Comment by monkeypizza | Hacker News Reader

Comment by monkeypizza | Hacker News Reader

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You seem to have missed the author's explanation of how they could get 10-15 IQ points per generation:

"Potentially, the results would allow all Chinese couples to maximize the intelligence of their offspring by selecting among their own fertilized eggs for the one or two that include the highest likelihood of the highest intelligence. Given the Mendelian genetic lottery, the kids produced by any one couple typically differ by 5 to 15 IQ points. So this method of "preimplantation embryo selection" might allow IQ within every Chinese family to increase by 5 to 15 IQ points per generation."

Stephen Hsu has written more about it here http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2014/10/genius-nautilus-magazin...

Once we've found which genes produce a 10-15 IQ point difference (and that's a big "once"!), we select for those genes, and get a 10-15 point boost in the next generation. Eventually, assuming an ongoing eugenics program, we get a strain that breeds true for those characteristics, and the 10-15 point gain becomes permanent. What makes you (or the author) assume that every generation we're going to find another set of genes that will produce another 10-15 point boost?

I don't think you even need to think of it on the level of genes (because most of the time, chromosomes are inherited whole (barring crossing over)). So you'd just be picking the best combinations of random selection of chromosomes contributed by the parents.

It's like being able to roll 100 times and picking the best one in D&D character creation. The improvement might not be able to be done infinitely, but could at least get us to everyone having IQ 130, which would mean a reduction in all the problems associated with lower IQ. (Crime, poverty, lack of educational achievement, bad health)

i.e. a father has two variants of chromosome 6, one good and one great. Why not make sure that his kids just "by chance" get the great one? There will be lots of tradeoffs, but it'd always be better to occasionally step in and make a choice than to always accept randomness.

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