Chinese Clinic Uses DNA Tests To Predict Kids' Talents 98
Death Metal writes with this excerpt from CNN:
"About 30 children aged 3 to 12 years old and their parents are participating in a new program that uses DNA testing to identify genetic gifts and predict the future. ... The test is conducted by the Shanghai Biochip Corporation. Scientists claim a simple saliva swab collects as many as 10,000 cells that enable them to isolate eleven different genes. By taking a closer look at the genetic codes, they say they can extract information about a child's IQ, emotional control, focus, memory, athletic ability and more. For about $880, Chinese parents can sign their kids up for the test and five days of summer camp in Chongqing, where the children will be evaluated in various settings from sports to art. The scientific results, combined with observations by experts throughout the week, will be used to make recommendations to parents about what their child should pursue."
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, who am I kidding? The first thing I thought when I read the heading on TFS was "damn, I need to watch that movie again".
Re: (Score:2)
And it's only a small step from testing... (Score:2)
It's only a small step from testing for these purported genes in kids, to testing for 'em in embryo bits. Then we get eugenics and kid selection, and surprise, there's a superhuman race inheriting the earth. *shrug* I think we all know how these things go.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:And it's only a small step from testing... (Score:5, Funny)
It's only a small step from testing for these purported genes in kids, to testing for 'em in embryo bits. Then we get eugenics and kid selection, and surprise, there's a superhuman race inheriting the earth. *shrug* I think we all know how these things go.
KHAAAAAAN!!!
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
They're already well on the way. [johnderbyshire.com]
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
All this means is that Star Trek is right, again. And I thought we'd avoid the eugenics wars. :^(
Where's time-travelling Jean Luc Picard when you need him?
Re: (Score:1)
Current medical care in the US already involves eugenics. The less popular class (the poor) are denied decent medical care under the banner of economics. That kills off the poor to some degree just as things like miserable prisons, lack of mental health facilities and states that offer zero dental care for seniors, lack of public housing, transportation etc.. Then there are additional policies that support eugenics such as allowing gun stores and liquor stores to infest ghetto areas with the store ow
Re: (Score:2)
Seems to be working really well doesn't it? Concept Fail.
If you were really thinking hard, you might consider these sorts of negative things as merely selecting the 'less successful' members of this 'underclass' so you would create evolu
Re: (Score:2)
Nature just hates it when you anthropomorphise her.
Re: (Score:2)
It's the only way we'll have a shot at defeating the aliens, so we really better get with the program.
Opening my own DNA Oracle here (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
That's one small step for man, a giant leap for the Greys [closely-encountered.com].
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Achievement at all costs (Score:4, Insightful)
Which would be a good thing. Why wait thousands of years for humans to evolve (if at all - it's not the super intelligent scientists and other successful people who have the most kids, quite the contrary)
You assume genetics is the only determinant of intelligence.
if you could make the jump right now, with much more impact?
For the same reason you don't hand an oxyacetylene torch (or administrator access to a company network) to a five-year-old and ask why he should wait until he's an adult to start learning marketable skills. We still don't know enough about genetics to start testing for more than a handful of things, and definitely don't know enough to start tweaking things in a living, thinking human being. Trying it now is just driving nails with a wrecking ball.
Obvious bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
they say they can extract information about a child's IQ
A quick scan over the summary and spotting that set off my bullshit alarms. The genes that go in to shaping someones intelligence and IQ are likely to be multitude, and we have virtually no idea how the genes, working together, come to influence ones IQ.
Re:Obvious bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
I think actually the actual small nugget of truth these tests are going to be based off of is going to be something very similar to the following:
The little bit of DNA they sequenced, once through, was more similar to a musician's and most dissimilar to an architect, so that "indicates" he would be best as a musician. Over the course of the summer camp, he was told repeatedly that he wanted to play music rather than draw buildings, and rewarded for learning to play a little something to convince his parents that he actually had talent and they didn't waste their money.
The whole genome will not be sequenced in any case, and there obviously won't be any attempt to do anything besides correlation. They haven't identified anything like a "musical talent" gene, it's all pure correlations.
It's going to be a slightly more technical version of Japan's blood type = personality fortunetelling [thegreatgeekmanual.com] or good old fashioned phrenology [wikipedia.org]. Although, anyone I talked to about it in Tokyo regarded the blood types as we would regard horoscopes: with a grain of salt. It seems to really continue as a novelty, and only is around because it's so cheap to identify your blood type. Shelling out $880 for the equivalent? I doubt this pseudoscience crap is going to take off, at least until they offer sequencing and comparisons for cheaper.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
That's interesting, but it will really have better accuracy in telling if the musician who provided to DNA sample had previously provided a meiotic DNA sample to a groupie.
Re: (Score:1)
The problem with this is that this is done at the early childhood, and decisions about the child's education will be based on this. Thus, it has the great danger of getting a self-fulfilling prophecy: They predict that children with a certain genetic pattern will have a better chance to be good musicians, in response to this those children get better musical education, which increases their chance to be good musicians afterwards. The same goes with science etc.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
I agree that they probably will not (yet) have an idea over how the genes influence IQ, but that doesn't mean they can't correlate genes with IQ. In fact, it's already been done ... On average, Ashkenazi Jews and most Asians have higher IQs than non-Jewish Caucasians[1], and specific genes have been correlated with higher IQ. For instance The DTNBP1 and CHRM2 have already been studied[2]
I could go on with more sources of other genes and relevant studies ...
The hapmap project may be of interest: http://www
Re: (Score:1)
Why it works ... (Score:3, Insightful)
If your parents are stupid enough to pay for this, you're obviously from the shallow end of the gene pool as well, though you can be assured that the parents will ALL be told that their kids are above average - which is a statistical impossibility in a large-enough sample, but hey, there's one born every minute ... or in China's case 34.69 every minute*
* 1,330,044,544 / 1000 * 13.71 / 365 / 24 / 60 (chinese pop / 1000 / birth rate per thousand per annum / 365 days / 24 hours / 60 minutes :-)
Re: (Score:2)
the parents will ALL be told that their kids are above average - which is a statistical impossibility
Not impossible. Example: most people have more than the average number of legs.
Re: (Score:2)
Besides, my point was that only the more stupid would fall for this scam - so there is no way their kids are all going to be above average.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Obvious bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
set off my bullshit alarms
I've been living in China for the past year and I can tell you Chinese parents have no bullshit alarms when it comes to anything that any huckster is selling to improve their one child's chances. A tiny percentage get into college and then a fraction of those are able to land college requiring jobs. Anything promising to give them an edge is bought up.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
And probably more importantly, we do know, with numerous studies, that for all popularized tests, IQ is more than 90% training determined and not genetic.
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
And probably more importantly, we do know, with numerous studies, that for all popularized tests, IQ is more than 90% training determined and not genetic.
This is simply not true. IQ has shown to have little variance from about ages 5 - 60, but does decline in the late stages of life. In other words, if you are tested at age 8, you should be in the same percentile as when you are tested again at age 20. Your "trained knowledge" can indeed increase as you get older, but since IQ is a normalized score, your percentile does not vary significantly.
Re: (Score:2)
citation needed
Pygmalion Effect (Score:5, Insightful)
Nicely done China, you have discovered the well documented Pygmalion Effect. [wikipedia.org] This is so common in society. For example, in Chinese culture there is significant attention paid to the oldest son. He's expected to do better, to succeed and eventually become wealthy. So he's encouraged. This encouragement and positive reinforcement can cause the child to succeed. Whereas other children are not given the same expectations and relatively do poorer.
So you these people will take their kid to this clinic, who will say, "this kid should become a scientist." Then the parents will do whatever it takes to make the kid a scientist. Possibly ignoring the signs that he/she might be attuned to being a musician or artist.
In other news... Looks like the Chinese have also watched and decided to implement in real life the movie Gattaca [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Joking aside, they were a little silly, but the introduction of genetics is a little scary.
It used to be, once upon a time, that you had to list your parents names and occupations when applying for a job. If you were trying to be a banker and your father was a miller, good luck to ya.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
So YOU'RE the guy making those "sexy nun" pictures on the interwebs?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The careers department at my school gave us all a questionnaire to fill out when we were 17. The results were pretty much exactly what I expected them to be, so it was a waste of time.
Re: (Score:2)
Those aptitude tests are just as much a load of crap.
Re: (Score:1)
Families part of the Chinese urban population nowadays most likely have only one child. No, there is no Pygmalion effect, just a very natural effect of having to ensure the genes of *two* people (aka "parents") have the best chances to be perpetuated later.
I can only imagine what the Chinese will do to increase their only offspring 10-15 years from now, when their GDP would be double as a nation (but most likely 3-4 times bigger for the same urban sample).
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
This has nothing to do with the "one child" policy. The Pygmalion effect is the part where when the doctors say "this child has the genes to succeed," it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy due to psychology, and that child's success due to the prophecy will in turn support the doctors' original assertion that the genes are related to success, statistically! There are lies, damned lies, and statistics, as they say.
If everyone believed it you could start just predicting that redheads would be smarter than
Re: (Score:2)
That was /close/ to my feeling as well, only...
What has surprised me is that nobody is congratulating these guys on being great capitalists! They've found a very clever way to separate people from their money, while providing at least /some/ real value, so they're not so quickly seen as simple scammers.
Here's what I see happening, and what it seems most have missed, here. They're doing a several day summer camp -- only they're selling it as MORE than that -- and, if their advice isn't taken to extremes, i
Re: (Score:2)
this kid should become a scientist." Then the parents will do whatever it takes to make the kid a scientist.
Which creates the funny situation wherein the child may actually become a succesfull scientist and than might have to disspell this pseudoscience even though it "predicted" his own future correctly.
Re: (Score:1)
in Chinese culture there is significant attention paid to the oldest son.
What would you expect under a one child policy? That they pay more attention to their dog?
Unlikely... (Score:2)
bumpersticker on soccer mom's suv... (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:1)
Problem is: Talents are not based on genetics. (Score:3, Informative)
I remember reading a big article in the German science magazine "Spektrum der Wissenschaft", that there is no such thing as innate talent.
They tried to find out, what made geniuses geniuses. And they found, that it's not relevant what you were born with.
What is relevant, is to keep yourself in proper balance between choosing too hard and too easy tasks to grow from. The closer this balance is to your abilities, the faster your abilities will grow. I can also say from my own experience, that it's true.
The other factor is, to be able to structure your thoughts and knowledge. Even for sports.
For example in chess, a beginner would try to keep the position of every figure in his mind,
While an advanced player might store the same state as "the Someguy move" with "the Otherguy variation" and "this pawn is advanced one field".
And a masterful player would most likely think of it as "the Fooguy setup" with "the Barguy move" and "this pawn doing the Bazguy-style attack".
So you put your thoughts into sets that fit in one of the eight (on average) short-term memory "registers" you have. And to create many associations in your long-term memory, so you can quickly get to many related things.
That's all there is to geniuses. So whatever someone told you about you being unable to do: As long as it is still physically possible (i.e. you're not 75 and trying to win an Olympic medal for 100m running), you can do it!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Germany has long labored under Sceptical philosophy which is not comfortable with objectivity, or superiority, or for that matter any value judgments at all.
Yeah, whatever, I'm just glad they aren't doing what they did the last time they thought about "objectivity" or "superiority" or "value judgments".
I seriously doubt this (Score:2)
Smart drugs, Viagra and gene therapy.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
You forgot to add a little something: if they can pay for it. Exactly what today's societies need, more money-based discrimination to increase the divide between richt and poor. But I guess China and the US won't have any problems with that. The one because surpassing others is their holy grail and the other because people without money are real humans anyway.
I wonder which sci-fi story will be this issue's 1984. GATTACA really lends itself to it.
Re: (Score:2)
China is really the perfect place for this type of research. Relatively isolated genetic population, huge population to sample from, totalitarian government to keep it all under control. If this is what they are making public, imagine what their military is working on.
Gattaca much? (Score:2)
This reminds me so much of Gattaca. If you send your children to this camp and one does well and another does poorly, you can't help but feel differently about the children. This is evil
G.O.A.T. (Score:2, Funny)
It's a scam (Score:2, Interesting)
Incidently, I am in Shanghai. And working in biology. I have heard of these clinics (there seem to be several), because they
are picking up up young graduates from the Universities to do the work. They pay well (compared to what the graduates get when
they do a postdoc), but obviously more money will disappear in the pockets of the managers/directors of said clinics.
From a biological standpoint, the whole thing is a scam. Perhaps they can predict some things a little bit, but from what I have seen I think the
Chinese summer camp? (Score:1)
I want to know which genes they examine (Score:2)
Seriously, has any of this turned up in the literature? I want to see what for what they are looking.
Forget prediction for children, there's a number of different companies out there that do personal genome screening, and plenty of adults who don't know what they want to be when they "grow up" or want to change careers, etc.
Bohemian Grove (Score:1)
So.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:1)
how do they handle things when you find out that you have the next Mao Zedong or Stalin?
In China? They promote him to leadership roles, obviously.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
I think that at any time, in a country as large as China, there are tens, maybe even thousands of potential Mao Zendongs or Stalins.
But they don't get there, because there can be only one supreme ruler, and not all rulers will succeed at all times.
Hitler for instance came in at the right time. Germany was hummiliated, and he was the sort of guy that would make it great again. But his actions created such disgust, that if he was reborn right now, he couldn't get to power.
Rasputin started as a peasant and man
This is a good idea... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Focusing on one child over the over is the perfect way to make one successful over the other child. Is it worth it to destroy one of your own offspring at the cost of another's chance of success just because 'the gene test' says so?
No.
Besides, scientists haven't been able to cure most of t
Re: (Score:1)
Besides, scientists haven't been able to cure most of the world's deadly diseases in all our years of existence.
1.) "Most"? That's asking an awful lot. 2.) How is that even relevant to genetic screening?
Seems kind of sneaky that we can all of a sudden jump to gene manipulation with any success...
TFA had no mention of gene manipulation. Only scanning for traits.