> I’m not talking about individual success i’m talking about societal success.

I don't know what that means.

Social mobility? Academic success corresponds quite strongly to that too.

Collective success? Groups who are academically successful also correlate quite well to various measures of success.

I mean, unless we reduce the scope of our samples to the outliers, and look at a non-representative sample, it's really quite hard to support the claim that "gut-feel" is at all valuable without high academic performance.