In summary, the thing is that "intelligence" is fake less because it's not real and more becaused the word is used to talk about a number of different stats on the metaphorical character sheet which don't even overlap most of the time. For all that people enjoy their jokes about "high INT, low WIS wizards" that is actually pretty close to the reality! You've got, idk, six or eight or fifteen stats in there hiding under the amorphous blanket labeled "intelligence" and the chances that someone is doing equally great in ALL of them approach 0.
Once you understand that book smarts are not social IQ are not wit are not cleverness are not wisdom and so on, and furthermore everyone's a mixed bag, the world begins to make a lot more sense.