Am I Being Scammed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm beginning to think those Alabama judges had it right.

Ok, you don’t do it then. That is your right. However, public opinion does not seem to be on your side in this matter considering the voter backlash to this decision.

Also, this technology is already here. Some people have used it to have children already. It is practically impossible to ban it now that it has been developed. Banning it in the US will only prevent people with limited financial resources from accessing it. Rich people will find a way to circumvent the rules and travel abroad to a country with more favorable regulations if necessary. The first polygenically selected kid is almost 4 years old. You cannot put the genie back in the bottle now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You’d be an idiot to spend that kind of money especially given you are starting with a low IQ.

Clearly there are a lot of other “idiots” that disagree with this statement. There are already a few hundred to a few thousand people that have done this (for polygenic disease risk) in the US. There are at multiple companies in the (Orchid, Genomic Prediction, Myome, etc.) that offer probabilistic disease risk scores for IVF. Other people are doing this already and there is a risk that families who don’t do it will fall behind within in a couple generations.

You absolute simpleton. Disease risk is not the same as predicting IQ, so no: there are not a few thousand people that have done "this."

You sound like the perfect customer for what they're selling, so go buy it. But don't kid yourself that the unanimous consensus here that you're being scammed and this is not worth $40k even if it could be proved accurate is a sign that everyone but you lives in the Dark Ages or cannot understand the benefits as they've been explained to you (and eagerly swallowed). You're just a mark with extra money, which is everyone's favorite kind of mark.

The genetic architecture for Heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and IQ are all similar. These characteristics are partly attributable to thousands of additive genetic variants across the genome. The IQ predictor does not work as well as many disease predictors yet, because we don’t have any large datasets accessible to researchers with millions of people that have cognitive ability tests along with DNA data. We have this in spades for disease risks models though. Once this data is available genetic selection will work equally well if not better for IQ models because this trait has higher genetic heritability than heart disease or type 2 diabetes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You’d be an idiot to spend that kind of money especially given you are starting with a low IQ.

Clearly there are a lot of other “idiots” that disagree with this statement. There are already a few hundred to a few thousand people that have done this (for polygenic disease risk) in the US. There are at multiple companies in the (Orchid, Genomic Prediction, Myome, etc.) that offer probabilistic disease risk scores for IVF. Other people are doing this already and there is a risk that families who don’t do it will fall behind within in a couple generations.

You absolute simpleton. Disease risk is not the same as predicting IQ, so no: there are not a few thousand people that have done "this."

You sound like the perfect customer for what they're selling, so go buy it. But don't kid yourself that the unanimous consensus here that you're being scammed and this is not worth $40k even if it could be proved accurate is a sign that everyone but you lives in the Dark Ages or cannot understand the benefits as they've been explained to you (and eagerly swallowed). You're just a mark with extra money, which is everyone's favorite kind of mark.

I didn’t say thousands of people have done this for IQ. I said hundreds to thousands have done this for polygenic disease risk. To my knowledge, only a handful have done this for IQ so far. Not sure if any of these kids have been born yet though.

[Anonymous]

So what's next? Abort the lower IQ babies? Hmmm...sounds a little master-racy to me.

But here's the thing. Any parent who would care enough to spend 40k doing this should really just not have kids. At all. There- solved your prob.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You’d be an idiot to spend that kind of money especially given you are starting with a low IQ.

Clearly there are a lot of other “idiots” that disagree with this statement. There are already a few hundred to a few thousand people that have done this (for polygenic disease risk) in the US. There are at multiple companies in the (Orchid, Genomic Prediction, Myome, etc.) that offer probabilistic disease risk scores for IVF. Other people are doing this already and there is a risk that families who don’t do it will fall behind within in a couple generations.

You absolute simpleton. Disease risk is not the same as predicting IQ, so no: there are not a few thousand people that have done "this."

You sound like the perfect customer for what they're selling, so go buy it. But don't kid yourself that the unanimous consensus here that you're being scammed and this is not worth $40k even if it could be proved accurate is a sign that everyone but you lives in the Dark Ages or cannot understand the benefits as they've been explained to you (and eagerly swallowed). You're just a mark with extra money, which is everyone's favorite kind of mark.

I didn’t say thousands of people have done this for IQ. I said hundreds to thousands have done this for polygenic disease risk. To my knowledge, only a handful have done this for IQ so far. Not sure if any of these kids have been born yet though.

If only threads remained on the internet to be read so you could be easily disproven. Oh wait. . . You said Clearly there are a lot of other “idiots” that disagree with this statement. There are already a few hundred to a few thousand people that have done this (for polygenic disease risk) in the US. In response to "this statement" that you'd have to be an idiot to waste $40k to try to predict IQ. So you now realize that there are not a lot of other idiots who disagree with this statement? Because there are not thousands of people who have spent $40k to try to predict IQ? Instead you are trying to glom on to parents trying to determine the likelihood of heritable diseases, which is not the same thing. Like I said: you absolute simpleton, they have not done "this" - this being what you want to do. They have not spent $40k to try to gain a 2 point IQ advantage, because that is a stupid goal and unproven science. Waste your money how you want; waste your time how you want. I'm not responding to this circular nonsense any longer.

[Anonymous]

It is a scam. I really wish there was a better foundation of scientific education and an understanding of the scientific process in this county.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So what's next? Abort the lower IQ babies? Hmmm...sounds a little master-racy to me.

But here's the thing. Any parent who would care enough to spend 40k doing this should really just not have kids. At all. There- solved your prob.

I never said that. You are taking a very Eurocentric perspective on this. There are plenty of countries that see nothing wrong with trying to increase the probability that their offspring are healthy and self-sufficient. It is mainly the US and Europe that view this as super sensitive topic due to historical reasons. People can make choices for their own family. No one is being forced to do anything. I just don’t think it is right to intervene in other peoples reproductive decisions.

[Anonymous]

Check for lack of learning difference, ADHD and autism instead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is a scam. I really wish there was a better foundation of scientific education and an understanding of the scientific process in this county.

I literally have a degree in science from an extremely selective university. A lot of the people do not understand statistics well and they have a difficult time understanding the math behind something like this. The researchers in these fields largely do not contest that this will screening method will work when you have private conversations with them. They just do not want to be involved with it due the career risks from (IMO misguided) backlash. The people in the ivory tower of academia are very risk averse and they are worried that they will be shunned by the research community.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm beginning to think those Alabama judges had it right.

Ok, you don’t do it then. That is your right. However, public opinion does not seem to be on your side in this matter considering the voter backlash to this decision.

I don't think the public would like it if they knew people were selecting and destroying embryos for stuff like this either. I guess I was naive thinking this was mainly to screen for genetic abnormalities and disease.

Scary to think about being the kid whose parents paid 40k for 2 extra IQ points. That kid will never be allowed to disappoint their parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm beginning to think those Alabama judges had it right.

Ok, you don’t do it then. That is your right. However, public opinion does not seem to be on your side in this matter considering the voter backlash to this decision.

I don't think the public would like it if they knew people were selecting and destroying embryos for stuff like this either. I guess I was naive thinking this was mainly to screen for genetic abnormalities and disease.

Scary to think about being the kid whose parents paid 40k for 2 extra IQ points. That kid will never be allowed to disappoint their parents.

The reason I did IVF to begin with was to screen for a very serious single gene hereditary disease that runs in the family. Most people do it for infertility reasons, but a significant minority due it for family health reasons. I ended up with more embryos than I will likely be able to use so there is an outstanding question of how do I determine which one to implant first, 2nd and so on. I only did one IVF cycle and I’m planning on having 1 or 2 kids, so it it unlikely that I will use all 10 embryos. If I only ended up with 3 or 4 embryos I would need most or all to have to kids, so I would not be asking the question about spending 40k on a new and largely untested technology.

[Anonymous]

High IQ? Who cares. Dime a dozen.

High EQ? Now that would be worth paying for.

[Anonymous]

Yes you are being scammed.

$40k invested now will pay for a lot of specialized coaching and enrichment.

If you have $40k to throw around, your kid likely has the other variables that make them likely to test well and be successful.

[Anonymous]

If the biological mother and father both have high IQ’s there is a very good chance the kids will too. And 2-4 points is negligent amount for an IQ test. An IQ if 100 is the 50th percentile rank. An IQ of 105 is the 63rd percentile rank. Once you get into higher iq’s the percentile difference between 5 points is slight. An IQ of 130 is the 98th percentile rank whole an IQ of 135 is the 99th percentile rank. That’s not worth 40,000.

What matters more than a few iq points is drive, attention span, and working memory.

Additionally IQ scores are malleable and can change. Interesting study of teens in Britain showed vía mri and iq tests that while some teens iq is stable other teens can have pretty big changes in IQ. It’s like the old taxi drivers in London who studied for “the knowledge” - they had to essentially remember a map of London in their head to get a taxi license. Their spatial iq increased after intensive studying for a extended period of time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes you are being scammed.

$40k invested now will pay for a lot of specialized coaching and enrichment.

If you have $40k to throw around, your kid likely has the other variables that make them likely to test well and be successful.

You seem like a reasonable person. Thanks for your input. Do you see any obvious flaws with the methodology of this research paper? https://elifesciences.org/articles/64716
Im curious if there is anything you think I might have missed on when estimating how well this tech might work.