Board Thread:Warhammer 40k General Discussion/@comment-25618639-20150307200513/@comment-25177957-20150310075729

Technological level can both portray IQ accuratetly, and place it horribly off at the same time, for example, a people with a higher IQ tend to develop technologies quicker, their higher intelligence supporting their scientific curiosity and desire for innovation. However, with that being said, IQ on a social level within a society can be much different, your average person nowadays would not know how the majority of the technology around them actually worked, whereas in some place such as ancient Egypt, the commoner probably knew quite a bit about technology, or atleast had some sort of skill, take the ancient Egyptian farmer for example.

If we add evolution to this arguement, and with the knowledge that evolution will increase a species' average IQ levels over time, (for example, a modern Homo Sapiens Sapiens would obviously have a higher IQ than a Cro-Magnon). Used in the context of 40k, the Eldar have had far much longer time to evolve in every way over humans, even over Necrons at this point even though the Necrontyr themselves were more ancient, the Necrontyric evolutionary process was utterly halted by the C'tan, and well, the race is completely automatonic now, with few individuals capable of thinking for themselves. The Eldar have one of the highest race IQ levels in the galaxy, due to the amount of time they've been given to evolve.

Some of you may wonder though, if this is true, then why are the Tau so advanced, and the individual having intelligence equal to or at times, slightly greater than a human's IQ level, it is possible that education does have a role to play in IQ, because IQ increases in an individual who commonly challenges their mental abilities, (a math puzzle for example can increase IQ level), if we assume Tau society places emphasis on education due to it's caste system, that would be an alternate explanation to the Tau's IQ level, if that theory seems illogical when applied to an entire race, it's also possible that the species simply evolved faster for whatever cause.