Scanning Embryos For Super-Intelligent Kids Is On the Horizon 366
An anonymous reader writes: Stephen Hsu, a professor in theoretical physics at Michigan State University, has an article discussing the genetic underpinnings of intelligence, and how our understanding of it will eventually lead to smarter children. Researchers have detected genes that influence cognitive ability, but the effect of any one gene is very small — less than 1 IQ point at best. Genetically modifying such genes is unlikely to happen any time soon, but our ability to analyze an embryo's genome is becoming quick and cheap. As we isolate more and more genes that affect intelligence, this means prospective parents will soon be able to analyze a batch of zygotes and figure out which ones are likely to be the smartest. Hsu says a batch of 10 zygotes will probably have an IQ range of 15 points or more. As our understanding of intelligence genetics grows, that range will only expand. He adds, "The corresponding ethical issues are complex and deserve serious attention in what may be a relatively short interval before these capabilities become a reality."
Scarier still.... (Score:4, Funny)
...what happens when they can detect which genes make you more likely to be a Republican.
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...what happens when they can detect which genes make you more likely to be a Republican.
The current gridlock in congress and the divide between conservatives and liberals will degenerate into a thermonuclear civil war?
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It could happen.
Re:Scarier still.... (Score:5, Interesting)
We can already ID future republican babies at 1 year with like 80% accuracy. That's not a crazy leap to find a partial genetic basis.
And this is true, not made up: it's the easily scared babies. Babies that show a faster, stronger fear response to scary images are more likely to be republicans as adults by a pretty substantial margin.
Citation please... (Score:2)
Re:Citation please... (Score:4, Informative)
I knew someone would ask. All the sources I do have have links that are now broken to the studies(STOP REDESIGNING YOUR WEBSITES, YOU JERKS). Which is annoying.
I've tried searching google scholar on the various things I'm certain the study's properties: they measured galvanic skin response, eye movement, and used control groups with no threatening images, and evolutionary fears for the test group(spiders, snakes, large predators).
But the best I can do for an actual cite is a huffpo article buy a guy most would find to be pretty biased. Not exactly the level of quality I wanted [huffingtonpost.com]
Here's one that establishes the same mechanisms in adults, but that's not what I promsied [royalsocie...ishing.org]
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The study in no way shows what you are claiming. It's not even in the same ball park.
What website is being redesigned?
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Don't be too hard on him. I read the same story a while back. It may have even been linked up here on /., but I don't remember exactly.
I spent a couple of seconds looking for it too, but can't find it. Doesn't matter though, it was from a soft "science" that places no value in reproducing results, has no tradition of introspection, and a tendency to stretch results (occasionally real, but usually statistical artifact) into sensational claims. And just imagine how much worse it gets when the press gets i
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Oooh, a professional phrenologist! And if your test babies show a fear response to images of guns and nuclear plants, does that nail them politically also?
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Babies that show a faster, stronger fear response to scary images are more likely to be republicans as adults by a pretty substantial margin.
That is misleading. What happens is the conservatives show a different response to scary images. Which is better depends on the environment. It may be that conservatives are more prone to over-reacting to threats while liberals are more likely to ignore or downplay real threats.
And conservative does not mean Republican. e.g. black Americans tend to be conservative but overwhelmingly vote Democrat.
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You think this is funny. However, watching all the "Man on the Street" Jaywalking type videos and all the really stupid liberals willing to jump on the "racism" banner simply because someone doesn't like Mexican Food.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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I dunno if this will be much of a problem. Selecting for higher intelligence should filter out such issues
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If the Mother and Father's DNA is pretty much identical..you might be a republican. If you have an extra Chromosome you're probably libertarian. Zygotes are never democrats until they're sure they've dodged the coat hanger.
Re:Scarier still.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Gene detection means squat when it comes to intelligence or the positive impact it can have. Intelligence, even in a given area, means nothing without the ability to make use of it in a meaningful way.
My family would likely be ones that have the intelligence gene (there's no way to say that without it sounding like bragging/ego, it's really not meant that way). I believe that based on a number of factors, including the level of participation of extended family members in their respective fields, psycho-educational testing where scores are in the 90th+ percentiles, etc. What that intelligence gene wouldn't show is the impact it can have. Combined with the intelligence in my family comes issues with depression, ADHD, bipolar disorder, failure to recognize/interpret social indicators (partly related to ADHD), isolationist tendencies, etc. Those might be local to our genetics, however, the "absent minded professor", "genius idiot", "troubled genius", etc. stereotype exists for a reason.
For every major success in my family there's a major failure to launch, meaning they have a really hard time getting careers/life going despite what testing suggests. In my family I am one of the latter group. My Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale tests (professionally administered) showed exceptional PRI scores like 98th percentile matrix reasoning & 97th percentile visual working memory and some truly horrible WMI/PSI scores as low as the 9th percentile. For me this has resulted in problems in school, friction in social arenas, bankruptcy, and currently: driving a forklift for a living. I have diagnosed & fixed a code efficiency problem in code that had been under constant optimizations for over 3 years, in a language I've never used, without seeing more than an outline of the original code, in less than an hour. Unfortunately that ability means nothing when working memory doesn't allow me to keep method names/etc in my head. It's akin to having the latest greatest processor with a tiny amount of RAM - the OS takes up most of the RAM and everything that's left is dedicated to the problem at hand - every time something else needs that space something important gets pushed out. Sometimes that's remembering to sleep/eat, others it's any concept of time, and mostly it's the "unimportant" details like method names/attributes/outputs (information that I can look up any time and isn't essential to the abstract core of a thing).
Point is, just because you can identify a gene and manipulate it to get better scores on testing doesn't mean it's going to result in something "better".
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That only happens when someone matures. Many people are making it well into their 40's and 50's without maturing and growing up enough to become a conservative.
I'm 51 years old. I "matured" into a fiscal conservative a long ago. I registered to vote when I turned 18, and have voted in every election since.
In 2012, and now again in 2010, I am voting a straight Democratic ticket. What the Republican party has become, makes me sick.
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In 2012, and now again in 2010...
Wow. It is still early in my time zone, but wow. Did I really just post that???
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Do you live in Florida by chance? ;)
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Do you live in Florida by chance? ;)
No, smartypants, a couple of hours west of there...
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What does being sick about the Republican party have to do with voting straight-ticket Democrat?
The answer is, "nothing." There is absolutely never any excuse whatsoever to vote "straight ticket" anything, except coincidentally because you independently evaluated the candidates for each office and your favorite candidates in each case happened to all be from the same party.
Re:Only happens... (Score:5, Informative)
The answer is, "nothing." There is absolutely never any excuse whatsoever to vote "straight ticket" anything, except coincidentally because you independently evaluated the candidates for each office and your favorite candidates in each case happened to all be from the same party.
Yes, there most certainly is a reason to do so--to affect the balance of power between the parties.
Prior to 2012, I always evaluated candidates individually. The last two elections, no. The last two elections, I felt it was more important to try to send a message to the Republican party about continuing to nominate idiots obsessed with irrelevant outdated right-wing religious beliefs.
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If the election has runoffs (rather than immediately awarding the win to a candidate with only a plurality of votes) then voting for a third-party accomplishes that just as well.
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But you seem to think that Republicans are conservative in the same way they were 40 years ago, when that's just not the case. Furthermore, equating maturity with getting your facts from Fox News is pretty immature.
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“If a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged, a liberal is a conservative who's been arrested” -Thomas Wolfe
As we see these effects in various forms and extremes even today, I'd say the genes are irrelevant.
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We have yet to define intelligence in any objective way
Thats not how science works. What you do is find something you can measure, an aspect of intelligence rather than a perfect definition.
The bit you can measure is called IQ. If the measure is reliable and makes successful predictions, then it is scientifically valid.
IQ tests are strong predictors of many things, such as school success and job performance.
This does not depend on anybody defining what general intelligence means.
we'll be able to test if someone is a genius?
No, but it may tell if they are smart enough to RTF Summary.
Khaaaaaaaan (Score:2, Funny)
Khaaaaaaaan!
Cue slippery slope arguments now... (Score:3)
Is 15 IQ points really a meaningful difference "in the real world'?
Now we can get back to to the slippery slope. What about killing off girl embryos or blacks or obese, etc etc.
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Yes, over all there will be more geniuses.
OF course, better schooling and diet would be an easier way to achieve that.
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Is 15 IQ points really a meaningful difference "in the real world'?
Yes, over all there will be more geniuses.
Nope. All this will do is shift the curve - some who would have been considered exceptional will not be so much.
That's the problem with grading on the curve ...
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"some who would have been considered exceptional will not be so much."
becasue more people will be exceptional; which is my point.
People with a 100 IQ will be smarter the the previous generation with an IQ of 100.
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Considering how the IQ is calibrated, and "genius" is a set number of of standard deviations on that scale, no, there wouldn't be.
But the argument that you're trying to make, that there'd be more people capable of more impressive intellectual achievements, is a bit like predicting it'll rain sometime in the future. The "standing on the shoulders of giants" principle will see to it being true.
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Considering how the IQ is calibrated, and "genius" is a set number of of standard deviations on that scale, no, there wouldn't be.
Or, to put it less genius-ly, "if everyone's above average, no one is above average, because the average MOVES."
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Or to put it even less genious-ly (unless it is "evil genius-ly"): "When everyone's super, no one is"...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Cue slippery slope arguments now... (Score:5, Funny)
We need a few more Einsteins, I say. But if we start designer babies... Let me be the first to say... Khaaaaan!!!!!!!!!
Plenty of Einsteins right now... (Score:2)
Using a 15 SD scale, with Einsten-level IQ person coming up every 31560 cases, we are at the moment at about 228136 Einsteins.
http://www.iqcomparisonsite.co... [iqcomparisonsite.com]
But screw Einsteins.
We are currently at about 27.6 MILLION people with an IQ of 140.
That's like something between a Nepal and Peru of 140 IQ people.
And that's not counting those with the IQ above that.
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Is the answer "it depends" unsatisfactory?
Past about IQ 130, further increases in IQ don't predict much about your life outcomes, but up to that point, it's a pretty good indicator of your chances of ending up in a higher economic class than your parents, lifespan, and educational achievement.
To treat a single predictor as an end-all be-all is a good way to shoot yourself in the foot for any sort of policy system, and we wouldn't want our governments(or really anyone with power over others) making simplisti
Re:Cue slippery slope arguments now... (Score:5, Informative)
What about killing off girl embryos...
You can already observe the effects of that one in India and China where female infanticide and selective abortion is practiced for all kinds of reasons such as the need to pay excessive dowries, inheritance traditions and religious beliefs. The problem of ending up with too many single men is usually solved by kidnapping women in other parts of the country or in neighboring countries where people are less obsessed with stupid traditions that lead them to have nothing but male offspring and force-marrying the unfortunate women to their precious sons. In some regions of India like Bengal and Assam, for example, where the gender imbalance is fairly small the kidnapping problem is so severe that girls and young women cannot go anywhere unescorted for fear of being kidnapped by bridal procurement possies from neighboring regions where they have a large surplus of sons.
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Because not giving a dowry would make the family a social outcast.
Outside of the lab, economics is never simple. Society is a much more important.
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historically, The problem of too many men has been solved with war.
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The standard deviation of IQ is 15 points.
So it can be the difference between being dumber than 84% of people (85) and being exactly average (100). This makes a huge difference in career and life prospects.
It can also be the difference between being mildly disabled (70) and being just a little bit on the thick side. Or being profoundly disabled and completely incapable of self care (55) to being able to more or less appear to be normal and somewhat functioning.
So yes, it makes a huge difference in the real
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15 points is a huge difference. A person with an IQ of 85 will be severely disadvantaged and would have problems completing any higher education.
Past a certain point higher IQ does not directly translate to higher success rate (social, economical, health etc), but in the interval 70-130 it does.
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What about killing off girl embryos or blacks or obese, etc etc.
Are you suggesting that (presumably) white parents will be scanning their embryos to see if they'll turn out black?
While there may be some that do, I don't think there's any overlap between them and the ones who will be scanning for intelligence. Same for the ones who would select solely on gender or (again presumably) tendency for obesity, as that has a large component driven by lifestyle.
Is 15 IQ points a meaningful difference? How about 2 points? 30 points? At some point, it would obviously make a di
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There is a lot of confusion in the public mind between genetic choice and eugenics.
Almost all of us are the result of genetic choice: two people picked each other out and started having babies that they hoped are like themselves in as many ways as possible. We all want our children to be more intelligent than the average, just as we want them to be taller, stronger and better looking. That's basic human nature, and whatever technology becomes available to give us more choice in creating offspring gets incor
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Well, 15 points is one standard deviation from the mean, and two standard deviations is the difference between being recognized as intellectually disabled simply being average, so I'm going to say yes - a jump half that size will probably make a notable difference. Especially if a couple's " average" child would be a standard deviation or more from the mean to begin with. Going upwards 1 stddev is the difference between being in the 50th percentile (IQ 100) or the 84.1th percentile, and another 15 points
Not necessarily (Score:3, Insightful)
Even if we do figure out even a few of the hundreds of factors that contribute to our (currently valued form of) intelligence, without a way to effectively cause the optimal configuration to happen, you're at best encouraging abortions of otherwise genetic-defect-free children in favor of another chance at one that would be smarter.
What can go wrong? (Score:3, Interesting)
So pretty soon society will contain 60% autists with serious psychological problems, 20% aspergers and other forms of high functioning autism, and 10% normal human beings? Yep. We must really select on IQ only ...
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A society full of geeks. How bad could it be?
OH SHIT! It'll be like the local hackerspace's mailing list ALL THE TIME. Dear god no.
Also, Gregarious Man [smbc-comics.com] would be a thing.
The problem is the solution! (Score:5, Funny)
What's the big deal with intelligence? (Score:5, Insightful)
If I were to choose a child from a huge batch of zygotes, I'd want the one that's generally disposed to be happy - easy going, social, even tempered, and not too fussy growing up. But apparently, geneticists aren't working on identifying the genetic correlates of those traits, even though we know that they are just as heritable as intelligence.
I don't think that I'll have kids, but if I did, the thing I'd want most is that they grow up happy. I would work hard to make sure they grow up in an environment that encourages it. But genetics contributes a lot to happiness outcomes, and if I were offered well-tested genetic help, I wouldn't refuse it. Maxing out their intelligence would not be at all high on my list of priorities. Is this a weird attitude? I thought it was a kind of typical parent attitude, but apparently, geneticists have different ideas.
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Really? You want a kid with no ambition? One that will happily work at a dead-end job and bum around with his friends rather than put in the effort to be a better person.
the thing I'd want most is that they grow up happy.
awwwww, that's adorable. Especially coming from a Spock parody. But that whole "happiness" thing is mostly on the shoulders of the parents, and doesn't matter if the kid is smart, dumb, rich, or poor. Once they hit the real world, then OH YEAH, those things matter for a lot. Hence why most parents try to steer their kid towards homework rat
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Really? You want a kid with no ambition? One that will happily work at a dead-end job and bum around with his friends rather than put in the effort to be a better person.
As you go throughout your day, look around you and try to keep track of people in so called "dead end" jobs as a proportion of the people you see. The world in which we live depends on a certain percentage of the population doing those jobs: garbage truck worker, toll booth operator, road maintenance crewmember, janitor, etc. While I certainly hope that my children excel, it is more important to me that they be happy doing whatever it is they are doing. I am reasonably successful and come from a family of v
Re:What's the big deal with intelligence? (Score:4, Interesting)
My son is classified as 'gifted', has a low 140's IQ; plenty of ambition, and an amazing inability to satiate his curiosity about pretty much everything. I love my son to bits, but there are more than just a few days where I would give anything for him to be a normal everyday shlub like the rest of the kids on the street... Having a high IQ child is not all upside.. There's a lot of downsides as well. At a young age you have someone who can read at an adult level, is bored by books for his age group, but is not emotionally mature enough to read books for his vocabulary and curiosity level. Sitting in a car with the kid is torture... He has an ability to generate interesting questions at a rate faster than he can verbalize them. After about 2 hours, you are mentally drained... On car trips, we limit his questions to one every 5 minutes and you can see him practically exploding, waiting for the clock to change... Even at 5 minute intervals, a 6 hour car trip is torture. In addition to his insatiable curiosity, and need to solve problems, he's also extremely sensitive, both physically and emotionally... A radio that I can hardly hear is too loud for him. He didn't like walking through tall grass due to the prickly feeling of it on his arms or legs... If he feels he has been dealt an injustice, he can jump right to violent anger instead of engaging in some self control.
It sounds like i'm describing someone on the Aspergers scale but he's been tested for that and on the first test, was marginally at the very bottom of the range, and the second test was just outside the range. He's in a school that is tailored towards gifted kids and he's thriving there, both academically and emotionally... He has a ton of friends and is slowly learning how to operate his brain...
Like I say, I love him to bits and so far the rewards probably outweigh the negatives, but if I knew then what I know now, I don't think I'd consciously elect to select for greater intelligence at the Zygot stage.
Re:What's the big deal with intelligence? (Score:4, Interesting)
I think you are conflating different things. Higher intelligence does not necessarily mean higher risk of Aspergers or other social disorders. Your son could easily have been of average intelligence and still had the other problems you've described. Do you think he would have had it easier by being less smart?
While our society tends to mistreat the very smart, even more it mistreats those with social disorders.
My daughter is also gifted and scored an IQ in the 140s. Also has insatiable curiosity. Certainly she could (and still can) ask far more questions than us and her teachers could ever answer. But, she never has had issues keeping her curiosity under her own control. She quickly learned how to do her own research. But not at the expensive of purely social activities. She certainly pushed our patience and made plenty of mistakes, but never did anything bad. She's a happy teen who is doing very, very well in university (studying electronics engineering and physics). She's been with her current boyfriend (who is equally gifted) for over 2 years. And she's truly beautiful (scouts from fashion agencies regularly try to recruit her for modeling; she politely declines).
Yes, in some respects my daughter is lucky. I don't think that her intelligence was a risk factor in inheriting any social disorders. And she's certainly using it in good ways.
and eventually your DNA will be your resume'.. (Score:3)
I just hope the "in-valids" will still be able to find nice janitorial positions...
For anyone that hasn't seen Gattaca, you can catch a small clip here: http://www.wingclips.com/movie... [wingclips.com]
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Believe me we have enough imperfection built in already. Your child doesn't need any additional burdens. Keep in mind this child is still you, only the best of you. You could conceive a thousand times and never get such a result.
Too bad the film was a box office flop since it was sci-fi film without explosions, lens flares, buxom scantily clad green women, and/or laser swords. Also at this point there are probably a lot of people who haven't seen the movie since it is 17 years old (and now I feel old [xkcd.com]) and it hasn't been that popular. Good story, wonderfully shot, well acted, and explores topics that are becoming prescient, just not what people think of when they hear it is a s
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Why, if everyone else is super-intelligent, the last person on earth who can stand being just a janitor will make a killing.
What a terrible, terrible idea. (Score:5, Insightful)
Gattaca was a cautionary tale, not a blueprint for future eugenics. What if someone like Newton or Einstein didn't have the perfect genetic signature for IQ (as we *think* we understand it), and instead the parents select for a more 'intelligent' specimen with a higher IQ, but one that lacks creativity and 'genius' or a million other factors that would be important for a child's success?
Example: Hawking: 150ish IQ, John Sununu 190. (Granted those are 'internet' numbers, so take with a grain of salt.) Point being, IQ is not everything.
Re:What a terrible, terrible idea. (Score:4, Interesting)
Gattaca was a cautionary tale, not a blueprint for future eugenics.
It was a cautionary tale to not focus too deeply on the genes one has rather than the potential one has. An invalid can best those with superior genes if they've got no fire, and a perfectly peaceful man can commit a horrible murder if everyone believes him to be perfectly peaceful.
Luckily, Einsteins brain has been sequenced. The results aren't publicly available, but that's not the sort of information that's going to disappear. If we can identify "creativity and genius", then all the better. Just like we can identify intelligence. And having the right set of genes isn't the end-all-be-all of who you are. Even if you were a clone of Einstein, or say, one of his kids, that doesn't guarantee you're going to go on to do great things.
You're right that IQ isn't everything. But GATTACA was most certainly a blueprint for future eugenics, and once it's available I really don't see an alternative.
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Well then you've reduced humanity down to a few genetic markers. That sounds very depressing to me.
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I think you're working quite hard at being depressed about this. IQ isn't everything. Genes aren't everything. This is one of those lessons that sci-fi helps us learn before stumbling over it. Rest assured that some people will still stumble. It'll be a long long time before we can select against fools.
As for "reducing humanity", yeah man, we're just a few genetic markers away from apes. That's how works.
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"and a perfectly peaceful man can commit a horrible murder if everyone believes him to be perfectly peaceful."
that is. literally, nonsense.
"and a violent man can commit a horrible murder if everyone believes him to be perfectly peaceful."
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Gattaca was a cautionary tale, not a blueprint for future eugenics.
This makes me wonder how "Nineteen Eighty-Four" was originally received. But after a quick check [wikipedia.org] it looks like it got a better reception than GATTACA but I wonder about the initial sales.
[gets out tinfoil]
Maybe big brother just got better at conditioning people. Bread and circuses.
[tinfoil off]
"Stupid" is not IQ dependent. (Score:2)
Wide adoption of this kind of gene-tampering would probably more likely help reduce the number of stupid than increase the number of high-IQ individuals.
It's not a pill that a woman would take and instantly give birth to a (well adjusted) genius baby.
It's a time and money sink for the family, and somewhat of a torture procedure for women.
On top of that, it is recognition and acceptance of one's own inferiority - for both parents.
And then there's the whole thing regarding the abortion issues.
Those dumb enoug
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"Wide adoption of this kind of gene-tampering would probably more likely help reduce the number of stupid than increase the number of high-IQ individuals."
Perhaps over multiple generations it would lead to more high-IQ as certain gene combinations become more and less common.
It's BS anyway (Score:3)
Every month or so we get a new article on a new eugenics topic. Detecting "smart" embryos is a lie. Brain development may start in the embryonic phase, but this [slashdot.org] article from today demonstrates very clearly that development continues long after birth. It further indicates that childhood development has far greater impact on IQ than the embryonic phase. In other words, which scientist is lying?
Detecting a deficiency in an embryo is surely possible, but this is not the same as detecting high IQs which does
Can we filter sperm/eggs before making embryos? (Score:2)
One of the ethical questions (and there are multiple here) is with discarding embryos after they are created. Do we have the technology to filter the sperm and eggs before creating the embryos to achieve the same effect? Or do you need the whole genome together to make a good evaluation? Filtering ahead of time would alleviate some of the abortion concerns with such technologies.
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That's not an ethical issue, it's a moral issue. I see no ethical difference between a sperm and egg that have not combined, and a sperm and egg that have combined and undergone a small number of cell divisions. In my opinion, until it has neurons that are firing, there's no ethical dimension.
I hate to say it... (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, the first thought most people have, consciously or subconsciously, is "Would my parents have kept me if they'd had this option?" and the whole concept thus makes us very uncomfortable...
However, looking at humanity as a whole and taking into account that we pretty much switched natural selection off... can we actually afford not to do this?
I mean, billions of sperm and thousands of eggs never get to be a fertilized anything. Of the fertilized eggs, about a third or so actually manage to become a clump of cells trying to become an embryo and of the actual embryos, quite a few never make it any further. Choosing them for looks isn't very ethical, seeing as look are very much dependent on the current fashion, but physical fitness and intelligence aren't quite the same thing. Seeing as most 'potential' human beings never make it, I don't quite share the moral dilemma in choosing the best of the best.
Raising not only humanities average intelligence but much more importantly the lower end seems a phenomenal gain to me.
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The current method where the people at the bottom are reproducing faster than the people at the top and the
jobs at the bottom are being increasingly replaced by machines is probably not sustainable unless something
changes. Eugenics has a terrible history and I doubt we're better than mother nature at picking desirable traits
but if nothing else, we should probably try to prevent a slide. Maybe a good strategy would be to pick embryos
for maximum diversity but any strategy would probably be better than the d
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Looks are a lot less to do with fashion than some suspect. Even different races have a similar idea (generally) about what is good looks.
Science fiction has solutions for this (Score:3)
Positive side: Heinlein's "Beyond this Horizon"
Negative side: Kornbluth's "The Marching Morons"
If we don't do the first, we get the second. There's a reasonable argument that natural selection isn't working anymore, and in fact may have been reversed. At one point, poor eyesight or ADD meant the sabre-tooth edited you out of the gene pool. So, we'll have to add the chlorine ourselves. I'm not sure we should be editing genes directly, but selecting the best gametes from the available pool (for a given set of parents) à la Heinlein almost HAS to be done at some point.
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At one point, poor eyesight or ADD meant the sabre-tooth edited you out of the gene pool.
You have that backwards. ADD mean you noticed the sabre-tooth tiger and lived longer than your geeky friend who managed to focus on trying to build a fire. ADD is a positive trait if you have to constantly watch your back.
And mother nature just didn't give a shit what happened to your eyesight past 30, but point taken.
There's a reasonable argument that natural selection isn't working anymore,
There is always selection, some people have (more) kids than others. Some people don't have kids. The "natural" aspect is meaningless and doesn't matter worth a damn. The question is merely
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The crocodile and nautilus haven't changed much for millions of years. They found a niche and didn't have reason to change. We could do the same.
I actually had a debate with someone about that:
Him: If evolution is real, why haven't cockroaches evolved?
Me: Because they didn't need to.
Why Not???? (Score:2)
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It could be worse because we don't understand the relationship between these genes and other attributes like compassion and morality. For example, some scientist boffin might discover that Gene 769 gives 1 extra IQ point but doesn't realise that it makes you into an unfeeling psychopath. Then we end up with a planet of super intelligent nazis.
Alpha children wear grey (Score:2)
Genetically modifying such genes is unlikely to happen any time soon
Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm really awfuly glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able to read or write. Besides they wear black, which is such a beastly colour. I'm so glad I'm a Beta.
Pseudoscience Lunacy (Score:3, Interesting)
You're making a baby, not a D&D character! (Score:2)
Changing the system? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Wouldn't the embryos change by the simple action of observing it?
For obvious reasons, you want to do your culling before fertilization occurs. In Heinlein's story, they examined the otherwise-wasted polar body thrown off during the development of the cell. The genetic content of the final cell can be inferred from that. Not sure how well that would work out, real-world; but the story was written in 1942, and the idea hasn't been discredited yet (that I could find).
not a repost (Score:2)
So environment has a bigger influence that what we've measured in the Genome.
If only we tackled the less expensive solutions first.
http://science.slashdot.org/st... [slashdot.org]
The problem with this is where to stop (Score:4, Insightful)
Stuff like this is a pretty stark reminder that we're just a bag of chemicals, even though we've evolved the capability to do things like...post on Slashdot.
This kind of thing is done in a somewhat limited fashion with high-risk pregnancies/IVF to select for embryos that don't have Down syndrome or other profound mental handicaps. And if an ultrasound indicates something wrong further along, amniocentesis is performed. Those tests are easier because it's the absence or malformation of a chromosome, and they're less controversial because the difference between a kid with 10 fewer IQ points in the normal range and a Down syndrome or Fragile X kid is huge. Someone who is otherwise normal might not be as smart, but someone with a mental handicap is never going to have a full life and be a hardship on their family.
Given what we know about genetics now, I actually don't think selecting out traits that are clearly undesirable is a bad thing as long as there's some randomization and some things left to chance. 100 years ago, we only understood that "something" was responsible for traits, not that a particular sequence of nucleotides in your DNA causes the cells they create to behave differently. The problem is that there are still lots of religious people who reject all of this and blame diseases and defects on God's will. Not that Gattaca's a good example, but the main character's defects were a direct result of his parents rejecting genetic engineering and having kids the "old fashioned way," similar to religious people having a huge family, getting a couple of kids with issues, and just shrugging it off as unavoidable because, well, you know, God.
Smart but no common sense (Score:2)
I know some scary smart people but they seem to lack day to day common sense and sometimes act like twits. Now imagine a beowulf cluster of these running the country. Were doomed....
What is the definition of intelligent? (Score:2)
If you do not know your requirements, how do you know what you are supposed to do? Enough said....
Scanners put on 10 IQ points (Score:2)
Just as cameras put on ten pounds.
Time to min/max... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The Genius Gene (Score:2)
If genius is genetically linked with a sense of humour that could best be described as "Perverted Three Stooges", I'm Einstein's smarter offspring.
What's the point in creating outcasts? (Score:4, Interesting)
But if we make all future births "geniuses"... (Score:2)
...there won't be anyone to run supermarkets, farmers or truck drivers to deliver food to anyone. Thus, while the entire population is reading slashdot, they will starve, die and go extinct.
Perhaps the diversity of the gene pool as it exists today is smarter than any algorithm we could come up with to serve all the changing needs of our population to have the best chance of survival. It's clear to me that creating an entire generation of "geniuses", super models and super athletes is not going to do that.
What could possibly go wrong? (Score:2)
What they fail to mention (Score:2)
Selecting for kids with even higher intelligence might mean they have more severe mental problems.
Do you want a bunch of Lex Luthors? (Score:2)
Sweet !!! (Score:2)
Maybe the selection will go the other way . . . sometimes a smart child is more of a challenge than the parents are looking for.
Re: (Score:2)
Science understands when life begins quite well -- they just don't includexthe purely religious concept of "ensoulment", nor the equally religious concept that there's a god out there getting mad about it.
Even if there were, the logic still holds -- God has no more right to force his will on you than any dictator (or socialist, for that matter.)
You ALL are part of the problem.
Re: (Score:2)
Meanwhile, the genetic researchers have already started serious discussions about the fact that since we now can fix some defects already on the embryo level, should we? If you cull them, then that discussion will be controlled by hapless physicists...
Re: (Score:2)
Correct. And when people talk about this, they mean "relative to today's standards". And that's a perfectly reasonable way of talking about it.
But this is not a zero-sum game where it only matters how smarter you are than the next guy. It really does have an impact if EVERYONE is smarter on the whole.
Fun fact: If we never re-adjusted the IQ scale and somehow compared the IQ scores of people today to everyone in history, we would score higher then those of the past. People have gotten smarter. And this is a