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Well, IQ scores rise over time. Smarter people realize how dumb it is to directly kill, or pay tons for the killing of, dirt poor civilians on the other side of the world. Especially for profits most of them will never, ever see.
Edit: I shouldn't make it sound as if the soldiers of WW2 were dumb though. As another comment correctly pointed out, there's a lot of difference between WW2 and at least some modern wars.
I'm pretty sure even the inventors of IQ test say it shouldn't be used to measure the general intelligence. The only thing IQ test measures well is how good you are at solving IQ tests.
Also
IQ scores have been shown to be associated with such factors as nutrition, parental socioeconomic status, morbidity and mortality, parental social status, and perinatal environment.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient
Not to mention that you can get anyone to do pretty much anything if you present them only the right information in the right context.
IQ can be useful to tell if you're smart, average or retarded. And only for this.
The quote you pulled detracts from your argument. It boils down to smarter people make smarter choices.
From your source, the section- 'Validity as a measure of intelligence' provides useful criticism of the iq test but concludes with:
Despite these objections, clinical psychologists generally regard IQ scores as having sufficient statistical validity for many clinical purposes.
I've wanted to put the quote against the point that rise in IQ scores means rise of general intelligence, because the listed factors mostly relate to your standard of life, which has risen pretty significantly since 1909.
Same source, same section
While IQ tests are generally considered to measure some forms of intelligence, they may fail to serve as an accurate measure of broader definitions of human intelligence inclusive of, for example, creativity and social intelligence. For this reason, psychologist Wayne Weiten argues that their construct validity must be carefully qualified, and not be overstated. According to Weiten, "IQ tests are valid measures of the kind of intelligence necessary to do well in academic work. But if the purpose is to assess intelligence in a broader sense, the validity of IQ tests is questionable."
IMO making smarter decisions in a society doesn't boil down to academic work.
It’s the same logic that says kids who come from better socioeconomic backgrounds tend to do better in life.
There are a whole host of reasons for that but it doesn’t mean they are better
As quality of life improves for everyone so to do our scores on a test that tends to actually measure more than just “raw mental intelligence”