Do you agree that the Army is measurably biased against officers with higher cognitive ability?

In one of Heinlein's books he made reference to the phenomena of not being able to communicate effectively if you were outside certain "intelligence bands." For simplicity sake let's use the Bell Curve.

The Average Human sits at 100 IQ. That person can communicate effectively with most people down to 80~ and up to 120~ IQs. A nice 40 "band". However someone with 120 cannot communicate with someone at 80 or even 90. That person is just not operating at the same "speed" Likewise someone at 100 will have a hell of time dealing with someone at 140.

Think of it like gears. You have to have progressively faster and slower gears as you move up the CoC. Generals should in theory be operating FAST... however there's a problem... we get Generals from Lieutenants, and promotion rates are (relatively) "constant."

So what happens to a cog that is moving a "different speed" (either faster or slower) inside a machine where all the other cogs are moving at essentially the same speed? The "systemic pressures" are going to lead to two (main) outcomes: Conformity or Expulsion (Voluntary or Involuntary).

You get these amazingly smart guys who are operating at 100-X% (not full potential) or you get guys who decide that the military is not meeting their needs. Alternatively, you get Non-Conformists who cannot progress and do not have the Authority to use their Full Potential.

Is there a Conscious Bias? Probably not. Is it a systemic issue? Absolutely. We've been talking about "Losing the best & brightest of the officer corps" since I joined over 20 years ago. I'm willing to bet that guys like LTC Stephen F. heard of the issue when he was going through West Point.

Now how do we "measure" this?

Every year when the USMC puts out promotion lists we provide demographic information (Racial & Gender) to accompany the list. Why can't we include the "average" ASVAB (file) information for the current batch of promotees? It would show whether there is an upward, downward, or steady slope among selectees. It's all statistical data which is easily computed.

My cognitive acumen isn't high enough to develop a response.

Here's a telling anecdote: apparently, from analysis of recent promotion boards, it is evident that those officers lucky enough or hard-working enough to have earned a masters degree (which in itself might be a proxy measure of cognitive ability) are promoted at the same rate as officers with no advanced schooling. Even more telling, officers with advanced degrees from top end universities (Harvard, Yale, etc) are promoted at the same rate as officers with advanced degrees from lower-tier universities----the quality of the school isn't an important factor. To me, these two trends suggest that the Army simply does not value advanced education, and as a proxy measure of how the Army values cognitive ability, suggests the Army doesn't value this highly, either. Now, clearly there are many intelligent officers who are promoted to general----perhaps not based on cognitive ability, though, but rather based on success as annotated with top block OERs. We do have a "strong but dumb" culture in the Army where physical prowess is annotated on all evaluations (ie, pass/fail annotation for APFT and height/weight). It is at least a bit telling that cognitive measures (iq test) or their proxies (advanced degrees, for example) aren't required entries on OERs.