Einstein, please
Scientists from King’s College London have used a new genetic scoring technique to predict academic achievement from DNA alone. They identified 74 genetic variants that were significantly associated with years of completed education. Saskia Selzam, the first author of the paper, said: “…almost 10 percent of the differences between children’s achievement is due to DNA alone.”
Professor Robert Plomin, a senior author of the study, added: “We are at a tipping point for predicting individuals’ educational strengths and weaknesses from their DNA. … We believe personalized support of this nature could help to prevent later developmental difficulties.”
Now, if we combine these results with the coming up capability to increase the expected intelligence of the children in a fertility clinic, we will pretty soon be able to here such a dialog:
– What kind of child would you like to have?
– Einstein, please.
What are we going to do with so many einsteins? There will be not enough patent offices to accommodate all of them!
The answer may reside with the recent poll’s results. Roughly two-thirds (66%) of the American public say they would not want an implanted device giving them a much-improved ability to concentrate and process information, while a third (32%) say they would want such a device.
The same is true when it comes to synthetic blood substitutes for improved physical abilities. Some 63% of adults say they would not want this, while 35% say they would definitely or probably want this.
The following dialog sounds more real every year:
— You seems down today. What’s going on?
—I am feeling a little off today. How about turning me on? The switch is on the back of my neck.