You know I originally thought this was an outlandish idea, but I have to remind myself that the processes that govern reproduction are themselves encoded within the DNA... If those processes are affected adversely, it may well take many generations to realize the effects, at which point for those individuals it is far too late to undo the damage.

Not just for those individuals but it would have spread throughout the gene pool and been impossible to contain.

IMHO, getting good at genetic engineering mostly negates the potential dangers of newly introduced bugs that stay dormant for a long time. After all we then have the tools to fix them.

As long as the mistakes, or bugs, are survivable, or not transmitted like the flu is transmitted.

Sounds like a plot for the prequel to Idiocracy.

Very droll. Nice elude to dysgenics [0].

0. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysgenics

why would evolution stop at the neck?

If intelligence isn't heritable and has nothing to do with genetics, please teach a paramecium how to do quantum physics and I'll give you a million dollars

Why would you think that I thought it did?

"An Amoeba Just Found an Entirely New Way to Solve a Classic Computing Problem"

https://www.sciencealert.com/an-amoeba-has-solved-an-exponen...

It's not quantum physics, so I'll settle for $100k

The parent said "teach," so you are out of luck. ;)