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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   28816 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 14, 2024

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Well it looks like embryo selection for IQ is here.

A US startup, using data from the UK Biobank, is offering embryo selection for “IQ and the other naughty traits that everybody wants”, including sex, height, risk of obesity and risk of mental illness.

What surprises me most about this is that they were able to use the Biobank data, and that the head of the Biobank is defending its use. The Biobank is, as I understand, the world's best source of genetic data and I had always hoped that it would be used for this kind of liberal eugenics. However I'd assumed that doing so would be hampered by 'bioethicists' or at least the default political caution of these kind of institutions. However, the head of the Biobank seems to...think this is good?

UK Biobank … has confirmed that its analyses of our data have been used solely for their approved purpose to generate genetic risk scores for particular conditions, and are exploring the use of their findings for preimplantation screening in accordance with relevant regulation in the US where Heliospect is based. This is entirely consistent with our access conditions. By making data available, UK Biobank is allowing discoveries to emerge that would not otherwise have been possible, saving lives and preventing disability and misery.

Well that's a pleasant surprise. I guess I shouldn't be too shocked that the head of a massive genetics project actually understands the implications of his scientific field, but it's great to have my default cynicism proven wrong.

The quotes from the 'bioethicists' are maddening, of course:

Dagan Wells, a professor of reproductive genetics at University of Oxford, asked: “Is this a test too far, do we really want it? It feels to me that this is a debate that the public has not really had an opportunity to fully engage in at this point.”

Not an argument, he's just vaguely gesturing at the implication that it might be bad. It's also unclear why, in a context where IVF is already legal and accepted by almost everyone, this needs to be subject to a public debate. This is just IVF with more informed choices over which embryo to implant.

Katie Hasson, associate director of the Center for Genetics and Society, in California, said: “One of the biggest problems is that it normalises this idea of ‘superior’ and ‘inferior’ genetics.” The rollout of such technologies, she said, “reinforces the belief that inequality comes from biology rather than social causes”.

Translation: This scientific advance is bad because it reminds people of facts which I am politically uncomfortable with.

If being slim, happy, kind, law-abiding, rich or intelligent is better than being fat, depressed, cruel, criminal, poor or stupid, and if these things are affected by genetics (which they are) then there is such a thing as superior or inferior genetics.

Either Ms Hasson believes that genes don't influence anything (in which case she should not be working at a centre for genetics) or she believes that all human characteristics are equally good (in which case she should not use the term 'ethicist' in her title). Or perhaps she is a bioethicist who believes in neither biology nor ethics.

By late 2023, the founders of Heliospect claimed to have already analysed and helped select embryos for five couples, which had subsequently been implanted through IVF. “There are babies on the way,”

This is probably the most important part in my mind. It will be extremely hard to argue against embryo selection when there are happy, healthy, intelligent children running around. In the same way that skepticism around IVF vanished as the first IVF babies grew up, there will one day be embryo-selected adults giving interviews on TV, eloquently defending it.

Tiger mothers of the world, rejoice. You can now give your kids a heads-up that actually works, and doesn't require you driving them to extra-curriculars all the time.

Assuming the technology works, it won't be a big deal. For one, the differences in IQ between siblings tends to be small.

More practically most people who use IVF only have a few embryos. Older mothers especially will have fewer. And many or most embryos either won't be viable or will have other defects that dominate a small IQ effect.

So even though this will be sold as some sort of Gattaca situation, in practice it might end up with a mother choosing an embryo with an IQ of 110 +/- 15 over one with an IQ of 108 +/- 15. And the cost of $50k for such a small benefit will dissuade all but the richest people.

I do agree that I don't expect this to change the world drastically. Most babies will continue to be born the old-fashioned way.

But you're assuming that this technology doesn't change the kind, or number of parents that get IVF. Think about tiger parents who send their three year old children to pre-MBA programmes. Do you think they wouldn't be willing to do something that actually makes a difference to their future children's outcomes? Even if it is only 2 IQ points, that's worth more than violin lessons or debate club.

Plus, we can reasonably expect the price to come down as more companies enter the space (there are already two that I know of). Soon enough, I expect the current 'doctor eyeballs the embryos to decide which one to implant' to be replaced with genetic testing in most IVF clinics. If you're already paying for the IVF, why not pay a little extra to give your future child a better chance in life?

Yeah, it pushes things forward very, very slightly.

Note that Orchid has already been offering genetic testing for other things for awhile now, and it has a very small number of users. (But among them, Elon Musk!)

But Gattaca this ain't. The number of IVF babies is ridiculously low. Only about 2.5% of babies in the US are conceived via IVF, almost all of whom are born to older mothers. If you want to have a high IQ baby, then conceiving naturally at 25 will give you far better odds than using this technology at age 38.

But in any case, let's say 10% of IVF babies use this service and the average IQ bump is 2 points.

This will result in 2.5% * 10% * 2 points = 0.005 points higher IQ among all babies. This doesn't even come close to offsetting the natural dysgenic trends from older mothers and low IQ people having more kids.

The reason for the low number of babies via IVF is because of the expense.

You'd have to decrease the cost of IVF to a large degree in order to see any real changes on a measurable scale.

You're typical minding. I predict that with cheap IVF there won't be a huge increase in IVF births because the people who will do this are strivers with .7 TFR that by its nature won't move the needle much.

That and, well, there's more kinds of expense than just the purely monetary -- IVF is inherently a somewhat invasive medical procedure (apparently involving a good amount of being poked with Big Honking Needles while the doctor watches on ultrasound to make sure that the right bit is being poked, as well as dosing with hormone treatments with occasional interesting side effects) and even without the current multi-thousand-dollar medical bills this is a "cost" that people may reasonably decide they don't want to pay.

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