If this or some offshoot ever makes it to the US, we should see a dramatic decrease in family law, Federal subsides for child support, and could lead to dramatic decrease in crime. That is, if it becomes as available as womens birth control.
Although genetics likely plays some role in "natural" intelligence, it's far from a simple hereditary relationship, and there's increasing evidence that the bulk of natural intelligence is actually the result of environmental factors during early child development.
(ninja edit: here ya go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSROlfR7WTo)
I don't recall the movie taking a stance towards nature. In fact, the moral of the whole story is to try to solve problems, and the great speech at the end envisioned a time where people cared whose ass it was and why it was farting. These are messages about cultural priorities, not genetic limitations.
...right, which would make it irrelevant whether high-IQ parents are having kids or not (they can still work as educators, scientists, leaders -- much the same situation as now), which in turn would make that opening scene of the movie a non-sequitur.
> These are messages about cultural priorities, not genetic limitations.
Yes, but they are also the only feasible remaining strategy left given the resources at hand at the end. IIRC, the lead character was tested as having the highest recorded IQ in the world, so it's not like his strategy for solving problems could be "go find high IQ couples and mate them in a high-IQ zoo".
Maybe I'm wrong. I only watched it once, back at a time when I thought the world was doomed and the movie was prophetic (so I didn't really pay close attention). OTOH, a quick search online finds that I'm not the only one that interpreted it this way, so at the least it was less clear than it could have been on this point.
I don't think working as an educator or leader, in the movie's world, would make any difference. They would be, after all, attempting to educate or lead people who equate speaking in grammatical, semantically precise sentences with "talking like a fag". (see Dr. Lexus, etc.)
As for Scientists, they were consumed with solving the problems of hair loss and prolonging erections.
That would be a silly claim to make. A more plausible claim, and one which is well supported by the evidence, is that smart parents are considerably more likely to have smart children than dumb parents.
Nope.
Just as with vasectomies, we'll see far more men claiming to have had the procedure and women will believe them.
Yes, a few men who wouldn't have gotten a vasectomy will do this, but they're in the noise.