Greetings all.
It seems with all the metallics they (even at birth) are as smart if not smarter than moderately intelligent humans. Is this a general rule for all dragons or can metallics produce offspring with more subpar intelligence. I.e Silver's base In is 14, could you have one who started a bid of a dunce like int 6? Mabye he can make up for that with greater predatory and physical traits? I think it would be quite interesting to see how other metallics would view him as unlike whites he is good-aligned and a proper metallic despite his subpar intellect.
Dragons are pretty much the alpha race/species. The other races are lesser races at least as far as they are concerned. A GM can make a dumb dragon, but the standard dragon will always be smarter than most humans.
I forgot to answer the rest of your question.
Silver Dragons also have expectations to live up to. They are the the moral compass of dragons to a large extent, well the good ones anyway. Being strong, but not smart would only make them be viewed as brutes. Dragons are uppity, even the good ones.
Well, I don't think anything's stopping you from using Intelligence for his dump stat. Let's say that because the average starting Silver Dragon has an intelligence bonus of +4, because 14-10(which is average)=+4.
Say he rolled a 3 and put it in intelligence and that gave him a 7.
The stats in the bestiary are supposed to represent the average member of the species. Nothing says there aren't individuals who are better off or worse off than others, or who have differing strengths.
For a more extreme example of what you're contemplating, you might want to consider the Advanced Bestiary a 3rd party OGL supplement for 3.5 that focuses on important and useful templates to modify creatures. It's available as a PDF wherever you buy gaming PDFs and Paizo uses it extensively for its adventure paths, even in their PFRPG era. The reason I'm bringing it up is that there's a template in it specifically designed to remove the spells, spell-like abilities, and intelligence from dragons while increasing their physical capabilities, making them more akin to brute-style, rampaging, monster dragons that feature in a lot of legends.
I also like the Advanced Bestiary because it's just a cool PDF in general.
I agree that the number in the book is average, but dropping him down to smart human is still below average for a dragon, depending on his age anyway. The OP mentioned using a 6 which is not even smart for a human.
They will probably keep him hidden away so the other races don't find out, and make fun of them. :)
Cool thanks for the advice everyone. Now that I look back mabye Int 6 would be abit too low. Mabye In 10 at base. Prehaps by some unfortunete occurance he was forced to fend for himself and survive in the wild, still maintaining his just mind set (As that is set in stone for silvers) but in turn becoming a bit more simplistic due to his lack of needed education?