I do not think there is much prospect for dramatic IQ elevation without producing somewhat damaged people.
Interesting. Would these people be so damaged that they would be unable to do science? Or would you be expecting super-aspergers types? (Or, to put it more rigorously, what probability would you assign to dead/severely disabled vs. super-aspergers/some other non-showstopping deleterious effect?)
I don’t know but I can give you some candidates. One is torsion spasm (Idiopathic Torsion Dystonia). It will give you about a ten point IQ boost just by itself. Most of the time the only effect of the disease is vulnerability to writer’s cramp, but 10% of the time it puts you in a wheelchair. So you could do science just fine.
Similarly the Ashkenazi form of Gaucher’s disease is not ordinarily all that serious but it also give a hefty IQ boost. Asperger like stuff would probably also increase: many super bright people seem to be a bit not quite. Of course lots of other super-brights seem to be completely normal.
I am just babbling, I have no special insight at all...
The only question that remains in my mind is what the timescale for this is: both the “when will it become technically feasible” and “when will political and economic factors actually cause it to happen”.
Interesting. Would these people be so damaged that they would be unable to do science? Or would you be expecting super-aspergers types? (Or, to put it more rigorously, what probability would you assign to dead/severely disabled vs. super-aspergers/some other non-showstopping deleterious effect?)
I don’t know but I can give you some candidates. One is torsion spasm (Idiopathic Torsion Dystonia). It will give you about a ten point IQ boost just by itself. Most of the time the only effect of the disease is vulnerability to writer’s cramp, but 10% of the time it puts you in a wheelchair. So you could do science just fine.
Similarly the Ashkenazi form of Gaucher’s disease is not ordinarily all that serious but it also give a hefty IQ boost. Asperger like stuff would probably also increase: many super bright people seem to be a bit not quite. Of course lots of other super-brights seem to be completely normal.
I am just babbling, I have no special insight at all...
HCH
That is very interesting, thanks.
The only question that remains in my mind is what the timescale for this is: both the “when will it become technically feasible” and “when will political and economic factors actually cause it to happen”.