My point is this: while IQ tests have merits to them, it is still a single factor in determining how "successful" (depending on one's definition of the word) will be -- gray matter tissue correlations or not. I, personally, have not been professionally tested for my IQ level (other than a couple online quizzes, which gave me varying results), but what I still don't quite understand is how, exactly, knowing the answer to a question like this...
...dictates whether or not someone could be a rocket scientist if they had the desire to and put their heart into mastering aerospace engineering, rather than becoming a low-paid high school janitor? If you have an IQ of 70, then I'd say that the latter occupation is, unfortunately, probably a much more suitable choice. However, if we're comparing someone with an IQ score of 100 to someone with a score of 120, then I wouldn't automatically disqualify the person with the lower score or assume that they are any less capable of accomplishing certain tasks than the other. The IQ tests themselves only measure a variety of skills, ranging from basic arithmetic to putting images together. Intelligence encompasses many varieties of capabilities, which is why it's so difficult to assign it a single definition and rank someone's own intelligence on a simple linear scale. It's still a bit of a dispute in the scientific community as to what intelligence is defined as; IQ and gray matter are only some factors.
For what it's worth, Andy Warhol supposedly had an IQ of 86 (or at least, that is what the so-called experts estimated it to be... things get a little fuzzy when it comes to formulating mere guesses for people who aren't on record as having taken the test).
Furthermore, let's not forget that each IQ test is different. Some questions are easy, others are hard. Some tests may be longer, some may be shorter. This leads me to think that it's very difficult to take the IQ of an individual and compare it to other scores that are represented by the curve when the tests aren't uniform -- and even if they were uniform, I don't know how far that would get us. But in all honesty, I'm not sure what strategy the sociologists use to select what kind of questions, and how many of them, to include on a fair and legitimate IQ test.
We should also keep in mind that people change their political views (and sometimes even their entire ideologies) quite often. It's not uncommon to hear of a lifelong liberal who one day decides to become a conservative, or vice-versa, so that also makes me question just how absolute these scores are after mental development. It also goes without saying that there are dumb liberals and smart conservatives just as there are dumb conservatives and smart liberals. I'm not one of those folks who label all right-wingers as 'dumb' just because they see the issues from a different perspective than liberals do.
From my understanding, the Flynn effect further underlines the difficulty of correlating genes with IQ for the fact that it shows a gradual increase of the average IQ -- which has been happening, I believe, at a rate of three points per decade. Genes simply don't change this quickly.
As for the subject of twins, I suppose I can agree that IQ should logically be similar among the pairs, but that still leaves the question of to what extent -- great or small -- genes factor into overall intelligence, not just the prerequisites for it.
Sorry for sounding like a contradictory dumb in explaining what I know of this.
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