[extropy-chat] Eumemics

[Adrian Tymes]

--- "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 8 Jan 2004, Adrian Tymes wrote:
> > That said, this could be a real issue in the very
> near term.
> 
> Yep.

The present course - do nothing - seems to be best.
Some people will gene-select their children; they can
then provide the test cases.  Meanwhile, as has been
pointed out, adults are likely to be able to receive
superior enhancements within 20-40 years, rendering
the effects of gene selection moot by the time it
might start to matter.

> > All that's missing is a good, publically
> > available map of genes to approximate IQ, which
> > doesn't seem that hard to create.
> 
> Its harder than you might think if there are many
> genes
> (say greater than a dozen) and they have low
> penetrance
> (say are responsible for only 5-10% of the trait
> each).
> These are the characteristics associated with
> diabetes
> and heart disease predispositions and its been
> rather
> difficult to produce a complete picture in spite of
> many
> people working on it.

Aye.  But I was speaking relative to other things we
discuss here, such as creating sentient AI or
molecular assemblers.  Compared to those types of
things, merely discovering which genes have good
correlation with IQ isn't that hard.

> P.S.  I think the Extro list needs a semi-AI filter
> that runs
> all "claims" through google to determine whether or
> not there
> is resonable data to suggest that you might want to
> be very
> careful about the claims...  (No offense Adrian...
> :-))

None taken.  I disclaimed it as my own anecdotal
experience for a reason, and if it further inspires
someone with a way to do something like that, we're
all better off for the results of my mis-suspicion.
^_-