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Average persons give average solutions to problems, whereas better-than-average individuals give better solutions. Meaning the same sort of solution as most others came up with under the same conditions. Well, most problems have solutions that are gradient of a worst to best choices; the mind can pare these down to a set of multiple choice answers. The answer most people give is the average.
On the one hand a problem may have only one solution that everyone can come up with, like how to open a bag of potato chips. On the other hand it could be difficult to determine how a great solution is any better than an average solution, like a Windsor tie knot.
Dumb persons usually know that they are using a poor solution. They have a creeping feeling that something is amiss in how they are dealing with a situation. Usually they can rely on the observations of an average individual to help them, correct them, and likely save them from trouble. Correcting a dumb person does not make a person any better than average one.
Assumedly, smart persons are those persons that correct the solutions of average persons. This being a robust planet of average people, this sort of intelligence correction is of very little use, and is generally discouraged. Luckily, you're asking about average people  and not smart people  .
Let's be frank about this though. On earth there are a few goals to which ninety-nine percent of the people yearn and strive: To be rich, and carefree! 'Nuf said. So what are the average results for any person in the world today probably describes a concept of averagicity. This concept boils down to an order of priorities.
Which comes first and last? 1) Cut lawn. 2) Drink tea. 3) Study code.
What's the best time to masturbate? Winter? Or summer?
Answers describe us, and our destiny. Average prioritization yields average life. Rebellion is futile. Good luck
Remain Calm & Continue To Google
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Of course, stupid people don't realize there's a problem at all...
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Wombaticus wrote: What is average intelligence
Pretty disappointing 
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I'd probably have my dossier stamped 'do not allow to breed' by the results of such IQ tests - do I give a rats ? no f-ing way ..
- I have enough intelligence to learn (sometimes not without pain) new programming techniques (IOC is my current study task)
- I have enough intelligence to solve all sorts of IT and engineering problems (like designing and building a wheelchair ramp for my mother when she broke her leg and needed a way into/out of the house), putting up a weather station on a remote site, bringing two IT systems that may as well be speaking swahili and greek together
- I have enough intelligence to be nice and treat people with respect (except the fvcker car drivers as I was speed cycling yesterday, they dont deserve no stinkin respect) (whoops
 ) - I know I can acquire new knowledge when I need to
I dont get how I'd feel threatened by being above or below average - I have the intelligence I need
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Yes - I'm not sure I'd do particularly well in an IQ test either, but I don't have much faith in them measuring anything useful.
The thing is - does the average person have the intelligence they need - or that "we" need - in order to create a viable, likeable, society? Without trying to blow my own trumpet, I really do wonder...
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart." - Linus van Pelt.
"If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't think you were so smart!" - Charlie Brown.
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Wombaticus wrote: does the average person have the intelligence they need - or that "we" need - in order to create a viable, likeable, society?
Hemmm... do you see the news every day?
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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I am American. I love my country and intelligence wise I think we stack up just fine on average. The problem is that the average to really smart are weighed down by the grindingly stupid. We have people who reject learning and are incapable of critical thought. We have a left that wants to push political correctness into law and a right that wants to teach religion in public schools. Management in government and the private sector is a freak show. That anything actually works amazes me.
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I've known some really smart people who had almost no actual commons sense (same goes for street smarts).
I've also known some people who seemed just fine, and even pretty smart, until you start having a conversation with them that requires them to either be well read or have their own opions (that they could back up - not just that were popular).
Just look at people in Academia......
Also, I knew a girl in school who was acing all of her classes. She seemed to have a photographic memory, heh. However, you could bring her to tears over critical thinking questions - she just couldn't do it. She could seem regular in conversations, because she could recall a lot of information. But, in the end, she had a difficult (almost painful) time with critical thinking questions.
I don't think 100 means anything at all. It only matters if you're directly going into something that requires you to have IQ.
Elephant elephant elephant, sunshine sunshine sunshine
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Well, indeed... I've often argued that there are two necessary "components" to intelligence: a brain that is good at "connecting the dots", and lots of "dots" - i.e. information. Either one without hew other renders you, effectively, not very smart. You could have the brain of Einstein, but without a decent memory it'll do you little good. (This is my excuse anyway, and I'm sticking to it!) Conversely, you could be like that girl in your school...
All of which is, though interesting, all slightly beside the point, or the question, I was asking. Which is how smart is average? Intuitively we think, well, average is average, so... but I suspect that actually average is pretty stupid. I know the question is kind of meaningless - like asking how red is red? - but maybe put it his way: compared to chimpanzees, how smart is the average (IQ-100) human? I suspect the factor, though large, is not as great as we'd like to believe.
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart." - Linus van Pelt.
"If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't think you were so smart!" - Charlie Brown.
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The Chimpanzee question is awesome!
Back in the old days, they separated us from monkeys/apes by saying that we could not only USE tools, we could make tools for specific use. That separated us.
Then, they found a monkey break a branch, strip the leaves off of it, smooth it out, and stick it into an ant hole, to eat the ants.
I believe they went back and changed the definition.
Finally, I like the phrase "reasonably intelligent". 100 on the IQ test is kinda meaningless, because we work in standard deviations above and below to actually tell us who is a genius and who is an idiot.
For me, it implies that some expected to be able to THINK, not just answer questions, but a certain amount of critical thinking. Also, they do NOT have to refer to their name tag EVERY Time they introduce themselves 
So, the basic definition of average intelligence is someone who should be trainable to perform some specific set of activities in a time comparable with anyone else randomly picked from a population.
This gets to the heart of your question: Why? Why do you want to know? To find/filter people. To understand if your expectations (like those we place on our children, family, friends) are reasonable?
Why does the exact definition of Average Intelligence matter? Furthermore, a study of who succeeds in life shows that "grit" is a better determination of success than IQ.
Personally, I believe IQ to be a flawed system. But it is what we have.
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Why? No real reason - I wasn't trying to start a scientific debate, just a conversation.... we humans like to think we're smart, and some of us are (many a good deal smarter than I - I am not trying to blow my own trumpet here), I just got to wondering: how smart is the average person, really? And I suspect the (totally unscientific) answer is: not very, or certainly not as smart as we like to think.
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart." - Linus van Pelt.
"If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't think you were so smart!" - Charlie Brown.
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Well, Almost everyone starts by considering themselves Above Average today!
But this is probably not a representative forum. As developers, we usually suffer higher than average IQs. Abstraction and Problem Solving require intelligence.
Most Average or below average people drop out.
When someone knows they are not that smart, they usually refer to themselves as average.
So I would argue here that most people on the forum are above average, with some FAR above average, as that is who tends to be drawn into programming.
I think average intelligent human beings are, overall, pretty smart comparatively so. The ability to appreciate music, read, write, communicate with a complex language, and learn slang are difficult for most primates.
Try teaching a small child how type words when they don't know how to read/write yet, you will quickly appreciate how smart average really is.
Of course, go to McDonalds, and you might experience it from the other end of the spectrum when placing your order, or watching them make change
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(as far as I understand) IQ tests cover a broad range of intellect testing. Like BMI, it can provide false positives. Amazing at maths, but terrible memory for directions, average score.
most jobs you mention are the result of specialisation. In fact all your examples require no inteligence, as they are the starting point.
application to university VS gaining a univerity degree
course to become airline pilot VS active commerical pilots license
learning C# programming is for anyone VS being a professional (earning money for the job) c# programmer
studying lay VS practice law
on the practice law point, I would assume above average for a number of areas. I think it like this, only need 1 layer to cover 500-1000 people or 0.1% of the population need layer skills.
if bell-curve intelligence in a population. manual low skill work requires more then 50% of your population. (slowly being less in mechanised world)
and your so called average group will be about the range of 30%-70% of the population.
So someone with below then average intelligence (based around IQ test) could be a commercial pilot if they cover the skills needed for being a pilot.
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application to university VS gaining a univerity degree
which is why my question as: how would they fare (do) in a university application? Would they get in or fail? Same with the other questions: eg
someone with below then average intelligence (based around IQ test) could be a commercial pilot if they cover the skills needed for being a pilot.
would an average person be able to cover the skills required to be a pilot?
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart." - Linus van Pelt.
"If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't think you were so smart!" - Charlie Brown.
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Wombaticus wrote: would an average person be able to cover the skills required to be a pilot?
well, no I guess. Commercial Airline Pilot is a specialist job. But you do not need to have average or above intelligence to specialise.
Wombaticus wrote: how would they fare (do) in a university application? Would they get in or fail?
similar, loads of people get into university, but drop outs in the first year are high. With a mix being due to not what they were thinking. Getting in is easy. Staying in is a different question. Then coming out with a low score, well they got a degree.
is someone with a top result high school results dumber then someone with a bottom result university degree?
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First,
The actual definition of Intelligence is really hard to pin down.
So, given that, how do you measure it. The guy who recites PI to a million decimal places (or some really large number), cannot drive a car. he can learn a language in days, though.
Next,
Why does the concept exist? As a sorting system to sort out those who might have more cranial capacity than others. The keys are simple. Ignore the average. The system is designed to find people one ore more standard deviations ABOVE OR BELOW.
Meaning, who do we give SPECIAL ATTENTION to? Keep BOTH groups away from the Glycerin and Nitric Acid. The dumb ones will drink it, and the smart ones will mix it. BOTH ending badly. LOL
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Well indeed - but see my answer to loctrice[^] above
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart." - Linus van Pelt.
"If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't think you were so smart!" - Charlie Brown.
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I've been thinking about thinking for a very long time and working on a book entitled, "Insights on My Mind".
There is, unfortunately, no true definition of "intelligence" universally agreed upon.
It's one of those terms like "consciousness" or "spirituality". People think they know it when they see it, but no one can pin down all the constituent pieces and processes.
So, while I do respect your honest question, its premise is as invalid as any test that purports to measure it.
Cheers,
Mike Fidler
"I intend to live forever - so far, so good." Steven Wright
"I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met." Also Steven Wright
"I'm addicted to placebos. I could quit, but it wouldn't matter." Steven Wright yet again.
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Yes, I know all this - but I wasn't asking for a definition of intelligence, nor was my question dependent upon it. See my answer to loctrice[^] above.
It was never meant to be a science question...
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart." - Linus van Pelt.
"If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't think you were so smart!" - Charlie Brown.
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IQ scores aren't an absolute measure of intelligence, it's a relative scale. 100 is average by definition: if half of people score lower than you and half score higher, you score 100. That doesn't say anything about how "intelligent" in absolute terms 100 is: if the general population becomes more intelligent then you would have to be more intelligent to score 100.
Scoring 100 simply means that you took a general aptitude test that about half of people would score lower on and half of people would score higher on. That's all. It can be taken as a relative indicator of mental ability, but there's no specific quantity of brainpower that is 100 IQ. 100 is simply defined as average by averaging scores through statistical sampling.
BTW, this is why IQ tests are notoriously unreliable at the high end: so few people fall into the super high range that you can't get a good statistical sample to use as a gauge. The difference between say 180 and 200 IQ is pure guesswork, the tests can't really score that high because not enough people on the planet can hit that range to provide a good dataset for calibrating those scores (not unless you tested the entire planet, anyway).
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Yes, I know all this... it wasn't the question though! Please see my previous answers above...
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart." - Linus van Pelt.
"If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't think you were so smart!" - Charlie Brown.
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Oh OK, I just read the OP and thought that was what you were asking.
By asking how smart an average person is, what you're really asking is how smart people are in general. Since we're (apparently) the smartest beings that we're aware of, we're pretty much all off the charts from that perspective. In general, a person of average intelligence is very intelligent indeed and capable of most things that humans can do.
Also, being average has some real advantages, because we live in a world built for the average. It's not an easy world to understand for those who are too far below or above average. I've known some super-intelligent (but not autistic) academics who were absolute basket cases when it came to relating to people and navigating the everyday world, so in some ways it can be too much of a good thing.
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I tried to say pretty much the same things. You said it so much better!
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It's the difference between:
- Med school versus Arts
- F35 versus Flight Simulator
- Programming versus coding
- Corporate versus real estate
- No brains needed; just good genes
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