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straight up Gattaca > Nucleus also provides probability assessments for the embryos’ IQ, height and eye color. Sadeghi said that Nucleus informs customers of t

straight up Gattaca > Nucleus also provides probability assessments for the embryos’ IQ, height and eye color. Sadeghi said that Nucleus informs customers of the strength of the various predictions. IQ predictions are limited in accuracy, according to the company.

sokoloff 1y ago
Tell me the parents’ IQs and heights and I can give you a prediction of the embryo’s measures for $59.99.
- mschuster91 1y ago
  Doesn't work that way. Both height and IQ have a serious dependence on nutrition of both the mother while pregnant and the offspring during adolescence as well as mental stimulation for the latter, oh and the father's nutrition and both parents' history with drugs and medication also can play part in the genetics and epigenetics of the offspring. On top of that you have recessive genetic traits as well which means you can get stuff like skin, hair and eye color that "pause" sometimes over generations. Used to be quite a source of infidelity allegations until Mendel's inheritance research, and frankly it's still something that pops up even today.
  - sorcerer-mar 1y ago
    Yet despite variation in what people eat and what drugs they take, high-IQ people tend to be born to high-IQ people and same for low-IQ. Even twins raised in totally separate households will have very similar IQs later in life. This epigenetic stuff is invariably copium from people who don’t want to admit their intellectual gifts are in fact gifts and as a corollary, all the downstream economic rewards of intelligence are also mere gifts from the lottery of being born to high-IQ parents.
    - cjbgkagh 1y ago
      It can be both genetic and epigenetic, but concur I was one of those people who believed I was smarter simply because I wanted it more and worked harder. I found out later in life that my outcomes were largely genetic and this has increased my acceptance of others as they are.
      - sorcerer-mar 1y ago
        Yeah obviously epigenetics and environment matter. We should try to improve people's conditions all over, and also accept that not everyone can just work their way to "intelligent" and deserve dignity nonetheless.
    - Balgair 1y ago
      Fun little quirk of IQ: Lower-IQ scored couples tend to have children with higher IQ scores, and higher-IQ scored couples tend to have children with lower IQ scores. The explanation seems to be that whatever random genes you got to have an off-average IQ score cancel out with your partner and your offspring then regresses to the mean.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
      - sorcerer-mar 1y ago
        Yep! With caveat that you mean “higher than the parents,” I.e. you wouldn’t generally have a below-mean couple produce offspring that’s above the mean or vice versa.
  - sokoloff 1y ago
    > Doesn't work that way. If we take 100 embryos and we both predict their heights and IQs at 18, you with only biological sex and me additionally with the heights and IQs of the parents, I will wager a large sum that my predictions will be better than yours. Are you interested in taking the other side of that bet for even money? I’ll even give you +110 odds to ensure you have a sportsbook-sized edge if there’s no predictive value.

sokoloff 1y ago

Tell me the parents’ IQs and heights and I can give you a prediction of the embryo’s measures for $59.99.

mschuster91 1y ago
Doesn't work that way. Both height and IQ have a serious dependence on nutrition of both the mother while pregnant and the offspring during adolescence as well as mental stimulation for the latter, oh and the father's nutrition and both parents' history with drugs and medication also can play part in the genetics and epigenetics of the offspring. On top of that you have recessive genetic traits as well which means you can get stuff like skin, hair and eye color that "pause" sometimes over generations. Used to be quite a source of infidelity allegations until Mendel's inheritance research, and frankly it's still something that pops up even today.
- sorcerer-mar 1y ago
  Yet despite variation in what people eat and what drugs they take, high-IQ people tend to be born to high-IQ people and same for low-IQ. Even twins raised in totally separate households will have very similar IQs later in life. This epigenetic stuff is invariably copium from people who don’t want to admit their intellectual gifts are in fact gifts and as a corollary, all the downstream economic rewards of intelligence are also mere gifts from the lottery of being born to high-IQ parents.
  - cjbgkagh 1y ago
    It can be both genetic and epigenetic, but concur I was one of those people who believed I was smarter simply because I wanted it more and worked harder. I found out later in life that my outcomes were largely genetic and this has increased my acceptance of others as they are.
    - sorcerer-mar 1y ago
      Yeah obviously epigenetics and environment matter. We should try to improve people's conditions all over, and also accept that not everyone can just work their way to "intelligent" and deserve dignity nonetheless.
  - Balgair 1y ago
    Fun little quirk of IQ: Lower-IQ scored couples tend to have children with higher IQ scores, and higher-IQ scored couples tend to have children with lower IQ scores. The explanation seems to be that whatever random genes you got to have an off-average IQ score cancel out with your partner and your offspring then regresses to the mean.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - sorcerer-mar 1y ago
      Yep! With caveat that you mean “higher than the parents,” I.e. you wouldn’t generally have a below-mean couple produce offspring that’s above the mean or vice versa.
- sokoloff 1y ago
  > Doesn't work that way. If we take 100 embryos and we both predict their heights and IQs at 18, you with only biological sex and me additionally with the heights and IQs of the parents, I will wager a large sum that my predictions will be better than yours. Are you interested in taking the other side of that bet for even money? I’ll even give you +110 odds to ensure you have a sportsbook-sized edge if there’s no predictive value.