On intelligence, I question how much intelligence is optimal. The assumption is that more is better, but as you yourself have pointed out, computers will soon overtake us in the purely intellectual or IQ stakes. So why bother exploiting that one?

I draw the analogy between those rich countries, such as some gulf states, and intelligence. Some of these gulf states have more imported workers that local inhabitants as the locals are all too wealthy to do menial tasks. Isn't it the same with intelligence? Wouldn't we all want to be doctors, scientists and occupy other intellectually challenging occupations if we all had an IQ of, say 140 or higher?

Let's take the analogy of physical strength. Let's consider the efficiency index that is used for athletes at, say, the Australian Institute of Sport. They measure the oxygen in the air you breathe in and compare that to the oxygen in the air you exhale. They then measure this ratio in comparison with your energy output (you would be running on a treadmill or riding an exercise bike that is connected to test equipment).

Let's say the top athletes score 200 (arbitrary scalar magnitude). Let's say the average Olympic athlete scores 160+, the average sports person, say at league level, score 140+. Those who exercise regularly and play sport several times a week might expect 120 and the average might be 100.

So what level do you actually need? 100!! That is all you ever actually need unless you are a sports person or athlete. The same is true of IQ. Although you might have an IQ of 140, the actual level required to carry out more than 90% of your daily grind is only 100 or less. You only use your maximum very occasionally. If you are in an intellectually taxing occupation you may regularly use 130+.

But just what portion of society can actually utilise a high IQ? The answer is that there is not that many. The majority of people perform interface functions – between hotel room and guest, between machine and client, between motor vehicle and client, etc. Automation of these tasks is not even on the horizon just yet though some low level occupations are becoming redundant.

Rather than look at the IQ or g of individuals, lets ask what the average IQ of a people might be and what advantage there might be to lifting it. Are there enough high end, middle and low IQ individuals to perform certain functions? It is my observation that high IQ people are frustrated with too few occupations and opportunities for their intellectual capacities.

There is a very real prospect that some countries have a lower average IQ because of the lack of opportunity for high IQ individuals (therefore no selective advantage) which could be remedied in only a few generations (as the higher IQ is not a mutation but purely a selection and enhancement through breeding from existing stocks).

The USA is swamped with Lawyers, a quite different problem. In this we are seeing people exercising their choice of occupation at the expense of less attractive (to them) occupations that require their intelligence and that need more people. Physics is suffering (I hear).

A greater influx of intelligent people would only increase the number of Lawyers, if the USA trend is anything to go by.

And then there are the occupations that intelligent people refuse to do. Now the gene rich countries import itinerant workers from gene poor countries. In the USA this would probably mean Mexico – already the main source for itinerant farm workers, especially in the south.

Another side effect of too much intelligence is the frustration of those who do not fulfill their intellectual potential. No group more viciously turn on themselves than the intellectuals when frustrated. There are a range of mental illnesses that stem from exactly this. It is almost as if the unused intellectual capacity can fester.

So, even before we consider the genes for intelligence, I question the first assumption: that a higher average IQ is necessarily better. I point to countries with a higher average IQ than, say, the USA (eg Scandinavian and some other European and Asian countries) and point out that they are not necessarily doing better by some measures, eg economically.

If, however, it could be shown that each step on the intellectual scale (for a country) increased the prospects for that country then that would be something, but it seems to me that there is an increase only to around 100 after which no substantial increase in economy, lifestyle, reported happiness, levels of violence etc flatten out.

Some African nations have a lower average IQ, but this may be largely due to several non-genetic factors:- health in maturation; exposure to or stimulation of the intellect.

Both of these points can be addressed. Note that illiterate people (through lack of exposure to education) always score lower in IQ tests regardless of the culture they come from. Sir Isaac Newton was the first of the Newtons who could sign his own name – makes you think, doesn't it!! (and look how well the Vietnamese refugees of the 70s did – their parents were generally below average IQ).

I understand that this is not an immediate problem. However this technology is not something that is decided by the individual who is receiving it. Were you to make the changes on yourself after the fact, then I really have no problem with that (though I am unsure if it would help at that point), unfortunately we are talking about unborn babies, who have no say in what happens to them.

Gee, I guess the only things you can say to this are:

"Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it."

and

"Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

There are issues in this new technology that must be carefully guaged to prevent the above from becoming true.

I haven't looked at the IQ literature in a while, but if you are interested in the topic then I strongly recommend Stephen Jay Gould's book, The Mismeasure of Man. He lays out arguments for multiple dimensions of intelligence (as part of an incredibly lucid verbal explanation of how factor analysis works). He also discusses much of the history of fraud and other bad science in IQ research. The cover of the revised and expanded 1996 edition says it is "The definitive refutation to the argument of The Bell Curve."

Most of the BBC article talks as if intelligence or genius were simple unidimensional qualities. Plomin is quoted as saying that "Each [gene] may account for a small piece of the action" but the article doesn't pay much attention to the complexity of how genes actually interact with each other and influence developmental processes, let alone the complex processes by which genetic and environmental influences interact. Rather than getting Murray and Rifkin's ideologically driven repetition of their existing views, the writer might have been better off interviewing scientists who deal with these issues, who could say something about what may be new, or not, in these findings.

Most likely people will still want what they don't have, and strive to do things that are near or beyond the limits of their abilities. That is likely to leave plenty of space for drama, hope, despair, joy, fear and all the rest of the gamut of human emotions. And one can at least suggest that those emotions will stimulate further creativity and exploration of new emergent possibilities. That may be a bit different from what you mean by a dark side, but certainly it's more than a tranquilized or "therapied" placid harmony.

Charles Murray's book is racist and pseudoscientific. I already wrote that; see "for whom the bell curve tolls" above. BTW kurt2100, you ought not to put 3 long posts in a row at the top level. Even I'm not that hoggish.

As to your points:

if you are smart, you have much greater opportunities for financial success

True enough, but what about such other truths as, if you are rich, you have much greater opportunities for financial success… if you are a member of the dominant ethnic and cultural group… if you are young… if you are well-educated… if you are lucky…?

A key point that he made in the book is that "any activity, even if its washing dishes in a restaurant, can be more effectively done by a person of greater cognitive ability, than one of less cognitive ability"

This is so silly I wouldn't bother to reply, except to point out that it is wrong in a really profound way. A person who is genuinely "smart," and burning with a passion for life, is likely to resent being used as a dishwasher. Such a person makes a very poor slave or peon, and is likely to act out in ways that provoke the blows of the overseer or the State. On the other hand, what is seen by the bosses as "laziness" or "stupidity" can often be the masked resentment of the oppressed or exploited. For the same reasons, such people may fail to perceive the existence of opportunities for advancement by "good behavior." A society is made up of human relationships, and people must have their dignity, too.

I thought at the time (in '94) that if genetic engineering could be developed, that it could then be used as a tool to increase the cognitive ability of the cognitive-disadvantage,

You illustrate beautifully why the Black Power radicals hated White liberals more than klansmen.

Well, that day is on the horizon

No, it's not. The attempt to increase "cognitive ability" through eugenics will achieve very little, and it will be rapidly overtaken by the advance of pure technology.

The rest of your comment is just bootless gush.

Charles Murray's The Bell Curve is an overtly racist and heavily pseudoscientific book (hate propaganda masquerading as social science) which is remarkable principally for the degree of acceptance it won in otherwise "respectable" forums such as the New Republic (which promoted it with a cover story) and other mass media outlets. No, I haven't read it. Neither have I read Erich Von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods, but I have skimmed both, and others have debunked them thoroughly. You can easily locate well-written critiques.

It would be surprising if IQ test scores, which basically measure academic achievement (without regard to whether there is a genetic component of its variance), did not correlate with other measures of social and economic status, and the degree to which an individual and his family leads an orderly, achievement-oriented life. What is pseudoscientific is not the statistical data demonstrating such correlations, but Murray's twisting them up with strident racist and elitist rhetoric, and claiming to have proven arguments that the data does not prove or even address.

Yummm…. There are not that many things I like better than a thoughtful response that's completely wrong-headed. Point by point:

There is a fair body of work that has identified a 'g' factor. No one yet knows what it means in any real sense.

The consensus science is that about half of the variance in IQ test scores is due to genetic factors, based on separated-twin studies. Whether this finding is correct (I tend to suspect the motives of people who do such studies) or only partly correct (surely there is some genetic contribution to the variance of IQ test scores), the interpretation of IQ test scores in terms of a single "g factor" is at best a dubious hypothesis and at worst pseudoscience.

I think the "g factor" is primarily an ideological construction, and, in the absence of any proof that such a variable, separable from the empirical fact of an IQ test score, exists prior to and and serves as an explanation of the latter, my opinion is as good as anyone's. Another notion that has gained popularity in recent years is that there are "seven intelligences". Why seven? My guess is it's a number optimized for popular consumption. As for the single "g-factor", my guess is that the number "one" is chosen for its suggestion of a single human hierarchy, a single direction of progress — monotheism, in other words.

It is extremely unlikely that the genetic contribution to variance of IQ test scores is accounted for by a single genetic variable. I'll just say that anyone who disputes this statement knows little or nothing about genetics, neurobiology, or human development.

What is an IQ test, anyway? It is a test of some set of skills, not the least of which is the skill of test-taking, often honed by years of earnest academic competition. Most of the classic IQ tests are really tests of general knowledge, which, as has been amply pointed out, is highly culture-specific. Attempts to remedy this bias generally involve putting a greater emphasis on visual, logical and mathematical puzzles, but that only increases the advantage enjoyed by those who have oriented and trained themselves to solve such problems efficiently in the academic setting.

There is simply no way of objectively assessing unrealized "potential" (presumably this is what Professor Plomin is trying to do), and no way of separating "general intelligence" from achievement in an "IQ" test.

I refer you and others to the excellent article at http://www.prometheussociety.org/Outsiders.html. Note in particular the difference in kind, not in degree, that seems to take place around IQ 150.

This article amply demonstrates the pseudoscientific nature of the "high IQ" enterprise. Apart from some correlations between "IQ" and scores on a few other tests, including tests of "social adjustment," the article contains almost exclusively anecdotal evidence and subjective judgements. For example, the passage dealing with your "difference in kind":

The genius (as regards intellectual ability) not only has an IQ of say 50 points more than the average person, but in virtue of this difference acquires seemingly new aspects (potentialities) or characteristics. These seemingly new aspects or characteristics, in their totality, are what go to make up the "qualitative" difference between them [9, p. 134].

"Seemingly new aspects…" like what, exactly? Shouldn't "qualitative" differences be easier to demonstrate empirically than quantitative ones? Where is the evidence? This is myth-creation.

Wechsler is saying quite plainly that those with IQs above 150 are different in kind from those below that level. He is saying that they are a different kind of mind, a different kind of human being.

By golly, that is what he's saying, but where is the evidence?

This subjective impression of a difference in kind also appears to be fairly common among members of the super high IQ societies themselves. When Prometheus and Triple Nine members were asked if they perceived a categorical difference between those above this level and others, most said that they did,

Why does it not surprise me that members of IQ snob societies think of themselves as "different" from ordinary people?

the only hope we have of building binary descendents that we understand *at all* is to build them out of the primitives we discover in the human brain.

The reverse is true. The only useful software "primitive" we have discovered in the human brain is the generic idea of a neural network, and that leads to a form of computation distinguished by the fact that no one understands it at all. But programmers and developers who build complex information systems out of ordinary procedural languages do understand what they're doing, at least locally. Large systems do outgrow any single individual's complete understanding, but can be composed hierarchically so that they are unlikely to get out of control or be doing anything radically unexpected. (I said can be, not that they always are. Where it matters, they should be, and where it really matters, they generally are.)

why should we expect to understand and be able to communicate with emergent behavior in systems which don't even share our basic drives or biology?

What we don't want are computers that share our basic drives or structure. Such systems would likely be very dangerous to us. In general, we don't want "emergent behavior" at all, unless it is intentional and very well controlled. If we see unexpected behavior, we generally call it a bug and try to fix it (yeah, or call it a feature). We want powerful, flexible systems, but we don't want them trying to get out of the box.

If I'm 4'8", there's no chance that I'll make it to the NBA. Period. While there are many different ways to be a genius, genetic predisposition is necessary but not sufficient.

I think the basketball analogy is a rim shot at best. As Edison said, "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration." It's years of focused, hard work, not a matter of being able to dunk the ball in because you're taller. The intellectual slam-dunk, such as Kary Mullis' invention of PCR, is what I think Mullis will tell you does not require any particular sort of genius, just being in the right place at the right time. As for your claim that true genius requires a "genetic predisposition," where is the proof of that? And, if it were true, of what use would it be to know this? I think the use of any procedure to identify and harvest "potential geniuses" will (and does) do more harm than good, by discouraging others, and by justifying elitism and snobbery.

While I am not aware of any study of the correlation between IQ and the degree of obsession about IQ, there are some partial hints in the article I referenced above.

I agree that the article amply illustrates the stupidity of the IQ obsession.

What is your metric for the 'good of humanity'?

What is good for us humans. If by "metric" you mean some simplistic formulation, I don't have one.

you are a Luddite sympathizer at heart.

The Enemy!? Oh no, please, I swear….

Luddite sympathizer? Have you no sympathy for the loom-weavers of the early 19th century, who fought, alas to no avail, against the destruction of their proud and prosperous way of life? Maybe cheap lace for the masses was worth the price of so many families, but did it have to come in such a way? Why is it that technological progress in any field of endeavor so often leads not to the empowerment and enrichment of those engaged in that line of work, but to their degradation and impoverishment? Is there nothing amiss here?

I am as enthusiastic as anyone about the possibilities of technology to open new opportunities and provide genuine improvements in the lot of human beings. But technology brings a mixed bag of fruits, and anyone who does not see this is being willfully blind.

I argue that all knowledge is good.

You argue against the wisdom of the ages, going back to the Book of Genesis, and brought up to date by such modern gifts of Prometheus as the knowledge of how to make nuclear weapons (impossible to unlearn, but alas), how to manipulate public opinion, and so on.

humanity must a) survive as a species… and b) spread life through the universe.

Okay, maybe not completely wrong-headed. It's hard to believe that anyone could disagree with a), though, apparently, some do; b) is optional, but I'm all in favor of it. Peace.

The discussion of eugenics has become a "taboo" subject owing to the horrible atrocities that the Nazies commited in the name of eugenics and the creation of the "master race". Some clarification is in order about the details of the Nazi attrocities and how they are linked to the general concept of eugenics.

The word eugenics means "good genes", and has been associated with various attempts (mostly in the 20th century) to promote the development of "good people" (know in spanish as "buena gente"). What made the Nazies so evil was not eugenics per se, but their actions in pursuing it for the following reasons:

1) They used a standard of eugenics (aryan master race) that was of a nature that was clearly unattainable for those who did not fit it to begin with.

2) They used this standard of eugenics as a basis of not only depriving people of their civil liberties, but of exterminating (ending their lives) them as well.

3) All of this was done by means of "top-down" institutional power (i.e. a totalitarian government) where people were assummed to have no rights independent of this institutional power.

The historical lesson here, one that Jeremy Rifkin and Bill Joy seem incapable of understanding, is that the abuse of "top-down" institutional power has always been of source of all human attrocities and depravity through-out human history, including the Nazi attrocities.

The historical analog between what the nazies did and how genetic technology will be used in the future simply isn't valid for the following reasons:

1) The totalitarian system of government, such as the one the Nazies imposed, simply is not likely to happen in the future. In deed, it has been argued that the technological changes that make eugenics possible are actually weakening the power of institutions relative to individuals. As such, there is no possibility of a "top-down" imposition odf any kind of eugenics policy, Nazi-style, in the foreseeable future. Even Jeremy Rifkin and Bill Joy themselves have admitted as such in many of thier writings and statements. So, this analog doesn't hold water.

2) No one that I know of has ever suggested that people who choose not to engage in this technology, be stripped of their civil liberties, let alone exterminated. There are plenty of civil libertarian (including myself) who would see to it that this never occurs. Furthurmore, the imposition of this kind of attrocity requires the existance of a totalitarian system (see above) that just isn't going to happen in the future. In deed, many of the new technologies are being advocated BECAUSE they empower the individual (Clinton again) relative to institutional power. So, this analogy doesn't hold water.

3) Criterion by which people would use genetic technology are based on specific attributes, such as intelligence and social behavior, which are independent of racial background. Thus, a eugenics standard that is definitionally impossible for some people to attain (such as "aryan master race") as not being promugated here. So, this analogy with the Nazies is not valid either.

So, as you can see, whatever the arguments for or against genetic technology as a tool of social policy, any historical analogs to the Nazies are irrelevant to the discussion. So let bury this notion here and now.

Sorry for taking it personally. I guess that I have developed an automatic response to the tone that some other posters on this forum tend to take when I question their adolescent power fantasies, proclaiming "just try and stop me" when I question the maturity or intelligence of their position.

The 'survival" thing was definitely a case of over-dramatisation. Mea culpa.

I totally agree with what you said on another thread about remaining in touch with the dark side of human nature. I think I'd go postal if I was forced to live in Happy Machine Elf Land.