How smart is average?
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I was invited to join Mensa when I was working in London. I went to one of the monthly social get-togethers. I didn't know what to expect but it turned out to be a p*ssing competition as to who got the highest score for entry. Also, I found out that the Mensa "IQ" score is 20% higher than most others. In other words if an IQ test says a person has an IQ of 150, the same person should obtain a score of 180 using the Mensa test. Considering the social skills, or lack thereof, of the people at the meeting, I declined the invitation and the test.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
The same is true of online IQ tests, they score people artificially high in order to encourage people to brag and have their friends take it, because of course it's about making money with them clicks. Same with Mensa, they score people high because, well, they want more paying members don't they? And as you found, it's all about bragging rights (and by extension, insecurity). If you want an accurate IQ test you have to go to a psychologist. And even then, if you want it to be truly accurate you need to take it as a child.
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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.
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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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.
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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OK, so 100 is the average intelligence. Without really thinking about it, one kind of assumes that average is... well, you know - meh, average. Not smart, not stupid, just... average. But actually, has anyone done any studies to really get a handle on just what average intelligence amounts to? (Other than answering IQ tests...) 'cos I think it's probably pretty damned stupid. I'm asking this in all seriousness - not trying to have a rant. What **is** average intelligence - just how smart (or dumb) is someone with an IQ of 100? For example - how would such people fare in: applications to an average university a course to become an airline pilot learning to program in C# studying law running for public office (ha ha just joking with that one!) ..this sort of thing... [edit] just to be clear: I am not looking for a scientifically rigorous answer - the question doesn't have one, I know that. Just.. as the title says: how smart is average?
"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.
You have really asked the wrong question. Average intelligence is probably pretty good for doing most things humans need to do (or we would be extinct by now). I submit the more appropriate question (assuming Gaussian distribution) is how tight the standard deviation is. Given that the number spread is small (seem to recall 70 is considered severely challenged and I would submit most above 136 are also severely challenged but in a different way), it is likely that most of the population is extremely close to 100. I am going to guess that 70 is 3 standard deviations below and 136 is 3 standard deviations above. That puts *a lot* of people very close to 100! That also means those just below 100 are just as smart as those just above for all practical purposes.
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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.
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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You have really asked the wrong question. Average intelligence is probably pretty good for doing most things humans need to do (or we would be extinct by now). I submit the more appropriate question (assuming Gaussian distribution) is how tight the standard deviation is. Given that the number spread is small (seem to recall 70 is considered severely challenged and I would submit most above 136 are also severely challenged but in a different way), it is likely that most of the population is extremely close to 100. I am going to guess that 70 is 3 standard deviations below and 136 is 3 standard deviations above. That puts *a lot* of people very close to 100! That also means those just below 100 are just as smart as those just above for all practical purposes.
Yeah but... you (and just about everyone else) is answering the wrong question - it isn't that I asked the wrong one, though perhaps I could have put it better. However, your point > Average intelligence is probably pretty good for doing most things humans need to do (or we would be extinct by now) is a good one - and begs a question close to what I was originally asking: is it still good enough for the modern world? Yes, we were smart enough to crawl out of the caves and build a technological world and grow it to a population of 7 billion and growing.... But are we smart enough to survive it?
"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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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.
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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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.
I tried to say pretty much the same things. You said it so much better!
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Yeah but... you (and just about everyone else) is answering the wrong question - it isn't that I asked the wrong one, though perhaps I could have put it better. However, your point > Average intelligence is probably pretty good for doing most things humans need to do (or we would be extinct by now) is a good one - and begs a question close to what I was originally asking: is it still good enough for the modern world? Yes, we were smart enough to crawl out of the caves and build a technological world and grow it to a population of 7 billion and growing.... But are we smart enough to survive it?
"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.
Your clarification makes a difference. I think we are probably doing just fine. We haven't killed off each other yet and, as StatementTerminator observed, we are getting steadily smarter as a species (no data other than bias to support that claim). I think we are getting smarter at a rate that lets us expand boundaries without doing too awfully much that we might characterize as a stupid idea in retrospect. I think the answer to your modified question is yes. We seem to be muddling along quite nicely with most people arguably happy with their lives and slowly making the world a better place for their kids and grandkids. I think if it weren't good enough, we would be imploding as a species pretty rapidly. After I posted, it occurred to me that "good enough" is the right answer to "How smart is average?". Average smarts is good enough for just about everything to have a productive, happy life and do worthwhile things.
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OK, so 100 is the average intelligence. Without really thinking about it, one kind of assumes that average is... well, you know - meh, average. Not smart, not stupid, just... average. But actually, has anyone done any studies to really get a handle on just what average intelligence amounts to? (Other than answering IQ tests...) 'cos I think it's probably pretty damned stupid. I'm asking this in all seriousness - not trying to have a rant. What **is** average intelligence - just how smart (or dumb) is someone with an IQ of 100? For example - how would such people fare in: applications to an average university a course to become an airline pilot learning to program in C# studying law running for public office (ha ha just joking with that one!) ..this sort of thing... [edit] just to be clear: I am not looking for a scientifically rigorous answer - the question doesn't have one, I know that. Just.. as the title says: how smart is average?
"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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Your clarification makes a difference. I think we are probably doing just fine. We haven't killed off each other yet and, as StatementTerminator observed, we are getting steadily smarter as a species (no data other than bias to support that claim). I think we are getting smarter at a rate that lets us expand boundaries without doing too awfully much that we might characterize as a stupid idea in retrospect. I think the answer to your modified question is yes. We seem to be muddling along quite nicely with most people arguably happy with their lives and slowly making the world a better place for their kids and grandkids. I think if it weren't good enough, we would be imploding as a species pretty rapidly. After I posted, it occurred to me that "good enough" is the right answer to "How smart is average?". Average smarts is good enough for just about everything to have a productive, happy life and do worthwhile things.
Well.. I'm not sure we aren't imploding.... >We seem to be muddling along quite nicely with most people arguably happy with their lives "Most people"? From a global perspective, most people lead pretty desperate lives though, like grass growing in cracks in the pavement, it's amazing how many people manage to smile though it. There's little even "quite nice" about much of what's going on in much of the world. And even in the West, freedom and democracy (the limited form of it we have) is facing some real threats, to which it may well succumb. And most of these threats are ones we have brought upon ourselves - not so smart, really. And have we, as a species, got what it takes to deal with the global issues such as climate change - the effects of which could be quite enormous? I am far from convinced that we have.
"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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OK, so 100 is the average intelligence. Without really thinking about it, one kind of assumes that average is... well, you know - meh, average. Not smart, not stupid, just... average. But actually, has anyone done any studies to really get a handle on just what average intelligence amounts to? (Other than answering IQ tests...) 'cos I think it's probably pretty damned stupid. I'm asking this in all seriousness - not trying to have a rant. What **is** average intelligence - just how smart (or dumb) is someone with an IQ of 100? For example - how would such people fare in: applications to an average university a course to become an airline pilot learning to program in C# studying law running for public office (ha ha just joking with that one!) ..this sort of thing... [edit] just to be clear: I am not looking for a scientifically rigorous answer - the question doesn't have one, I know that. Just.. as the title says: how smart is average?
"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.
Those who think human intelligence is not measurable in the aggregate are mistaken. One can argue successfully only about how accurately it can be measured, what measure is best, and how useful the assessed IQ of a single individual is. Human intelligence appears to be normally distributed with a standard deviation of 15 points, so that 65% of the population measures between 85 and 115. That means most of the population is pretty freakin' average. That means for every engineer with an IQ of 135, there is a developmentally disabled person with an IQ of 65. I don't see a lot of either walking around. That means that an Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein with an IQ of 200+ comes along once or twice in 100 years over the whole world, so the poster who thinks his IQ is 200 has much to prove. It means China, with its population of 1.2 billion, should generate Einsteins at a rate four times that of the United States. This applies to mere geniuses too, of which there are significantly more. This should worry anyone concerned about US competitiveness in the world.
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Well.. I'm not sure we aren't imploding.... >We seem to be muddling along quite nicely with most people arguably happy with their lives "Most people"? From a global perspective, most people lead pretty desperate lives though, like grass growing in cracks in the pavement, it's amazing how many people manage to smile though it. There's little even "quite nice" about much of what's going on in much of the world. And even in the West, freedom and democracy (the limited form of it we have) is facing some real threats, to which it may well succumb. And most of these threats are ones we have brought upon ourselves - not so smart, really. And have we, as a species, got what it takes to deal with the global issues such as climate change - the effects of which could be quite enormous? I am far from convinced that we have.
"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.
Society is created largely by and for the average, who are the vast majority of the population. On the whole we have the intelligence to deal with the challenges we face. Where we fail is with greed and myopic thinking, and this is actually more of a problem with the highly intelligent: it's the really smart ones who exploit the rest of society for individual gain. For instance, the burning of fossil fuels which has led to climate change wasn't a stupid thing to do for those who were driving it, they profited well and got exactly what they wanted. There's plenty of evidence that energy companies knew quite well the consequences of what they were doing, they were plenty smart enough to realize that, as well as realize that they could profit from it while leaving others in the future to pay for the consequences. Intelligence isn't the problem in society, it's the lack of caring about other people.
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Society is created largely by and for the average, who are the vast majority of the population. On the whole we have the intelligence to deal with the challenges we face. Where we fail is with greed and myopic thinking, and this is actually more of a problem with the highly intelligent: it's the really smart ones who exploit the rest of society for individual gain. For instance, the burning of fossil fuels which has led to climate change wasn't a stupid thing to do for those who were driving it, they profited well and got exactly what they wanted. There's plenty of evidence that energy companies knew quite well the consequences of what they were doing, they were plenty smart enough to realize that, as well as realize that they could profit from it while leaving others in the future to pay for the consequences. Intelligence isn't the problem in society, it's the lack of caring about other people.
But if this lack of caring has catastrophic consequences, as climate change could do, then from a species point of view, the actions that led to it can not be called intelligent. The short term gain of the few at the expense of the species - even if not terminal decline, at least a heavy price - is not very smart, really.
"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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But if this lack of caring has catastrophic consequences, as climate change could do, then from a species point of view, the actions that led to it can not be called intelligent. The short term gain of the few at the expense of the species - even if not terminal decline, at least a heavy price - is not very smart, really.
"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.
When asking about IQ scores you are talking about individual intelligence. Projecting intelligence onto the species as a whole is a bit of a stretch, the species is set of genetic code not a thinking being. There is nothing to say that intelligence is necessarily good for a species if the goal of a species is survival and reproduction. Bacteria aren't very intelligent, but from a survival standpoint they have us beat don't they? To put it another way, what is smart for the individual may be bad (or "dumb") for the species in the aggregate. We are much more likely to wipe ourselves out by being too smart than not being smart enough.
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Those who think human intelligence is not measurable in the aggregate are mistaken. One can argue successfully only about how accurately it can be measured, what measure is best, and how useful the assessed IQ of a single individual is. Human intelligence appears to be normally distributed with a standard deviation of 15 points, so that 65% of the population measures between 85 and 115. That means most of the population is pretty freakin' average. That means for every engineer with an IQ of 135, there is a developmentally disabled person with an IQ of 65. I don't see a lot of either walking around. That means that an Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein with an IQ of 200+ comes along once or twice in 100 years over the whole world, so the poster who thinks his IQ is 200 has much to prove. It means China, with its population of 1.2 billion, should generate Einsteins at a rate four times that of the United States. This applies to mere geniuses too, of which there are significantly more. This should worry anyone concerned about US competitiveness in the world.
Well, you have to consider the fact that most of those geniuses are likely born into grinding poverty and are lucky to survive to adulthood, let alone get an education and make use of their brains. For the sake of competitiveness, providing things like health care, education, and opportunity matter a lot more than the size of the talent pool. China may understand this better than the US though, since they seem to be trying hard to improve those things while the US has been going backwards for decades.
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Someone once said I was below average. I though he was being mean, but it was just his default mode.
That will go over some heads.
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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 :-D 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
Of course, stupid people don't realize there's a problem at all...
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Perhaps I shouldn't have brought up IQ tests, as we all know they're pretty arbitrary and useless... what I'm after getting a handle on is just how smart is the average human being? Or, as I titled the post: how smart is average?
"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.
It would be smart to think about what sort of answer you can expect to that question, and why you would or wouldn't accept the answer as factual. For instance, if I made some claim about the ability of people with 100 IQs to program in C#, how could I possibly prove it, and why would you choose to believe it ... other than being predisposed to doing so. BTW, the people making claims about Mensa and its tests are lying. The person claiming to score 185-200 on "official" tests has never done any such thing if he failed to qualify on a Mensa test, which has a much lower standard (132). Mensa test scores are most certainly are not inflated by 20% ... Mensa administers standardized Stanford-Binet and Weschler tests, using trained proctors, but also accepts proper documentation of results on other tests. The "Which of these things is not like the other?" questions do not have arbitrary answers ... that is a common excuse of people who fail, but there is an objectively right answer, with an explanation that most people accept when it is pointed out to them. And really, "I lost time on the math section because I hadn't done long multiplication/division by hand in years"? There's no division on these tests that even a halfwit can't do in their heads, and even if there were such problems, manual multiplication and division are trivial rote procedures that high IQ brains don't forget. People with 200 IQs can visualize in multiple dimensions; they don't struggle with arithmetic. If this person scored 200 on "official" tests, how did he manage that with such poor skills, and why did he do so much worse on a test that purportedly has scores inflated by 20%? These are the sorts of obvious questions that people with average IQs don't bother to ask. And no one in Mensa ever talks about their test scores, in part because they're smart enough to realize that they are likely to end up on the wrong end of the comparison. The chatter about bragging rights and Mensa wanting your money is sour grapes and largely downright stupid ... if Mensa were inflating scores in order to get more members to make more money, they would do away with the entry requirements altogether. And again, Mensa uses standardized proctored tests, the same ones used by psychologists. No, sorry, this is just the common phenomenon of random not terribly bright people lying on the internet.
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How would you measure average IQ other than having lots of people taking IQ tests? It is what it is. One metric amongst many. Probably not much use for anything other than applying to Mensa these days. Very few education systems bother to measure it any more. Based on thousands of the tests, average is simply the peak of the bell curve which arises from the results. That score is then normalised to 100 for the assessment of future tests. It is not an absolute, by any means. The Mensa qualification requires a score which places you in the top 2% of the population. The score required is probably very different now from when I took the test in 1984 (yes, I passed, though I've never been an active member).
I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!
Because of social sorting, you probably have not had extensive interactions with very many people with an IQ of 100. If you were to do so, you would probably find them to be relatively stupid. But why believe me, or anyone else responding to your question? Be a scientist, figure out how to identify some people with 100 IQs, and go interact with them and see for yourself.