I am sorry if I sounded too “revolutionary” in this lengthy message. I do not think ANYONE in this world is just average. Everyone have some great skill than many of us. It’s up to right grooming and providing right environment that help discovering and then developping such skills. When I play with my very young kid, I try to see the world through his eyes and then try to understand the problem he might be facing before asking him to do something different or the same thing differently.
I have a great doubt about the way IQ is measured and how people are branded as “intelligent” or not. How can one say that Einstein is the greatest genius when he could not do many things that a “common Joe” can do without much problem, e.g maintaining a healthy family relationship, respect his wife or not sidelining his wife for his personal fame, inability to foresee how his and many other research were about to be used by policy makers (yes, I am talking about Nuc bomb) and so on. Einstein surely was genius so far physics and mathematics is concerned. But that is not all about life or the world. I think, I should mention “…wherever possible, scientists took advantage of the nation’s appetite for heroes.… Social surveys demonstrated that industrialization had not eradicated poverty and the heroic rhetoric of invention had served its purpose” (The invention of heroes: Nature 30th July, 2009, pp 572-583).
People like Jane Goodall or Dian Fossey may not be excellent in using latest technology or great in doing complicated physics problems in chimpanzee or Gorilla research. But I consider them as one of the finest human being ever lived in this planet. Or how can you compare Vivekananda or Rabindra Nath Tagore or Nelson Mandela with Newton or Edison so far “intelligence” is concerned? Let me phrase my wordings differently: If the ultimate target of science is to make this world a better place (through technology and knowledge) then who is more important, among those people, in this world? Some may say these are all irreverent for a “scientist” to think about, many say “it’s not our (scientists’) duty to decide how our work is being used by policy makers”, some may agree with me that our ultimate target is to make this world a better place. Some bright medical scientists are very against doing more research to lengthen human life span, as “if we can not control birth then we must not control death”. Now we can see huge socioeconomic problems associated with rapid increase of old people (mainly in developed countries), without proper care (both mental and physical), living almost meaningless lives.

I am trained (I am avoding the term “education” here) in some specific subjects; know some specific techniques and now trying to solve some of the earthly problems using those. But am I a good “scientist” if I forget where to go, what is the main objective of all these “research”? Once Ex-British PM Tony Blair said something like this, “money was invented to quantify happiness in ancient time but now even economists have forgotten the basic objective and we all are busy in measuring and maximizing money and most of the time it translate into sacrificing happiness”.
Deterioration of social values and global happiness (heard of the term “happiness quotient”?) is a direct consequence of deterioration of our basic education. In more precise term, introduction of corporate education (mainly invented in US) and adoption of US system around the world. We talk what others want us to talk, we think as others want us to think. We are loosing our own personality, own creativity and above all sacrificing our own happiness. Nowadays we hardly do what makes us happy, but try to justify what we do. That’s why so many people flock to a profession that can give them money while majority of them could be great in many other professions. Everyone does not have to do IT or Biotech or genetic engineering to become “intelligent”. Playing flute or taking a nice photograph or draw a painting can be equally rewarding. But our education and prevailing social system does not agree with that. Ultimately it’s national policies that create conducinve environment for us to groom talents and scientist should take part in framing those. We have a bigger responsibility and people with vision must get involved. Some can do it directly while many others can try to build public (Scientific?) opinion for a bigger goal towards a better society.