This post is a response to Meanie, a visitor to our Quora site at Intelligence and IQ, who asked whether it was alright to have an IQ of 73.
Meanie, in my opinion, it’s not only alright but it’s also a necessity that our world contain people spanning a wide range of IQ’s. This enables each person to contribute in their own way to our complex society. We need musicians, scholars, skilled labourers, artists, poets, athletes, politicians, unskilled labourers, military personnel and entrepreneurs. People of IQ 73 fit into many of these fields and provide a balance of perspectives.
While some professions put a high premium on a high IQ, there are other professions where a high IQ can be an impediment. High IQ people are often deficient as team players and many do not fit well into structured environments.
Nature generates stability by random mixtures of genetic material, producing a wide variety of combinations of interconnected species. Variation within a species gives it additional survivability. When a species becomes too uniform, it becomes more vulnerable to destruction by disease, predators or climatic fluctuations.
Aldus Huxley in his dystopic novel, “Brave New World,” charicatured a future society in which government controlled all the citizens. Yet, even in this society in which a government could eliminate people it considered undesirable, it chose to have a society of varied intellectual capabilities from alphas to epsilons. They were all acknowledged to be an important part of a functioning world. So an IQ of 73 is more than alright.
