The Beginning of A Genetic Elite?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m sorry, the real genetic elites don’t need to use such imprecise and base measures like embryo selection to have intelligent children. Their odds are going to be excellent every time. This is just some inferior stock looking to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

Do tell, who are these “real genetic elites” who have 100% guaranteed intelligent children every time they procreate?

[Anonymous]

Trump covfefe and Elon made an Ebola whoopsie. They’re frauds.

[Anonymous]

Most healthy and well-functioning families horde their genetic material and aim to marry into other healthy and well-functioning families. Ask yourself if you would have a child with a drug-addicted schizophrenic with a 80 IQ. If you wouldn’t, you’re a eugenicist too.

These technologies are going to make having healthier children more equitable, not less.

If we could offer genetic embryo selection to all Americans with major or even minor mental or physical health problems in their family history, we would do a lot to alleviate many types of mental and physical suffering. These technologies don’t eliminate all risk, and we all end life in the same place, but they can lessen risks of early death, trauma, and suffering by lowering risk of early death, cardiac problems, cognitive disabilities, schizophrenia and other major cognitive, mental, and physical health problems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m sorry, the real genetic elites don’t need to use such imprecise and base measures like embryo selection to have intelligent children. Their odds are going to be excellent every time. This is just some inferior stock looking to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

Do tell, who are these “real genetic elites” who have 100% guaranteed intelligent children every time they procreate?

The ones who have intelligence running multiple generations back on both sides. More likely to have smart kids and more likely to raise them to be smart kids. And of course, able to conceive them naturally, because that’s what genetic fitness is all about (although with big brains come big heads - so thank Zeus we have safe cesarean sections).

[Anonymous]

Nature is chaotic. Nature is always going to outsmart us and there will be unintended consequences. It’s the way of the universe

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So apparently rich people are screening embryos for IQ now and picking the smartest ones. https://investigations.hopenothate.org.uk/superbaby-factory/
Do people think that the early adopter families will pull away from the rest of society and create a permanent group of genetic elites over time? It seems that this would quickly entrench the advantages of the wealthy as they presumably will be less likely to get diseases, be smarter and less likely to get mental illnesses. What are peoples thoughts on the long-term social implications of this practice? Also, do you think it’s a scam or are you interested in using it?

I’ve been informed on these pages over and over that IQ isn’t real and determines nothing. This shouldn’t matter then right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IQ is not a fixed trait. If you’ve taken an IQ test you can see cultural bias in some of the questions. IQ is essentially unmeasurable in reality.

IQ is not fixed, but it is very stable in adulthood and becomes more heritable with age. The alleged cultural bias of IQ testing is largely a myth and is not true. IQ tests that are psychometrically validated and administered by trained professionals have strong predictive validity and demonstrate significant correlations with life outcomes. Intelligence is not immeasurable and performance on subsets of a cognitive ability test are positively correlated with performance in other areas. Someone who scores highly on a math ability test, is more likely to score highly on a reaction time test and a reading ability test. The underlying correlation between performance on all of these aspects of cognitive ability is called general factor intelligence and it is something that can be measured with testing.

I took an IQ test. There is absolutely cultural bias. You can (and there are academic numerous books and journal articles) easily construct arguments for and against IQ tests. Psychology is not a science.

It’s interesting; IQ tests are probably the most replicated and real-world validated studies to ever come out of the social sciences. Massive N, incredible number of tests and studies correlating real world outcomes, but they’re the one thing folks on the left don’t want to believe. They’ll trumpet an underpowered test on 12 individuals far and wide if it fits their biases though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most healthy and well-functioning families horde their genetic material and aim to marry into other healthy and well-functioning families. Ask yourself if you would have a child with a drug-addicted schizophrenic with a 80 IQ. If you wouldn’t, you’re a eugenicist too.

These technologies are going to make having healthier children more equitable, not less.

If we could offer genetic embryo selection to all Americans with major or even minor mental or physical health problems in their family history, we would do a lot to alleviate many types of mental and physical suffering. These technologies don’t eliminate all risk, and we all end life in the same place, but they can lessen risks of early death, trauma, and suffering by lowering risk of early death, cardiac problems, cognitive disabilities, schizophrenia and other major cognitive, mental, and physical health problems.

While I don’t disagree, I also worry about unintended consequences. It’s worrisome to start making decisions like this with an (almost certainly) incomplete understanding of how all these genes interact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most healthy and well-functioning families horde their genetic material and aim to marry into other healthy and well-functioning families. Ask yourself if you would have a child with a drug-addicted schizophrenic with a 80 IQ. If you wouldn’t, you’re a eugenicist too.

These technologies are going to make having healthier children more equitable, not less.

If we could offer genetic embryo selection to all Americans with major or even minor mental or physical health problems in their family history, we would do a lot to alleviate many types of mental and physical suffering. These technologies don’t eliminate all risk, and we all end life in the same place, but they can lessen risks of early death, trauma, and suffering by lowering risk of early death, cardiac problems, cognitive disabilities, schizophrenia and other major cognitive, mental, and physical health problems.

I’m with you to a point. We simply don’t know enough about genetics to know what ties to what, and we’re certainly not wise enough to choose. Stephen Hawking was one of the most brilliant people who ever lived, and if his parents had the choice, it is almost certain he would have never lived. A lot of the greats were known to have mental illness. It almost seems like part of the package. The only people that are consistently happy are people with profound mental limitations.

I say this as someone who inherited a genetic disease that is manageable but annoying, and I could have passed it to my brilliant and beautiful children. It’s not theoretical for me. I could have done embryo selection, and screened out this condition, and some days I wish I did. At the same time, I could have inadvertently been selecting for something much worse and more life limiting that hasn’t been mapped to genes yet. Imagine paying $50k or more per kid just to find out you chose worse than what nature would have given you.

That Collins family - they clearly have autism running deep. Whatever they think they are selecting for, they are starting with a deck that’s stacked with autism and we don’t even know where it’s coded. Musk is starting with a questionable legacy as well. It’s hubris to think what they’re doing is good for the world. Their genes are junk to start with and they’re bad parents to boot.

[Anonymous]

I’d counsel my dc to marry into a nice family with four high-performing grandparents. Those are much better odds than an IVF baby.

If both partners had the same detrimental recessive gene, my answer would be different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’d counsel my dc to marry into a nice family with four high-performing grandparents. Those are much better odds than an IVF baby.

If both partners had the same detrimental recessive gene, my answer would be different.

There are many real world use cases for preimplantation genetic screening. Around 25% of Americans are carriers of the APOE4 gene that increases their risk of Alzheimer’s. I am a carrier of this gene and I used IVF to screen for it and make sure my kids don’t get this increased risk.It was the difference between my kids having a 25-30% lifetime risk of Alzheimer’s to an under 10% lifetime risk. Anyone who can afford it (even if they don’t have fertility issues) should consider doing this.

[Anonymous]

So basically we’re living like in the movie Gattica?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The results will be entertaining. Lay people really don't understand that when you select for one trait, especially one as polygenic and complex as intelligence, you almost always inadvertently select for other less desirable traits and against other more desirable traits as well. The law of unintended consequences holds strong in this context.

Moreover, I wonder if any of the parents trying to select for IQ fully understand that very high intelligence is not the exclusive domain of well-adjusted or traditionally successful people. Intelligence in itself is simply not useful in society. It has to be combined with personal traits, upbringing, and life experiences that make its expression in a socially rewarded way possible. Otherwise, vast intelligence can actually be unusable (see schizophrenia), counterproductive (see severer forms of autism) and/or dangerous (see antisocial personality disorder).

Some of the most intellectually advanced people I have ever encountered--in terms of raw IQ; the capacity for strategic, complex, and high-level thinking; and preternatural self-control--have also been inmates. Many of these men aren't crazy in any sense. They are very lucid and very intentional. They have just chosen to apply their superior abilities to defrauding, abusing, or outright hunting their fellow humans. They choose to amass victims, not wealth or accolades.

Mental illness also correlates highly to high IQ.

I think the law of unintended consequences will writ large here. You can’t manufacture children to your liking no matter how hard you try.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’d counsel my dc to marry into a nice family with four high-performing grandparents. Those are much better odds than an IVF baby.

If both partners had the same detrimental recessive gene, my answer would be different.

There are trust fund kids that are total losers with successful grandparents and self made millionaires with dysfunctional families

[Anonymous]

Intelligence and wealth are two, very different things.

A lot of those “elites” who get into the ivy, had no business getting in. And a lot of those wealthy kids are bums doing nothing with their lives.

A lot of those “elites” are human sex traffickers and pedophiles, so I don’t get this notion that just because someone has a IQ, they’re using it for the betterment of humanity.

A high IQ is no guarantee that you’re curing cancer rather than building bombs.