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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 14, 2024

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While I don't have any hard evidence, this thing trips my "scam" intuition big time.

The only "scam" that seems likely here would be overstating the potential. It doesn't look like they're doing anything that isn't already routinely done with IVF, they're just getting more specific and detailed about it, connecting it to current best-understanding data on genetics. IVF clients are already routinely informed of the sex and "strength" of the embryos created, along with obvious stuff like "this embryo has trisomy 21" or whatever. Since there isn't a "big IQ" gene, the best they could do with this particular measure would be "given our current best understanding, embryo A is X% more likely to have increased IQ than embryo B."

That is still a long, long way from doing things like bioengineering superhumans. As the Gattaca line goes--"Keep in mind, this child is still you. Simply--the best of you."

EDIT: On reflection I guess my biggest worry about this is that it could exacerbate a certain poorly-understood trend.

I think my bigger fear is not that the technology can't work in principle--it can, although overstating the expected improvement is a real risk. It's that this particular company could well be a scam, and fraudulent companies could expect to survive well into the future with very limited negative feedback signal. There's little ability for consumers to accurately evaluate its efficacy, and you'll always be able to point out stories of screened embryos doing well.

Parents who go for this are going to be solidly above the average anyway, further skewing the results toward good outcomes even absent any real effects.

Another angle is that this is likely to get political very fast. There will be a lot of bad faith actors lodging criticisms at it, and that naturally creates an us-vs-them, circle the wagons mentality. That's something to be avoided at all costs.