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jeremyjhyesterday at 3:51 PM1 replyview on HN

You can learn about these things by following the links given by the GP of my comment and reviewing the studies they reference. The other strongest criteria of success was the time of their two-mile run (at their specific age of enlistment).


Replies

hirvi74yesterday at 5:10 PM

I read the links, and the answers are still unsatisfactory.

Here is the abstract from the original paper: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/pms.1989.69.1.2...

> The purpose of this research was to assess how well success in early combat training was predicted by scores on a test of general intelligence

It seems this research pertains to early combat training and not broad, post-training success in one's military career. Not to mention the research is essentially predicting test performance from test performance. I imagine the same predictions can be made about one's two-mile run and one's three-mile run.

> Analysis indicated that intelligence test scores AND run time significantly predicted success, each adding to the prediction provided by the other.

Which is not surprising. It shows that intelligence is just one of the multiple contributing factors. Being exceptionally tall is essential in the NBA, but being exceptionally tall, alone, is insufficient to make it to the NBA.