I actually find the genetic explanation more hopefull. Genetic engineering would be a cheap and easy fix to the problem at least compared to the price of current and past attempts to close the gap.
I’m not too optimistic about genetic engineering. It seems that any engineering process requires a lot of failures before you figure out how to do things right. People can accept that a few astronauts and test pilots will die fiery deaths, but I doubt anyone could accept babies being born with brains messed up due to genetic tinkering.
The other thing is that poor man’s genetic engineering—i.e. eugenics—has been available for some time now and people are very reluctant to embrace it. Even without forced sterilization, it hardly seems outrageous to tweak public policy so as to incentivize the smartest people to reproduce more and discourage the stupidest. And yet it seems it would be politically very difficult to enact even a mild policy along these lines—its proponents would surely be condemned as racists.
The other thing is that poor man’s genetic engineering—i.e. eugenics—has been available for some time now and people are very reluctant to embrace it. Even without forced sterilization, it hardly seems outrageous to tweak public policy so as to incentivize the smartest people to reproduce more and discourage the stupidest.
It is widely employed in the US by parents using (for whatever reason) modern reproductive technology.
Of course we don’t call it that, but please what else is it, when the eggs of women with very high SAT or even GRE scores cost thousands of dollars to obtain than those that are merely average? What else is it when you search for a tall/athletic/musically talented/ academically successful sperm donor? Or terminating a pregnancy where the fetus is identified to have a genetic disorder?
It is widely employed in the US by parents using (for whatever reason) modern reproductive technology
I would say it depends what you mean by “widely employed.” Among the left half of the American bell curve, what percentage of children would you guess are the result of modern reproductive technology and a voluntary search for a high IQ egg or sperm donor? I would guess it’s well under 5%. i.e. not enough to have a big impact on the intelligence of future generations.
He is right. Reproductive technology is mostly currently employed by people with above average IQ, not just because this is the general pattern with all almost all technology and medical services in general, but because high IQ people are more likley to be infertile at the period in their life when they want to have children.
high IQ people are more likley to be infertile at the period in their life
And, incidentally, are more likely to be fertile overall. (And taller and with an ass that conforms to sex appropriate indicators of ‘damn fine’.) Of course, not very much more likely.
And yet it seems it would be politically very difficult to enact even a mild policy along these lines—its proponents would surely be condemned as racists.
I guess that’s true. But it can be framed otherwise. Let me demonstrate:
“In America today, minorities are often hardest hit by the widening gap between the rich and the poor and the gap between the technologically savvy and unsavvy. Besides the more abstract measure of “genomic literacy” blogged on by editors of the New York Beta Times last week, a recent disturbing study by the FDA shows that only 15% of African American mothers and 21% of Hispanic American mothers conceive via artificial insemination compared to 40% of white American mothers and 47% of Asian American mothers. Democratic house leaders have called for more generous government assistance and educational programs to help minorities take advantage of these vital services. In related news Republicans stir controversy by calling existing government support for such programs “racist and unconstitutional” in the already fraught atmosphere of last weeks “quarrelling preacher couple” viral video. In the first part of the YouTube video rev. Matthew Young called genetic enhancement an abomination unto God and “another attempt by elitists to push social engineering and sin, masked by false eugenic and evolutionary pseudo-science, unto an unwilling and pious public”. The second part of the video is a youtube respond where his husband Jeffrey Young explains that while he strives to fulfil God’s commandments to obey his minister, he just can’t bring himself to think God would want people to live poorer and less fulling lives and so supports certain uses of reproductive technology and thinks government should make them available. Is this just another sign of the religious right becoming a house divided on the issue? Some experts say that the outdated legislation of 2019 may be repelled earlier than… ”
In a very slow and overly cautious approach of just selecting the best embryo of the mix for implantation or even just picking the best sperm and egg, you would get convergence between the groups rather rapidly. Innovation is expensive, copying is cheap in such circumstances. Any genetic advantages of say Askenazi Jews, other Europeans or East Asians will be pretty cheap source of cognitive enhancement for the third world, while the First world will have to mine its talented fraction, which may have somewhat more unpleasant side effects.
The reason why I believe a very slow and overly cautious approach might be probable, is because we already have a very slow and overly cautious approach when it comes to new medical technology.
I think you are rather over-optimistic about the ability to reduce opposition to your proposal by framing in less explictly race-related terms. There is a long history, at least in the United States, of policies of racist intent being articulated using criteria that are not explicitly related to race: poll taxes and literacy tests; vagrancy laws; the general trope of “states rights”. Everyone is already primed to be looking for the racial discrimination, regardless of how you phrase it.
How is this racial discrimination against anyone but European and Asian Americans? They would bear a disproportionate amount of taxation for government services that mostly help non-Asian minorities.
Besides the more abstract measure of “genomic literacy” blogged on by editors of the New York Beta Times last week, a recent disturbing study by the FDA shows that only 15% of African American mothers and 21% of Hispanic American mothers conceive via artificial insemination compared to 40% of white American mothers and 47% of Asian American mothers.
Doesn’t sound all that plausible to me. Based on my general observations, the people at the low end of the IQ bell curve tend to reproduce in their late teens and early 20s, i.e. at ages where reproductive technology is not all that necessary.
In this world people use reproductive technology even when perfectly capable of conceiving naturally because it has become much more advanced, more convenient and because children gain a considerable measurable advantage. Also I assume these would be plausible numbers because contraceptive technology has advanced, the male pill for starters or perhaps a safer, more advanced, multi-year version of something like Depo-Provera.
Basically Gattaca to reach for a fictional portrayal.
I wasn’t proposing we do anything novel, except the technology needed to modify genes in human eggs and perhaps sperm. Nothing truly transhuman in scope (for now).
I assume (eye-baling what I recall from the data) there are enough similarities between various disparate ethnicities and enough diversity within ethnicities that it wouldn’t be that hard to simply spread around the wealth so to speak. Just increase the frequency of a few rare alleles or take a few from other groups. Or if you are feeling extra conservative, identify genes that where sweeping say a century or three ago (not sure exactly how long ago high IQ genes became maladaptive, estimating early dates for dysgenics in recent history is difficult) and are associated with IQ and just spread those.
Sure there are very likley some IQ increasing genes that simply wouldn’t work for everyone or would cause some averse result, but again I expect these to be rare considering they’ve been test driven.
As for messed up brains… Just perfect technology for altering genes in eggs on animals, do only what nature has already done for a exceptional group or individual then simply vigorously screen among a few hundred created embryos to figure out which to implant so one can be certain to avoid bad PR.
Generally speaking I think there really is no reason that anyone needs to suffer a IQ lower than 100 in the late 21st century. I wouldn’t however dictate to parents that they can’t have low IQ children if they so desired, no more that I would at a later time forbid people from living and reproducing as the Homos Sapiens classic. Nature has tested the design, it works mostly, and the benefit to mankind should we find a way to help the lower half of the bell-curve catch up at least to the current average would be immense. The non-negligible increases in economic productivity would be dwarfed by gains in quality of life. This is why I am and have been for so long a supporter of transhumanism, its potential to improve the human condition through enhancement has always captivated my imagination.
The other thing is that poor man’s genetic engineering—i.e. eugenics—has been available for some time now and people are very reluctant to embrace it. Even without forced sterilization, it hardly seems outrageous to tweak public policy so as to incentivize the smartest people to reproduce more and discourage the stupidest. And yet it seems it would be politically very difficult to enact even a mild policy along these lines
I actually think that having the government step away from barring people access to their genetic information as well as limiting with unnecessary regulation their access to technologies that require in vitro fertilisation (in my own country only infertile couples have access to it), a greater acceptance of genetics and evolution, and a academic culture less biased against hereditarian explanations would result in a strong enough trend of people making eugenic choices to counteract most of the dysgenic decline we are experiencing. Voluntary eugenics is a wonderful way how people can improve the lives of their children.
In the big picture two human generations is a short period from a biological perspective. As long as genetic engineering of humans is available and accepted by 2060 I remain optimistic about humanities long term chances. However if the date would be pushed back to 2090 or if enhancement wasn’t accepted in most of the developed world, or perhaps limited to regions with authoritarian regimes then I would be very much concerned.
As for messed up brains… Just perfect technology for altering genes in eggs on animals, do only what nature has already done for a exceptional group or individual then simply vigorously screen among a few hundred created embryos to figure out which to implant so one can be certain to avoid bad PR.
Maybe, we are pretty much in the realm of speculation here. I am still skeptical but I will concede the possibility that with a conservative approach including animal testing, these sorts of genetic modifications might be done with minimal risk to humans. I tend to doubt it based on the observation I made before. Also, I think it’s reasonable to expect that different alleles interact and affect an organism in a lot of subtle, unpredictable ways. Dog breeders know that trying to improve one feature often has deleterious effects on other, seemingly unrelated features.
And getting your typical American of low intelligence (perhaps IQ 85) to a point where he can succeed in college (perhaps IQ 115) would seem to require a pretty big jump.
a greater acceptance of genetics and evolution, and a academic culture less biased against hereditarian explanations would result in a strong enough trend of people making eugenic choices to counteract most of the dysgenic decline we are experiencing. Voluntary eugenics is a wonderful way how people can improve the lives of their children.
I kinda doubt that the people towards the bottom of the IQ spectrum have much interest in boosting the intelligence of their children. This is based on general observation of the kind of traits they select for in mating.
Dog breeders know that trying to improve one feature often has deleterious effects on other, seemingly unrelated features.
Since we’re basically talking about IQ, the negative side effects on anything like personality or health would have to be really big to outweigh the sheer socio-economic benefits one can statistically expect for say a boost of 10 or 20 or 30 IQ points.
I kinda doubt that the people towards the bottom of the IQ spectrum have much interest in boosting the intelligence of their children. This is based on general observation of the kind of traits they select for in mating.
Since we’re basically talking about IQ, the negative side effects on anything like personality or health would have to be really big to outweigh the sheer socio-economic benefits one can statistically expect for say a boost of 10 or 20 or 30 IQ points.
The adverse effects quite possibly are that significant in the context of the ancestral environment, but probably not in the context of the modern world.
The adverse effects quite possibly are that significant in the context of the ancestral environment, but probably not in the context of the modern world.
You need to develop that a bit more. It is important for the benefit of the reader and thinking in general to precisely and clearly separate genetic fitness and general well being in addition to pointing out the environment has changed.
Any simple major enhancement to human intelligence is a net evolutionary disadvantage.
Bostrom’s formulation, called “evolutionary optimality challenge” (EOC):
If the proposed intervention would result in an enhancement, why have we not already evolved to be that way?
The loopholes as given by Bostrom are:
Changed tradeoffs, because our envrionment has changed. What you said.
Value discordance, between what we’d like to optimize and what evolution is optimizing for. What I said.
Evolutionary restrictions, which don’t apply to us. “We have access to various tools, materials, and techniques that were unavailable to evolution. Even if our engineering talent is far inferior to evolution’s, we may nevertheless be able to achieve certain things that stumped evolution, thanks to these novel aids.””
And also in the current context of discussion (possibility of genetic differences between groups), if one accepts that say Askenazi Jews have a one stdv or half a stdv advantage over some populations due to genetic causes, looking at them today, they don’t seem to have shorter or less happy lives or be undesirable people, so why not share that specific genetic wealth around? It has the neat side effect of basically rooting out one of the causes of anti-Semitism too, by reducing inequality, so it is hard to say it would hurt their interest as individuals or an ethnicity either.
Actually one doesn’t need to demand genetic differences between groups for the argument that what we’re seeing here probably fits either the first or the second loopholes, since we also have individual differences that are caused by genetics. We see that people with an IQ of 115 overall seem to statistically speaking today do better in nearly every measure of quality of life and many measures of psychological well being compared to people with an IQ of 85, they also live longer and are generally more desirable to have around.
It seems likely to me that our civilization and technology developed at the earliest possible point it could have, in which case the high-IQ genes are simply not fixated yet, but would be if we hung around for a few (tens of) thousands more years. For that matter, there’s no reason not to think we’d go well above our current maximum.
Even without forced sterilization, it hardly seems outrageous to tweak public policy so as to incentivize the smartest people to reproduce more and discourage the stupidest.
Assuming intelligence to correlate with wealth, making it more expensive to raise children would seem like it would have a positive effect in that direction… but apparently rich people prefer to have one or two seriously spoiled children than half a dozen children living decently, and poor people prefer to have several children living in hardship than just one living decently. I can’t think of any way to change this (which wouldn’t have seriously undesirable side effects).
I can’t think of any way to change this (which wouldn’t have seriously undesirable side effects).
Well if you want to use wealth as a proxy for intelligence, one approach would be to dramatically raise the tax exemption for children. This would have little effect on poor people, since they generally do not itemize their deductions—if they owe taxes at all.
Still if such a measure were proposed as a way of encouraging smarter people to have more babies, you can bet that a lot of people will scream racism.
Well if you want to use wealth as a proxy for intelligence, one approach would be to dramatically raise the tax exemption for children.
I was thinking about solutions which wouldn’t significantly affect the total fertility rate, but now that I think about it, increasing it wouldn’t be a “seriously undesirable side effect”, at least in (say) continental Europe or Japan.
Now that I think about it, the fertility of lower classes could be decreased by giving out contraception for free and subsidizing abortions, but the latter could be very unpopular. (It shouldn’t affect the fertility of upper classes because the price of contraception/abortions isn’t one of the reasons why they’re not having fewer children.)
(Why was the parent downvoted, BTW? I guess because the downvoter thinks continental Europe/Japan are already overpopulated so sub-replacement fertility there is not bad.)
I’m not too optimistic about genetic engineering. It seems that any engineering process requires a lot of failures before you figure out how to do things right. People can accept that a few astronauts and test pilots will die fiery deaths, but I doubt anyone could accept babies being born with brains messed up due to genetic tinkering.
The other thing is that poor man’s genetic engineering—i.e. eugenics—has been available for some time now and people are very reluctant to embrace it. Even without forced sterilization, it hardly seems outrageous to tweak public policy so as to incentivize the smartest people to reproduce more and discourage the stupidest. And yet it seems it would be politically very difficult to enact even a mild policy along these lines—its proponents would surely be condemned as racists.
It is widely employed in the US by parents using (for whatever reason) modern reproductive technology.
Of course we don’t call it that, but please what else is it, when the eggs of women with very high SAT or even GRE scores cost thousands of dollars to obtain than those that are merely average? What else is it when you search for a tall/athletic/musically talented/ academically successful sperm donor? Or terminating a pregnancy where the fetus is identified to have a genetic disorder?
I would say it depends what you mean by “widely employed.” Among the left half of the American bell curve, what percentage of children would you guess are the result of modern reproductive technology and a voluntary search for a high IQ egg or sperm donor? I would guess it’s well under 5%. i.e. not enough to have a big impact on the intelligence of future generations.
Why is this down-voted?
He is right. Reproductive technology is mostly currently employed by people with above average IQ, not just because this is the general pattern with all almost all technology and medical services in general, but because high IQ people are more likley to be infertile at the period in their life when they want to have children.
And, incidentally, are more likely to be fertile overall. (And taller and with an ass that conforms to sex appropriate indicators of ‘damn fine’.) Of course, not very much more likely.
By fertile you mean “able to have children, whether they actually have them or not”? Otherwise, that’s wrong.
Clearly.
Um, citation needed?
Really? I thought it was a reference to common knowledge.
I guess that’s true. But it can be framed otherwise. Let me demonstrate:
In a very slow and overly cautious approach of just selecting the best embryo of the mix for implantation or even just picking the best sperm and egg, you would get convergence between the groups rather rapidly. Innovation is expensive, copying is cheap in such circumstances. Any genetic advantages of say Askenazi Jews, other Europeans or East Asians will be pretty cheap source of cognitive enhancement for the third world, while the First world will have to mine its talented fraction, which may have somewhat more unpleasant side effects.
The reason why I believe a very slow and overly cautious approach might be probable, is because we already have a very slow and overly cautious approach when it comes to new medical technology.
I think you are rather over-optimistic about the ability to reduce opposition to your proposal by framing in less explictly race-related terms. There is a long history, at least in the United States, of policies of racist intent being articulated using criteria that are not explicitly related to race: poll taxes and literacy tests; vagrancy laws; the general trope of “states rights”. Everyone is already primed to be looking for the racial discrimination, regardless of how you phrase it.
How is this racial discrimination against anyone but European and Asian Americans? They would bear a disproportionate amount of taxation for government services that mostly help non-Asian minorities.
Doesn’t sound all that plausible to me. Based on my general observations, the people at the low end of the IQ bell curve tend to reproduce in their late teens and early 20s, i.e. at ages where reproductive technology is not all that necessary.
In this world people use reproductive technology even when perfectly capable of conceiving naturally because it has become much more advanced, more convenient and because children gain a considerable measurable advantage. Also I assume these would be plausible numbers because contraceptive technology has advanced, the male pill for starters or perhaps a safer, more advanced, multi-year version of something like Depo-Provera.
Basically Gattaca to reach for a fictional portrayal.
I wasn’t proposing we do anything novel, except the technology needed to modify genes in human eggs and perhaps sperm. Nothing truly transhuman in scope (for now).
I assume (eye-baling what I recall from the data) there are enough similarities between various disparate ethnicities and enough diversity within ethnicities that it wouldn’t be that hard to simply spread around the wealth so to speak. Just increase the frequency of a few rare alleles or take a few from other groups. Or if you are feeling extra conservative, identify genes that where sweeping say a century or three ago (not sure exactly how long ago high IQ genes became maladaptive, estimating early dates for dysgenics in recent history is difficult) and are associated with IQ and just spread those.
Sure there are very likley some IQ increasing genes that simply wouldn’t work for everyone or would cause some averse result, but again I expect these to be rare considering they’ve been test driven.
As for messed up brains… Just perfect technology for altering genes in eggs on animals, do only what nature has already done for a exceptional group or individual then simply vigorously screen among a few hundred created embryos to figure out which to implant so one can be certain to avoid bad PR.
Generally speaking I think there really is no reason that anyone needs to suffer a IQ lower than 100 in the late 21st century. I wouldn’t however dictate to parents that they can’t have low IQ children if they so desired, no more that I would at a later time forbid people from living and reproducing as the Homos Sapiens classic. Nature has tested the design, it works mostly, and the benefit to mankind should we find a way to help the lower half of the bell-curve catch up at least to the current average would be immense. The non-negligible increases in economic productivity would be dwarfed by gains in quality of life. This is why I am and have been for so long a supporter of transhumanism, its potential to improve the human condition through enhancement has always captivated my imagination.
I actually think that having the government step away from barring people access to their genetic information as well as limiting with unnecessary regulation their access to technologies that require in vitro fertilisation (in my own country only infertile couples have access to it), a greater acceptance of genetics and evolution, and a academic culture less biased against hereditarian explanations would result in a strong enough trend of people making eugenic choices to counteract most of the dysgenic decline we are experiencing. Voluntary eugenics is a wonderful way how people can improve the lives of their children.
In the big picture two human generations is a short period from a biological perspective. As long as genetic engineering of humans is available and accepted by 2060 I remain optimistic about humanities long term chances. However if the date would be pushed back to 2090 or if enhancement wasn’t accepted in most of the developed world, or perhaps limited to regions with authoritarian regimes then I would be very much concerned.
Maybe, we are pretty much in the realm of speculation here. I am still skeptical but I will concede the possibility that with a conservative approach including animal testing, these sorts of genetic modifications might be done with minimal risk to humans. I tend to doubt it based on the observation I made before. Also, I think it’s reasonable to expect that different alleles interact and affect an organism in a lot of subtle, unpredictable ways. Dog breeders know that trying to improve one feature often has deleterious effects on other, seemingly unrelated features.
And getting your typical American of low intelligence (perhaps IQ 85) to a point where he can succeed in college (perhaps IQ 115) would seem to require a pretty big jump.
I kinda doubt that the people towards the bottom of the IQ spectrum have much interest in boosting the intelligence of their children. This is based on general observation of the kind of traits they select for in mating.
Since we’re basically talking about IQ, the negative side effects on anything like personality or health would have to be really big to outweigh the sheer socio-economic benefits one can statistically expect for say a boost of 10 or 20 or 30 IQ points.
Depressingly plausible.
The adverse effects quite possibly are that significant in the context of the ancestral environment, but probably not in the context of the modern world.
You need to develop that a bit more. It is important for the benefit of the reader and thinking in general to precisely and clearly separate genetic fitness and general well being in addition to pointing out the environment has changed.
I suggest people read up on Algernon’s Law and its loopholes. In short:
Bostrom’s formulation, called “evolutionary optimality challenge” (EOC):
The loopholes as given by Bostrom are:
Changed tradeoffs, because our envrionment has changed. What you said.
Value discordance, between what we’d like to optimize and what evolution is optimizing for. What I said.
Evolutionary restrictions, which don’t apply to us. “We have access to various tools, materials, and techniques that were unavailable to evolution. Even if our engineering talent is far inferior to evolution’s, we may nevertheless be able to achieve certain things that stumped evolution, thanks to these novel aids.””
And also in the current context of discussion (possibility of genetic differences between groups), if one accepts that say Askenazi Jews have a one stdv or half a stdv advantage over some populations due to genetic causes, looking at them today, they don’t seem to have shorter or less happy lives or be undesirable people, so why not share that specific genetic wealth around? It has the neat side effect of basically rooting out one of the causes of anti-Semitism too, by reducing inequality, so it is hard to say it would hurt their interest as individuals or an ethnicity either.
Actually one doesn’t need to demand genetic differences between groups for the argument that what we’re seeing here probably fits either the first or the second loopholes, since we also have individual differences that are caused by genetics. We see that people with an IQ of 115 overall seem to statistically speaking today do better in nearly every measure of quality of life and many measures of psychological well being compared to people with an IQ of 85, they also live longer and are generally more desirable to have around.
Algernon’s Law is just the concept I was thinking of; I hadn’t seen this link. Thanks!
I would add a fourth possibility:
Lack of time.
It seems likely to me that our civilization and technology developed at the earliest possible point it could have, in which case the high-IQ genes are simply not fixated yet, but would be if we hung around for a few (tens of) thousands more years. For that matter, there’s no reason not to think we’d go well above our current maximum.
Apparently smart people have fewer children than average.
Assuming intelligence to correlate with wealth, making it more expensive to raise children would seem like it would have a positive effect in that direction… but apparently rich people prefer to have one or two seriously spoiled children than half a dozen children living decently, and poor people prefer to have several children living in hardship than just one living decently. I can’t think of any way to change this (which wouldn’t have seriously undesirable side effects).
Well if you want to use wealth as a proxy for intelligence, one approach would be to dramatically raise the tax exemption for children. This would have little effect on poor people, since they generally do not itemize their deductions—if they owe taxes at all.
Still if such a measure were proposed as a way of encouraging smarter people to have more babies, you can bet that a lot of people will scream racism.
I was thinking about solutions which wouldn’t significantly affect the total fertility rate, but now that I think about it, increasing it wouldn’t be a “seriously undesirable side effect”, at least in (say) continental Europe or Japan.
Now that I think about it, the fertility of lower classes could be decreased by giving out contraception for free and subsidizing abortions, but the latter could be very unpopular. (It shouldn’t affect the fertility of upper classes because the price of contraception/abortions isn’t one of the reasons why they’re not having fewer children.)
(Why was the parent downvoted, BTW? I guess because the downvoter thinks continental Europe/Japan are already overpopulated so sub-replacement fertility there is not bad.)
Possibly because brazil84 is perceived as a troll—someone might be downvoting the entire thread.