Ratio IQ estimation versus IQ tests

It occurs to me that ratio IQ estimation has a great advantage over IQ tests. All IQ tests have ceiling effects: a gifted child can easily bump against these ceilings or have their test score lowered without even bumping against them. The simple presence of a ceiling has a depressant effect on scoring.

So what can we do about this? Well, I would advise an older method of estimating IQ, used for assessing the IQs of people who were not able to be tested in any other ways: ratio IQ estimation.

Why is there an advantage to ratio IQ estimation, as detailed in the previous post? Well, there are NO ceiling effects and you are getting a true grasp of how gifted a child is. The estimate of IQ obtained by looking at ratio IQs may seem a rough guide - but it could prove far more accurate than measuring the more gifted children with a test that has a ceiling of some kind - even a high ceiling. The estimate you get will not have been capped by the ceiling of a test. In this way, we can be sure that the estimates of historic personages like William James Sidis - estimated at 250 to 300 - are accurate, in the sense that they are likely to be at least a threshold below which he could not have been, to have achieved what he did.

So, are we to throw away IQ tests? Well, perhaps for our most gifted, we should - because ALL IQ tests have natural ceilings and all will depress scores for the most gifted. This problem is now much more serious than it used to be, since, for reasons that are quite unfathomable, all modern tests are designed to lower the scores of gifted students. All of these tests will give an inaccurate assessment of any gifted child.

So, if you want a truer handle on your child's giftedness, calculate a ratio IQ: it will give a better insight into the true state of affairs, if your child is one of those who hits ceilings.

The Flynn Effect: are we all getting smarter?

For decades now, the average IQ of people has been on the rise, at mean rate of one third of a point per year. That is 3 points per decade. So, are we all getting smarter, then?

The short answer is no. You see the question is, for whom is the tally rising?

Research indicates that the mean IQ is rising because the IQ of those who are in the lower segment of the population is increasing. The higher up you go on the IQ scale, the less the IQ is improving. For very high IQ types, it is isn't budging, decade on decade.

Now, this presents us with a very real problem. You see, IQ tests are regularly "re-normed" to take account of this average rise...and these rising scores are reset to 100. Thus IQ points vanish, in this adjustment. This would not matter were the change in IQ the same across all IQs - but it isn't. High IQs are not really changing - but do the norms take account of this? From what I have read, and understand, the test takers are adjusting the test results, assuming that the Flynn Effect is a universal phenomenon. Since it isn't...what effect does "re-norming" have. Well, as you might have guessed, it artificially depresses the IQs of people in the upper ranges.

So, again, we have identified a source of IQ score depression for the most gifted, introduced into modern tests.

With all of these score depressing effects, (see my previous post The Great IQ Con) preferentially exerted on the most gifted, it seems that, ultimately, modern IQ tests are being designed by people who either have an agenda, or are themselves pretty stupid. Perhaps it is both, since you would have to be pretty stupid to have an agenda against the brightest among us.

What can we conclude from all of this? Well, it seems sure that whatever uses are intended for modern IQ tests, getting a true measure of the intelligence of the most intelligent is not one of them. The tests are quite useless for that - in fact, the typical modern test will give a very distorted picture of anyone who roves into the highly gifted territory and beyond. This obviously can have significant impacts on whether or not these children receive appropriate education, or not. In all, it is quite a serious issue.