Patri's Journal: Current
This is Patri's current journal. It is kept on LiveJournal as patrissimo, but you are reading the archived copy on patrifriedman.com.
effect of genetic engineering on parent/child relationships (comment on this entry at LiveJournal)
Entry Date: 2004-06-30 11:31:00
Logged: 2004-06-30 11:34:21
Current Mood: When I Was Mad
Current Music: "Pet Shop Boys-Very-Yesterday
So I was reading yet another debunking of environmentalist hysteria, and thinking about the F vs. T clash in approaching the world. Then I wondered whether genetic engineering for increased intelligence will increase the number of Ts (NTs?) in the world. And suddenly I saw the intro scene from Real Genius being repeated across the world. ("Tell me, is Mitch by any chance adopted?"..."They're OK, they just sometimes don't have any idea what I'm talking about." "I"m sure of that").
What will it do to parent-child relationships if a generation of children is born with 10pt higher IQ's than their parents? Remember that the generation gap is a good 25-30 years nowadays, so biotech doesn't have to progress quickly to get that big a jump. If we find one tweak that helps by 2 points every 5 years, that would be enough. We'd have a generation of kids whose parents couldn't easily help them with high school homework or science fair experiments.
One important facet is whether we can engineer better social/emotional adaptation as well. Are these kids intellectually precocious but socially just as awkward as other adolescents? Or perhaps even more so - we've all seen how socially awkward geeks can be, and there may be a correlation, ie slower physical maturity lets the brain develop longer or something. Or maybe not, I may just be biased because my family has a strong tendency to early intellectual and late physical/social maturity. Anyway, its a very different picture if these are a bunch of uberkids vs. if they are a bunch of smart-but-normal kids, who still need lots of emotional support / socialization.
Either way though, it seems like it will exacerbate the gap. It can already be hard enough to understand our kids language, hobbies, and interests, when they have greater technical knowledge it'll be even harder. Its not like this is a new problem - kids do get born who are much smarter than their parents. But I think it will become much more widespread. (Assuming that biotech can increase IQ and that it becomes cheap - I think these are likely, but for now just try to assume it and imagine the consequences).
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