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Well, I don't know. I tend to think the "top few percentiles of ability" is what we want to see and identify ourselves with, but when it comes down to it, much of it consists of circumstance, luck, and what venues people have for expressing intelligence.
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<p>yes that's true - the Internet allows people to have more such venues to explore (hence why some psychologist said that variance due to environment decreases as opportunity increases). I suppose that the "top few percentiles of ability" is a vaguely defined term - although it does seem to apply for the majority of individuals who are inquisitive enough to have the self-initiative to read anything scientific. It may just be that I don't find most of my social interactions particularly rewarding so I only know of few people - and those are those who are at the top few percentiles of academic standing (there are many errors - but I still tend to think that the correlation is positive and somewhat significant - at the level of 0.5ish). There are definitely exceptions to this rule - and I don't use IQ tests as a way to measure that - given Feynman's IQ of 126, Watson's of 124, and Shockley's of 125.</p>
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Not ever picking up a book or bothering to go into academia doesn't mean people aren't intelligent or wouldn't excel at it, it simply means that, well, they didn't bother with that aspect of life.
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<p>That's true for individuals - but if entire groups of people haven't picked up any books - that certainly does speak for lack of interest/motivation (given the variation in behavior that people have in pursuing their interest).</p>
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I'm a social science nerd too - which makes me extra cautious not to take for granted things I personally associate with ability are the only things that count.
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<p>I think one of the main issues is that a lot of people have difficulty distinguishing between ability and motivation - or just use one word to describe the two (either "gifted" or "highly motivated" - but rarely some conglomerate of the two). I do believe that intelligence does make a difference - it's just that it's not easily measurable.</p>