If that's true, then I could go to the physics, math, and science departments of many universities and find professors with sub-100 IQs. Ditto for going to firms that work with physics/science-based problems and find the people involved with low IQs. I bet I couldn't. I bet all the geeks in Silicon valley who work in the computer industry have on average very high IQs. I bet all the people deeply involved with the Manhattan project had exceptionally high IQs.
Having a high IQ does not mean a person will be a success in life. But it does denote high intelligence of a sort. And even if smart people occasionally do stupid things (which they do frequently), that does not invalidate the fact that having a high IQ is a much better predictor of success in high intelligence-based enterprises than average or low IQs.
The IQ score doesn’t mean the person cannot make unintelligent choices, or that they are intelligent in every area of life. Those geeks you talk about may be incredibly gifted in math but have terrible social skills. A gifted medical person but they have OCD. Or even though good at math cannot manage their own personal financial affairs. Or are brilliant at physics but is an addict. Intelligent people who know better have affairs, drunk drive, embezzle, commit violent acts. IQ is not a gurarantee they will make intelligent decisions. For some I think it gives them a false sense of security to do bad things, believing they are too smart to be caught by other, lesser people.
And I didn’t say a higher IQ didn’t help. I said it’s not a guarantee of intelligence. If that were the case we wouldn’t see many intelligent people making bad decisions. Do lower IQ folks make more bad decisions, more often? Have more bad habits? I’d probably say yes. But to me it’s worse when an intelligent person does it because with their gifts and abilities they know better and they still make the bad decision.