[extropy-chat] Eumemics

[Mark Walker]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Emlyn O'regan"

> > I'm guessing that qua
> > transhumanist
> > you are in minority in denying  (1). But, hey, you are in the
> > majority--at
> > least in the "West".
>
> Ouch, you don't pull your punches, do you? :-) I probably am in the
> majority, but accidentally, and mostly for different reasons I think.
Oddly
> enough, the most common reason I see expressed for not allowing genetic
> manipulation of children is jealousy, or a fear of inequality, which I
find
> weird. Make no mistake, the entirety of my concern is about untried,
> unprovable technology with dubious benefits and very real risks, and lack
of
> ability for the individual to give consent.
>
The sorts of concerns you raise are quite common, at least in my experience
in lecturing and teaching this stuff. However, just because you are in the
majority it does not necessarily mean you are wrong. : )  Let's put aside
cases of genetic engineering of children and concentrate on simple embryo
selection. Here there is no genetic engineering, simply choosing which fetus
to implant. The individual here cannot complain post facto that they were
manipulated in any way, only that they were chosen. They might have been
born in any event, by selecting them we have simply "rigged the lottery".
This seems to resolves to just the usual complaint of being born at all, as
the song goes: "were not my mother's womb my grave".
Now take IQ. There is a lot of evidence that this has a strong genetic
component to it. (See for example, Plomin R., et al. Behavioral Genetics,
4th edition. New York, Freeman, 2001, or "Are We Hardwired?" for a slightly
more popular account). For example, estimates of the IQ correlation between
identical twins adopted and reared apart are in the 50 to 80% range. The
correlation between the IQ of adopted children and their parents is pretty
close to zero. Here we have a case where the technology of selecting embryos
has already established, the consent issue doesn't seem germane, and the
benefit is the potential for increased knowledge. Isn't a primary purpose of
education to increase knowledge? If so then what is the principled
difference between embryo selection for the potential for increased
knowledge and attempting to educate the young so that their knowledge
increases?

Cheers,

Mark

Mark Walker, PhD
Research Associate, Philosophy, Trinity College
University of Toronto
Room 214  Gerald Larkin Building
15 Devonshire Place
Toronto
M5S 1H8
www.permanentend.org