Re: Hurray for China

On 23 Mar 2013, at 17:20, Rami Rustom wrote:

> On Mar 22, 2013 3:43 PM, "hibbsa" <hibbsa-/[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> While the West self destructs (with a little help from "friends")  
>> China
>> is fully intent their children will be going to the stars.
>>
>> http://www.vice.com/read/chinas-taking-over-the-world-with-a-massive-genetic-engineering-program
>
>
> From the article:
>>
>> At BGI Shenzhen, scientists have collected DNA samples from 2,000  
>> of the world’s smartest people and are sequencing their entire  
>> genomes in an attempt to identify the alleles which determine human  
>> intelligence. Apparently they’re not far from finding them, and  
>> when they do, embryo screening will allow parents to pick their  
>> brightest zygote and potentially bump up every generation's  
>> intelligence by five to 15 IQ points. Within a couple of  
>> generations, competing with the Chinese on an intellectual level  
>> will be like challenging Lena Dunham to a getting-naked-on-TV  
>> contest.
>
> So what's the argument that genes have a role in more human
> intelligence? There isn't one in this article. He just says something
> like apparently we're almost there in finding the genes that do play a
> role in more human intelligence.
>
> So it seems like what they are doing is getting DNA from smart people,
> maybe also getting DNA from dumb people, and comparing the DNA,
> looking for correlations -- looking for genes that the smart people
> have that the dumb people don't have -- actually its more like looking
> for genes that most smart people have that most dumb people don't
> have. And then they will conclude that those genes are the one that
> (partly) cause more intelligence. A classic correlation argument (i.e.
> not an argument). [Also how will they choose how much is "most"?
> Arbitrarily?]
>
>
> And their plan is to have parents to make 100 zygotes, and pick the
> one that has the best intelligence genes, and let that one become
> their child.
>
>
> How are they going to test their theory? Are they just going to wait
> to see if their national average IQ scores go up (they did mention
> this in the article)? If so, how does that test the theory that
> certain genes partly cause more intelligence? It doesn't. IQ scores
> can go up because the government's education system get more effective
> in getting kids to learn how to take IQ tests better. I'm pretty sure
> national average IQ scores go up over time anyway. So how will they
> refute the theory that IQ scores went up for the same reason they're
> going up now? What are they going to do, come up with a measure of how
> much IQ scores already go up, and then compare the new numbers of IQ
> scores going up, and then claim that the extra IQ rise is due to the
> gene selection? But this is another correlation argument (i.e. not an
> argument). Any number of variables could be the cause of the extra IQ
> rise, including the same reason for its rise in the past.
>
> What a waste of wealth.

I agree. Especially that IQ test measure conformity, almost the  
opposite of intelligence.
Dangerous play.

Bruno



>
> -- Rami
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
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>

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/





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