Americans Are Ready To Test Embryos For Future College Chances, Survey Shows (technologyreview.com) 188
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: Imagine that you were provided no-cost fertility treatment and also offered a free DNA test to gauge which of those little IVF embryos floating in a dish stood the best chance of getting into a top college someday. Would you have the test performed? If you said yes, you're among about 40% percent of Americans who told pollsters they'd be more likely than not to test and pick IVF embryos for intellectual aptitude, despite hand-wringing by ethicists and gene scientists who think it's a bad idea. The opinion survey, published in the journal Science, was carried out by economists and other researchers who say surprisingly strong support for the embryo tests means the US might need to hurry up and set policies for the technology.
The new poll compared people's willingness to advance their children's prospects in three ways: using SAT prep courses, embryo tests, and gene editing on embryos. It found some support even for the most radical option, genetic modification of children, which is prohibited in the US and many other countries. About 28% of those polled said they'd probably do that if it was safe. The authors of the new poll are wrestling with the consequences of information that they helped discover via a series of ever larger studies to locate genetic causes of human social and cognitive traits, including sexual orientation and intelligence. That includes a report published last year on how the DNA differences among more than 3 million people related to how far they'd gone in school, a life result that is correlated with a person's intelligence.
The result of such research is a so-called "polygenic score," or a genetic test that can predict from genes whether -- among other things -- someone is going to be more or less likely to attend college. Of course, environmental factors matter plenty, and DNA is not destiny. Yet the gene tests are surprisingly predictive. In their poll, the researchers told people to assume that around 3% of kids will go to a top-100 college. By picking the one of 10 IVF embryos with the highest gene score, parents would increase that chance to 5% for their kid. It's tempting to dismiss the advantage gained as negligible, but "assuming they are right," Carmi says, it's actually "a very large relative increase" in the chance of going to such a school for the offspring in question -- about 67%. "The current poll found only 6% of people are morally opposed to IVF today, only about 17% have strong moral qualms about testing embryos, and 38% would probably do to boost education prospects if given the opportunity," adds the report.
The new poll compared people's willingness to advance their children's prospects in three ways: using SAT prep courses, embryo tests, and gene editing on embryos. It found some support even for the most radical option, genetic modification of children, which is prohibited in the US and many other countries. About 28% of those polled said they'd probably do that if it was safe. The authors of the new poll are wrestling with the consequences of information that they helped discover via a series of ever larger studies to locate genetic causes of human social and cognitive traits, including sexual orientation and intelligence. That includes a report published last year on how the DNA differences among more than 3 million people related to how far they'd gone in school, a life result that is correlated with a person's intelligence.
The result of such research is a so-called "polygenic score," or a genetic test that can predict from genes whether -- among other things -- someone is going to be more or less likely to attend college. Of course, environmental factors matter plenty, and DNA is not destiny. Yet the gene tests are surprisingly predictive. In their poll, the researchers told people to assume that around 3% of kids will go to a top-100 college. By picking the one of 10 IVF embryos with the highest gene score, parents would increase that chance to 5% for their kid. It's tempting to dismiss the advantage gained as negligible, but "assuming they are right," Carmi says, it's actually "a very large relative increase" in the chance of going to such a school for the offspring in question -- about 67%. "The current poll found only 6% of people are morally opposed to IVF today, only about 17% have strong moral qualms about testing embryos, and 38% would probably do to boost education prospects if given the opportunity," adds the report.
Less than half is not all (Score:2)
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Except the engineered children of that 40% will be choosing the same for their offspring at a much higher rate and on and on. That doesn't take into account the amount in the 60% who were just lying to the survey people.
These embryo test will only get better. It won't be long until they can test for homosexuality (since we've been told they're just born that way) and that will be the beginning of the end of LGBTQWERTY. I expect those activist groups will fight this louder than any other and demand outrigh
Re: Less than half is not all (Score:2, Insightful)
They can have their LGBTQ+ test (which won't work, they've tried). But - at least I'll get my god gene test. (Yes, as it turns out, propensity to believe in a god is genetic. Basically, this is a gullibility gene.) Look it up, it exists.
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No, I was busy somewhere else. What do you need? Please hurry, I have a war to go to.
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It won't be long until they can test for homosexuality (since we've been told they're just born that way) and that will be the beginning of the end of LGBTQWERTY. I expect those activist groups will fight this louder than any other and demand outright bans.
On the flipside though, it's entirely possible a certain minority of parents might actually want gay kids. It's a bit presumptuous to assume every parent wants their offspring to be straight, especially if they're planning on having several kids and don't have to rely on all of them to continue the family's lineage.
You might be thinking "why would anyone want a gay kid?". Why do some people play video games on the most difficult setting? Why do some people eat ridiculously hot peppers? Why do some peopl
Re: Less than half is not all (Score:2)
Why? Deaf people often want deaf kids, which is objectively a bad thing no matter how you slice it.
Re: Less than half is not all (Score:2)
LBGT(etc) seems to be based on hormone levels in the mother triggering certain developments in the foetus, rather than genetics.
God is a eugenecist (Score:2)
People already pick their spouses based on assessed fitness to raise successful children. Even if they don't admit it to themselves, or make up rationalizations about how contraception and abortion divorce a good fuck from childbearing. As if their lizard brains that drive their lust reason in such terms.
Point is people already try to pick good genes and actively avoid conspicuously bad genes. This would be a matter of degree, not of kind.
Re: God is a eugenecist (Score:2)
Not always true. I sure didn't. We didn't even intend to have children. 11 years into marriage, we did.
But I agree that if there is a god, she is a eugenicist, a narcissist, and a pathological lover of torture and cruelty.
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No, it's not. Please stop propagating that bullshit. Evolution is NOT random. Evolution is a two step process. First, random recombination of traits, second, selection of the favorable combinations.
Don't leave out that second part, it's critical here.
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Don't leave out that second part, it's critical here.
Yes I should have been more precise. Evolution is randomness and selection by survival to the current environnement condition. Still has nothing to do with eugenics which is just selection according to some human criteria. Eugenics is obviously a dumb idea but humans like to repeat their mistake.
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People already pick their spouses based on assessed fitness to raise successful children.
No.
Anyone who thinks anything biology related is this simple, even about single celled organisms is wrong. Anyone who thinks anything about multicellular organism is this simple is a poster child for Dunning Kruger.
Re:God is a eugenecist (Score:4, Insightful)
Picking spouses is very different from making people and then killing them off if they're not good enough.
A ball of cells is not "people". Even the right-wing nutjob knows that.
Re: God is a eugenecist (Score:3)
I'm not a nutjobs, but I lean pretty far left and I complain about it frequently.
But, what's really going on isn't that people think the fetus was murdered. It's that they have a gut level reaction that says it's worse to kill a pregnant woman (and that if you force someone to miscarry that's really bad) and like almost everyone they don't care about the legal rational, only the results.
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murderer is charged with two counts of homicide for killing a pregnant woman.
Really? I'm surprised. Where is that the law?
What if a woman is assaulted causing a miscarriage? Is that homicide? I think it may be GBH here.
I found this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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murderer is charged with two counts of homicide for killing a pregnant woman.
Really? I'm surprised. Where is that the law?
What if a woman is assaulted causing a miscarriage? Is that homicide? I think it may be GBH here.
I found this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Scott Peterson was charged 1st degree for murdering his wife Laci & 2nd degree for their unborn son Conner
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
He's was sentenced to death but is now doing life without parole
Subsequently, the GW Bush admin signed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act into law
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Picking spouses is very different from making people and then killing them off if they're not good enough.
Actually, that's not far off from how things work right now. We deny healthcare to people who, for whatever reason, aren't successful enough to afford it.
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But we already do that, it would just cut out the raising them part, i.e. we'd cut down on waste.
college is easy (Score:2)
People of average intelligence graduate every year. It's about putting in the work rather than raw talent.
Re: college is easy (Score:2)
Sure, selecting for IQ is probably less useful than selecting for grit.
But my understanding is that the companies probably wouldn't actually be selecting for IQ directly anyway but likely using educational attainment as a proxy and that factors in things like disposition to put in the work.
Re: college is easy (Score:2)
Grit is everything today. Knowledge is Google, and probably a chatbot soon enough. College is meant to cull the weak. Some are better measures than others. If you want a trade instead (btw, I applaud this decision), go to a trade school.
If you donâ(TM)t like it, feel free to join the nearest homeless encampment and beg for dollars to treat yourself to Burger King and Wendyâ(TM)s now and then. Dumpster is out back if you need a quick buck.
Iâ(TM)ve already seen enough TikTok morons complaining
Early Access Phrenology (Score:4, Insightful)
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There's a 0% chance that they have a reliable baseline for this.
I agree. Success in college is mostly down to a willingness to work hard and to having a good primary education. Since we are generally failing our children on the second point, they need to better on the first. Anyone of normal intelligence can get a bachelor's degree in most subjects.
Re: Early Access Phrenology (Score:5, Informative)
That's just false. To be clear the prediction would probably not be directly of intelligence but of educational attainment (which is actually the better thing to select for) and they have used the massive genetic databases they have to do some pretty reliable regressions.
To be clear, what they really figure out is that, given our evidence, we think this embryo will turn out to academically outperform that one 51% of the time or something. So these aren't huge effects but you can be pretty sure that if you applied these selections to a large population they would increase that trait.
For an indepth technical explanation I recommend this video: https://youtu.be/43DDPzM0pHc [youtu.be]
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You're an optomist.
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Doomed to Fail Regardless (Score:2)
There's a 0% chance that they have a reliable baseline for this.
Actually, it doesn't matter whether or not they can select for intelligence, ultimately it will not work regardless. The reason is that top universities have a limited number of spaces so, assuming this selective process is available to everyone, it will have zero impact on the chances of your kid getting a top university place because they will now be competing against similarly "enhanced" kids.
If you want to increase the chances of your kids getting into a good university your best bet is to tell gove
Why at the embryo stage? (Score:2)
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Testing in the womb brings a large risk of something going wrong.
It is pre-implantation. Learn to read before posting. You are lucky your own parents did not have access to this technology, as I'm sure your smarter virtual sibling would have not made that error.
Re: Why at the embryo stage? (Score:2)
It was a study about IVF. You can test genes before implanting anything and choose the "most preferable" embryo to implant.
Re: Why at the embryo stage? (Score:2)
Because they are only offering (well right now the similar disease based prediction) it to ppl who are using IVF where they already need to have all these embryos harvested and outside the body. No one has yet been willing to suggest doing this to a natural pregnancy where it might increase risk yet or to harvest embryos that wouldn't already be needed for IVF.
Re: Why at the embryo stage? (Score:2)
TIL: most people are idiots and don't realize we've been at "designer babies" for at least a decade with IVF.
60 percent of respondents lied their ass off (Score:3)
Right. I'm going to *choose* to implant or carry to term a down syndrome kid or one with crippling birth defects. Or an "average" kid. Whatever.
The various handicapped advocacy groups are right to be worried. No one would burden themselves with them as children if they could help it. In the future it will be impossible to convince people that they shouldn't use the technology to screen and instead should birth naturally because it is "as nature intended it" and "more sporting."
Re: 60 percent of respondents lied their ass off (Score:2)
There is an exception for militant dead people, who view deafness a culture of their own. Two military deaf people would prefer a deaf child over a normal one.
Such people also bitch about cochlear implants as being morally wrong and perpetuating genocide of deaf people and the destruction of deaf culture.
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Ok, here's the thing: Either get a better spellchecker or don't post from your phone. The typos are getting hilarious.
Re: 60 percent of respondents lied their ass off (Score:2)
Spellchecker wouldn't flag "dead" as a incorrect word.
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Now that part is interesting, how are office jobs doomed in a post-oil world?
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Why should the handicapped worry? (Score:4, Insightful)
They should be glad if in future their defects are no longer brought to term. It's an act of utmost vanity and cruelty to inflict life on a defective being.
Not becoming hurts no one and no thing.
You will Choose an Average Kid (Score:2)
Right. I'm going to *choose* to implant or carry to term a down syndrome kid or one with crippling birth defects. Or an "average" kid.
Well, you probably will be choosing an average kid - at least on average - if this procedure becomes widespread. All it will do is change what the average is.
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Bioethics is unethical (Score:2, Interesting)
That's a delibrately provocative title but there was never a decent argument that embryo selection was ethically bad. Indeed, if anything the best philosophical arguments on the issue point strongly to the idea that it's immoral not to use embryo selection.
Unfortunately, because it's easy to confuse with genetic editing, the usual social worry about new tech and the emotional nature of ghr issue there is a substantial demand for some intellectual justification for condemning it. And the incentives in phil
Re: Bioethics is unethical (Score:2)
Selecting an embryo that tests as "smart and tall" is no different than seeking out a mate that is "smart and tall". Anyone that thinks there is a difference is delusional.
Who did they survey for this thought experiment? (Score:2)
This is the Future, so be in Front of it (Score:5, Interesting)
I might be down modded into oblivion, but it has to be said. This is the future. I don't necessarily like that future, but it is coming. It is hard encoded into our genes that we want our children to have a better life or be better than us. Most parents will willingly spend a decent sum of money to ensure that their children 1) Look better than them and 2) Are smarter than the average person. So if you are going to have children, you had better start learning about this. Because if you don't, your children are going to be left behind. Behind the parents that did do this and now have children that are smarter than yours.
For those of you who thing that this could never happen, I have news for you. It is already being practiced today. I visited the Computer History Museum in San Francisco about 10 years ago. There was High School Class that was visiting from Germany. Every single child in that class was over 6 feet tall. I read later than German Parents want their children to be at least that height because it confers greater success in life. If a German child is not growing enough to reach that the parents will go to their Doctors who will willingly prescribe Human growth Hormone to the child so that they grow to that height.
So this is coming. And if you are not on the wave of it your going to be left behind.
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I hate this argument of "It's coming, so might as well embrace it". I keep seeing this surrounding the discourse about AI, about big tech monopolies, about climate change...
No, it's only here to stay if we embrace it. The world would have been a very different place if people saw black slavery, women's lack of emancipation, hell even plagues and diseases, and said "This is the way things are, there is no hope to change this".
That and, allow me to quote ted kackzynski of all people and repeat something he sa
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The ethical considerations usually focus on what kinds of things we should be screening for. Severe disability is something most people would consider acceptable, but something like a cleft palette is more controversial. Selecting for sex is mostly unacceptable in the West, unless there is some overriding medical need.
Selecting for traits like intelligence tends to be on the controversial end. There was a similar debate years ago when scientists thought they might have found a "gay gene" that would allow th
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I'm not sure that's right. In any case, one of the things some people want screened is autism, but if you ask many autistic people they don't consider it to be a disability or something that needs to be eliminated.
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I had that at school. Low scores on writing, due to undiagnosed arthritis. Keyboards were an absolute game changer for me.
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Most parents will willingly spend a decent sum of money to ensure that their children 1) Look better than them and 2) Are smarter than the average person.
Yes, but (2) is ultimately not possible. If the procedure actually works and is readily available then it will raise the average intelligence of people and the result is that while your kid may be smarter they will probably not be any smarter compared to their peers.
Re:This is the Future, so be in Front of it (Score:4, Insightful)
Hahaha, nope. This is primarily a way to separate elitist morons from their money, at least at this time, because these predictive techniques do not work. It is unclear whether they will ever work. You "story" about HGH use in Germany is a complete fabrication (i.e. "lie") though. HGH is used in some developmental problems in Germany, but not to get kids to 6 feet because the parents want it. That would be medical malpractice and get the MD that does it banned from working ever again. Incidentally, there are no "High School Classes" in Germany, because Germany uses a different education system.
As the Germans are obsessive about doing statistics on everything, here is some proof that you are full of shit: https://www.destatis.de/DE/The... [destatis.de]
What can be seen is that for people being 25-30 years old (roughly being high-school equivalent age 10 years ago), the average (!) height is 174.2 cm, which is _below_ 6 feet. What can also be seen that there is no jumps in the average over time, but that the average height of young adults in Germany has increased relatively steadily by about 2 cm (a bit less than an inch) in 30 years. Over 60 people start to shrink, so the numbers there are misleading. These 2 cm height increase over 30 years are completely explained by other factors and are strong proof that there is _no_ widespread use of HGH in Germany to adjust kids body height. The table above is for all people, but the tables for men and women show the same effect.
Repeatability. Reproducibility. (Score:2)
What use is this, when employers still put bullshit requirements and bullshit assessments and other bullshit barriers to getting hired, when none of them have any good evidence that it helps their hiring?
Re: Repeatability. Reproducibility. (Score:3)
Already done for risk of diseases. They are just applying the same technique to a slightly different data set. See here for a detailed explanation of what's going on: https://youtu.be/43DDPzM0pHc [youtu.be]
Eugenics doesn't work (Score:2)
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GATTCA (Score:2)
>"Imagine that you were provided no-cost fertility treatment and also offered a free DNA test to gauge which of those little IVF embryos floating in a dish stood the best chance of getting into a top college someday"
Then you would essentially have GATTACA
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0... [imdb.com]
It is dystopian for a reason.
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Unless you somehow keep people from fucking or at least producing "freeborn" humans, you would have to deal with these low IQ NPCs.
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If you want to raise average IQ, raise the poor children in supportive environments, and keep them fed nutritiously. Because it turns out, with humans having so little genetic diversity, humans can generally be raised to be very intelligent simply with better socio-economic conditions.
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Even better: stop raising children as a single mother.
And somehow you made it their fault.
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>"The movie depicted a lower class made up of people who didn't have the benefit of the genetic pre-selection, and those people were, in a way, ostracized from society."
That is true, which is why I said it was "essentially", I probably should have said "somewhat." But some of the dystopia is the same- the engineering of our genetic future, government over-control, and the super-oppression of the "mistakes." What it didn't examine was the downfall of humanity when it is discovered that what we are selec
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This happens, by the way, with selective breeding.
It might've been awhile since you've watched the movie, but they had an answer for that too. Genetic diversity was preserved by simply selecting the best genes from each parent, so they did not end up with a monoculture society or increasing the likelihood of undesirable secondary genetic traits (which happens in selective breeding of animals due to a limited gene pool).
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Who would have any interest in creating a post-scarcity society? The people who could have the means to do so have every interest to keep it from happening.
Controlling resources means having power. In a world where there are no resources you can't get in a quantity you want, controlling resources doesn't mean anything, and thus you don't have power.
And at the level these people play, money is just a means to have power over people. No scarcity, no power.
Asperger's (Score:2)
My daughter is currently struggling with the negative aspects of her autism, but with a LOT of home tutoring, she is far more capable than her neurotypical peers in the most important topics.
Age cures most aspi issues. We're hoping someday to work in robotics or signal processing somewhere
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LOT of home tutoring
Age cures most aspi issues.
Not if you don't expose them to social environments outside of the home.
most important topics.
Most important topics - to you.
In my experience with the nerds on this website, merely focusing on the "technological topics" produces the most short-sighted, small-picture people I've ever come across. People who can't extrapolate - people who literally can't seem to think of extended consequences.
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Ahh the man is proud of his child and it sounds like she’s got a good head on her shoulder thats going to take her places.
But there is some truth here. You’d be surprised what turns out to be important when someone has a neurological condition like this.
Will she be able to assert herself so she’s not taken advantage of? Can she bond with a partner in a way that will bring happiness to her life?
Seemingly little things too. Is she working on her fine motor skills? She could have embarras
Selection bias (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's a conundrum (Score:2)
"Your son will be of Nobel-prize-winning intelligence but he'll very likely suffer from muscular dystrophy. Choose."
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So... he'll be kinda like Hawking?
And just like that, eugenics is cool again (Score:2)
only took a hundred years for the pendulum to swing back
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It's always been popular, especially for preventing infants s of the wrong father or the wrong gender. Are you under some impression that such fetal selection has ceased over the last 100 years? If you believe this, may I introduce the gender disparity problems for young Chinese, where the young men so outnumber the young women that China is importing sex claves? See the Time magazine article from a few years ago.
https://time.com/5555695/china... [time.com]
Years ago, sperm taken high IQ men to..... (Score:2)
Well, make up your mind ... (Score:3)
... I mean, all the cool kids have convinced half the country that an embryo is just a "clump of cells".
So, what did you expect would happen? Propagandize hard enough, and some people will actually believe you.
Fine, if it worked (Score:3)
I'm skeptical, really, really skeptical
The exact chain of events that leads to intellectual success is unknown
This "test" is nonsense
Education for Sale. (Score:2)
"Imagine that you were provided no-cost fertility treatment and also offered a free DNA test to gauge which of those little IVF embryos floating in a dish stood the best chance of getting into a top college someday."
When the Boomers start complaining about how technology SURE has changed, remember this "test" used to be as simple as procreating with Lori Loughlin.
Cheap SAT embryos, guaranteed (Score:2)
Call Honest Jo for a quote.
Scientists are on sale right now.
Call quick!
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
Why?
Because if you struggle in school you're less likely to earn a decent income. Where "decent" is defined as enough to afford the mortgage payment on the average median home and not fall behind on the rest of your bills in the process.
Yeah, if you're willing to take a job risking life and limb (such as oil rig worker, snow crab fisherman, et al.) you can make good money without a higher education. Some places also pay tradesmen well, but usually it ends up being a wash once you factor in that those places also tend to have a very high cost of living. Also, trade work takes a physical toll on your body and you have to factor the amount of money you need to put away for an earlier retirement as a bit of an income reduction, as well.
That being said, trying to predict the college aptitude of an embryo sounds like pure quackery. At best you'd probably just be able to check for a genetic disposition for certain learning disabilities, but even absent learning disabilities you're not going to be guaranteed a college-bound kid.
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Why?
Because if you struggle in school you're less likely to earn a decent income. Where "decent" is defined as enough to afford the mortgage payment on the average median home and not fall behind on the rest of your bills in the process.
Yeah, if you're willing to take a job risking life and limb (such as oil rig worker, snow crab fisherman, et al.) you can make good money without a higher education. Some places also pay tradesmen well, but usually it ends up being a wash once you factor in that those places also tend to have a very high cost of living. Also, trade work takes a physical toll on your body and you have to factor the amount of money you need to put away for an earlier retirement as a bit of an income reduction, as well.
I think this fails a a level much lower than the presumption so many people have of Higher education = ubermensch, and trades = genetic defective. And yeah, that's essentially trying to genetically test for that desired ubermenchen larvae.
That being said, trying to predict the college aptitude of an embryo sounds like pure quackery.
Oh hell yeah. In addition, it performs that quackery on the people who most deserve it. It isn't all that nice to blame the victims, but these tools line up for it, even demand
Re: Why? (Score:3)
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Why? So they can send their kids to propaganda factories and go on to major in Useless Studies ...
What a waste of intellect.
Ok, forget the "top 100 college" thing. That was just the example they used in the survey. A more intelligent offspring is also more likely to get into a "non useless" degree, like engineering or medicine. Selection increases your child's chances of success in the family business or a trade. At the same time you will be favouring genes for good heath. Health plus intelligence increases chance of security and happiness, though that's harder to measure.
What you choose to do with the (statistically) increas
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What you choose to do with the (statistically) increased intellect is up to you, and does not make the selection a bad thing.
I saw this movie. Mostly the bad thing is that unless the screening technology is universally available at no cost, it increases the gap in society between the "haves" and "have nots".
Also, some would argue that a bit of what makes humanity human is lost when you select against diversity. As in, perhaps some people go into music, entertaining or arts because they didn't have the aptitude for a traditional education, and they ended up contributing to society in other ways.
Re: Why? (Score:2, Insightful)
That's not clear and the argument proves too much.
Every new technology gives those rich enough to afford it an advantage. Before the cell phone no one could be productive in traffic or grocery store. Before the home PC no one's kids could learn using educational games.
These new techs gave an advantage to those who could afford them while everyone else still had to do without further increasing their advantage. But actually, these technologies have been levelers in the long run. Now even poor kids in th
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....lawyer-eating dinosaurs be damned.
I'd like to hear more about these dinosaurs and where I could purchase them. Preferably in bulk.
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unless the screening technology is universally available at no cost,
Well clearly that would be the way, just as childhood vaccination and education is universally available.
Also, some would argue that a bit of what makes humanity human is lost when you select against diversity. As in, perhaps some people go into music, entertaining or arts because they didn't have the aptitude for a traditional education, and they ended up contributing to society in other ways.
Consider the European Jews, who for many centuries were forced into particular occupations which turned out to provide selective pressure for higher intelligence.
There has been some loss of genetic diversity, which results in increased rates of recessive hereditary diseases. But you could hardly say they are not doing well in "music, entertaining or arts" ! They probably think the natural selection fo
Re: Why? (Score:2, Interesting)
Ashkenazi Jews also have higher disposition for depression and weird diseases, there's a joke that says Ashkenazis live either until 60 or until 90.
Also, right now, in Israel, Ashkenazis have stopped being the majority due to not procreating a lot.
I'm really not sure if what Ashkenazi Jews did was that smart.
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you are *deselecting* potentially large numbers of other embryos. And thatâ(TM)s going to be a huge problem for some people.
That is an elephant? We already have that happening thousands of times every day in the US alone. For IVF, an number of embryos are created, and the most viable are selected for implantation. Many millions are discarded. Sorry, but we are way past that debate as a society.
Yes, some parents will opt out, as some do from vaccination or schooling.
Re: Why? (Score:3, Interesting)
Weird. Why do prospective parents care about college? Lol. IVF selection should be based on whether you have a net worth of over a million dollars. Of course, then you'd just breed a bunch of nacisists. But - maybe that's what you were after?
Re: Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
They might also be able to suppress the genes responsible for stupidity/republican voter.
Re: (Score:2)
How many mouth breathers do you think can afford IVF?
Re: Why? (Score:2)
Politics does indeed seem to have a genetic factor.
Re: Why? (Score:3)
Not following this - are we supposed to just accept the premise that success in formal education can be predicted by testing embryos? What the hell?
So once an egg is fertilized and an embryo is formed, we are supposed to believe that there is/will be/can be a test that predicts success in something as esoteric as 'getting into a top college or university', ignoring the almost infinite number of hurdles between embryo state and your senior year in high school?
Complete, utter horse shit - this makes no sense.
Re: (Score:2)
are we supposed to just accept the premise that success in formal education can be predicted by testing embryos?
Intelligence is at least partly heritable. Identical twins average a 3-point gap in IQ scores. Fraternal twins have a 6-point gap, the same as normal siblings.
Since we know that genes make a difference, it is just a matter of identifying them. There are likely many, and it will not be easy to work out how they interact. But there is no reason we shouldn't be able to predict statistically which embryos are more likely to excel academically.
Re: Why? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Tsk, tsk. If you're good at something, never do it for free.
Then again, if you're not... carry on.