to do in the military, at any level of the organization, that wasn’t positively counterproductive.
He then claims that such people represent “1 in 10” of the population. (According to this chart, that’s not perfectly accurate—it’s actually closer to 1 in 9—but close enough.)
How accurate are his specific claims?
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The US military uses IQ testing to determine potential recruits’ cognitive abilities.
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The military forbids anyone with an IQ under 83 from joining.
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That’s because the military’s experience showed that anyone with an IQ under 83 will be more of a liability than an asset to the military.
Generally it means they cannot learn therefore they cannot be trained. It doesn’t make them good or bad, just untrainable for the military. Low IQ people can learn. They learned their native language. they can and do learn many things but the military considers them untrainable. That means, of course, under the training in which the military engages. Perhaps it means there is insufficient time to train low IQ people but whatever the reasons, the military will not accept them. try to remember that not everyone may be as smart as you so have some consideration that the person with whom you are dealing may not comprehend the situation.
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