• Question: Can we genetically improve intelligence?

    Asked by 317yttc25 to Anna, Hayley, Iain, Rebecca on 15 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Iain Bethune

      Iain Bethune answered on 15 Jun 2015:

      Probably yes, although improving any aspect of human health / performance by genetic selection is ethically questionable at best! It’s very hard to separate out the effect of improved education vs genetic effects on intelligence. I also depends how you measure intelligence. According to the IQ measure, we are certainly getting smarted over the last 100 years, and this is known as the Flynn Effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect) and is thought to be due to various factors, not just genetics.

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 15 Jun 2015:

      I absolutely agree with Iain – although it might be possible, it is very questionable whether we should do things like that.

Comments