Why such an article on such a topic start with torture is beyond me. The question we should be asking, I think, is when (the "how" is no longer relevant now is it) we start engineering humans, how we avoid the situation that has been "documented" in every post-apocalyptic sci-fi where a superior species arrives (or created) and wipes out the weaker, non-engineered humans?

I am far less concerned with philosophical question, such as whether a person engineering to be the smartest would be smart on his own right; would a person engineered to be the strongest & fastest be a successful athlete in his own right, or is it simply an unfair inter-species competition which is no different than pitting a disabled person vs. a healthy one; etc.