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Your claims are completely unverifiable speculation and are frankly absurd. I would bet every dollar I have against there being a simple method to increase IQ b
by hodder 7y ago
Your claims are completely unverifiable speculation and are frankly absurd. I would bet every dollar I have against there being a simple method to increase IQ by 0.5 SDs within 5-10 yrs. I’m sorry but your prediction of 5SD increase is frankly science fiction novel territory. It is not science.
Gene editing will be pursued around the globe, and countries that fail to embrace it may be left behind in health and wellness. However, let’s not radically rush to science fiction level conclusions (stated as fact) of megahumans without any evidence that it may be possible.
[Edited for an incorrect use of hyperbole around the math of 5x standard devs. I removed it from the post as I am acknowledging that using excess hyperbole in a post specifically directed at criticism of wild predictions is beyond ironic and unfair to the OP above.]
- ZhuanXia 7y agoI did not say 1000 times smarter. I said 5+ standard deviations. John von Neumann had an IQ 5+ SD above the mean. We know this phenotype is possible. It is not science fictional to think we can raise the average to at least his point. In animal breeding we increase traits by much more than 5 standard deviations all the time. Iterated embryo selection and/or direct genetic engineering will be able to do this. It breaks no physical laws, it is in concert with what we have already observed and our understanding of cognitive genomics is getting to the point that it is becoming increasingly obvious to anyone paying attention that we will be able to select/edit for intelligence comparable to John von Neumann. Look at the "Known for" section of his Wikipedia page to see what such people will be capable of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann "That sounds vaguely like a science fiction story" is a very poor heuristic for determining if something is possible.
- hodder 7y agoI am very familiar with von Neuman. I understand the potential of what intelligent individuals can figure out and accomplish. Von Neuman was a truly incredible individual. My criticism is specifically directed at your timelines and foregone conclusions that intelligence is as easy to increase via artificial embryo selection as more observable traits such as size by observing alleles. I stand by my statement that I would bet every penny I have against your proposed 5-10 yr timeline of simple half st.dev increases in IQ.