I really hate how every thread there's someone that jumps from "treating genetic disease" which is both small scale (in many cases just the expression of a single gene) and tangible (ready definitions and lack of trade offs in "not having cystic fibrosis" as opposed to "maybe smarter"). We're so close to saving real lives it's a waste of time to bring up a terrible dystopia movie(the reason gattaca's protagonist can't got to space is he's got a heart condition that's likely to kill him; not because he's lacking the hand-wavy "genetic ubermench" qualities) to construct an artificial ethical dilemma.
I think the other poster's point was more that there isn't a simple genetic switch that adds 5 IQ points. There appear to be many complex factors that are part of intelligence and currently we are not sure how to untangle that mess to get simple thing we can do to make people smarter.
Considering that approximately half of measured intelligence variation isn't concluded to be genetic [0] it's my opinion you get a lot more bang for your buck focusing on social and environmental factors if you want to increase a populous's overall intellectual acumen.
http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/05/04/myers-race-car-versus-t...
>People with high IQ tend to live longer. For example, a person with IQ 115 (85th percentile) is 20% more likely to survive to age 76 than an average person with IQ 100. [...] People with high IQ tend to be taller. This is interesting since height is often used as a measure of health and fitness during childhood, and since taller people get a bunch of advantages including being rated as more attractive and earning higher income. [...] People with high IQ may be more attractive. This is the conclusion of a meta-analysis that finds a positive correlation between intelligence and body symmetry, usually used as a proxy for attractiveness unaffected by things like hairstyle and cosmetics [...] People with high IQ commit much less crime [...] People with high IQ tend to be more physically fit. [...] People with high IQ have lower rates of heart disease, stroke, circulatory diseases, and diabetes.
Doesn't look like there's much in the way of a tradeoff between high IQ and biological fitness.
Secondly that's not the point. If we need to edit multiple genes, genes that are also tied to other traits, that's what's driving the chance of side effect, not the increased intelligence.
These are more powerful than the usual designs. For example, the correlation of intelligence with longevity survives a within-family sibling study which controls away all effects of family SES and shared environment https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/doi/10.1093/ije/dyx168/... You can also verify this using twin comparisons eg http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2015/07/24/ije.d... .
More importantly, because so much of the underlying genetics of intelligence has been found and are covered by the GWAS's polygenic scores, it is possible to compare with the genetics for scores or hundreds of other diseases and measures of health: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_correlation#Intelligen... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_correlation#Education The correlation is invariably negative: higher genetic potential for intelligence predicts lower disease and better health.
> If we need to edit multiple genes, genes that are also tied to other traits, that's what's driving the chance of side effect, not the increased intelligence.
Whether it is horizontal or vertical pleiotropy is irrelevant; it is irrelevant whether a particular SNP decreases risk of heart disease by increasing one's level of education so one knows to exercise regularly, or if it instead avoids a bad mutation which makes mitochondria slightly more inefficient thereby damaging the brain & heart. You want that SNP regardless of which causal pathway it is. If intelligence polygenic scores predict lower risk for disease and better health, then doing embryo selection or editing based on that will in fact do what it's supposed to.
Are you kidding? It's probably one of the most controversial statements you can make in the general population.
We are beginning to identify genes that determine IQ. It's only a matter of time until we get a useful predictive model of genetics of intelligence.
On one hand, society will be far better off with having smarter people (imagine what society would be like where everyone had an IQ of 120 - I’d be very curious). On the other hand, you’ll probably get a Gattaca-like situation. Interesting times...