Posted on 10/18/2024 9:55:12 PM PDT by Strict9
A US startup company is offering to help wealthy couples screen their embryos for IQ using controversial technology that raises questions about the ethics of genetic enhancement. The company, Heliospect Genomics, has worked with more than a dozen couples undergoing IVF, according to undercover video footage. The recordings show the company marketing its services at up to $50,000 (£38,000) for clients seeking to test 100 embryos, and claiming to have helped some parents select future children based on genetic predictions of intelligence. Managers boasted their methods could produce a gain of more than six IQ points. Experts say the development represents an ethical minefield.
(Excerpt) Read more at amp.theguardian.com ...
Can’t wait to see the pearl clutching from the boomers with their “But the media told us that IQ is not genetic and the media would never lie to me!”
Maybe embryos can vote in elections already.
I’ve heard that 60% of IQ comes from the mother, which is why guys should always choose smarter girls.
I’ve heard you can get more than a 6 pt jump, which doesn’t sound worth it, thru infant education. An old boyfriend married and went to the Better Baby Bureau with his first child. They said babies could initially crawl and had him build a ramp from the bed to a leather channel that ran around the bed and had the newborn crawl with gravity down the ramp and “crawl” around the channel. Don’t remember that it worked well.
But he also had signs on EVERYTHING, including people, in the house so that the infant could learn to sightread at an ungodly age. So much enjoyed his stories. Actually, his entire family was composed of geniuses, so all the extra work was probably useless. Major professors at major universities, sculptors, computer scientists, symphony orchestra members, doctors, etc. Fascinating family.
I don’t like IVF reduction anyway, so think this is a bit of a garbage article.
Stupid comment. This has nothing to do with Boomers.
You'll find people in every generation who believe, and disbelieve, in IQ.
That’s assuming they’re not terminated in the womb first.
That’s true.
I love the opening to that movie!
Is there a relationship between IQ and happiness? I’d bet people with higher than average IQ commit suicide at greater rates than those below average. Ignorance is bliss as they say. I could be wrong.
For $50k, you too could bring another Charlie Manson into the world!
Oh, definitely. The smarter you are, the more you are able to “run the numbers.” Kids with down syndrome always have a big smile on their faces.
Gattaca predicted all this
Camacho
I assume your parents were normal and yet here you are.
Wrong! The IQ only measure one kind of genius. There are three and the other two can not be measured simply. What are the types?
1. Intelligence—IQ tests proficiency in math, science,
2. Artistic—Can not be measured. Such people are compelled to do and make art, they must draw, paint, sculpt, write or make things. A society needs them. They can see things in new ways.
Teachers know what to look for—the kid who draws all the time, writes constantly, poets, actors and sculptors. Artistic genius is needed now more than ever.
3. The Social Genius is hardest to measure. They may not be very bright academically but—people just like them. Teachers can spot them on the playground. They are the alpha males and alpha females. People listen to them and follow them. They are leaders. People trust them. They gravitate to The law, politics and start businesses, bands and movements. They can be born poor but rise to become important people. This can not be measured by IQ test. Remember FDR was a “C” student, and Churchill flunked out with low grades.
If the kid becomes a leftist or a Springsteen fan, do you get your money back?
In future, he speculated, the offering might be extended to include personality types, including providing scores for what he called the “dark triad” traits. Dark triad is normally a reference to machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy. Christensen said it might also be possible to develop scores for depression and creativity. “Beauty is something lots of people actually ask about,” he added.
When contacted for comment, Heliospect said it would not condone industrial-scale egg or embryo production or elite selection and that it did not plan to offer testing for “dark triad” traits or beauty.
Among the firm’s senior staff is the academic Jonathan Anomaly, who has caused controversy after defending what he describes as “liberal eugenics”. A former Oxford University fellow who left an academic post in Ecuador last year to work full-time at Heliospect, Anomaly says he has advised the company on media strategy and helped recruit investors and clients based in the US and Europe.
Anomaly is a well-known figure in a growing transatlantic movement that promotes development of genetic selection and enhancement tools, which he says should not be confused with coercive state-sponsored eugenics. “All we mean by [liberal eugenics] is that parents should be free and maybe even encouraged to use technology to improve their children’s prospects once it’s available,” he told the podcast The Dissenter.
There is a crescendoing set of triplets echoing through heaven as The Boss has His patience pushed to the limit.
The Coyote always used acne, and wound up screwed when he tried to catch the Road Runner. /rimshot
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