Tech execs are paying tens of thousands to find brilliant dates or select high-IQ embryos. ‘They want to raise high-performing children.’
By Zusha Elinson of The WSJ. Excerpts:
"Parents here are paying up to $50,000 for new genetic-testing services that include promises to screen embryos for IQ."
"professional matchmakers are setting up tech execs with brilliant partners partly to get brilliant offspring."
"in Silicon Valley, where top preschools require IQ tests and openness to novelty runs high, parents aren’t burdened by moral quandaries of using technology to select for their children’s intelligence before birth."
"Startups Nucleus Genomics and Herasight have begun publicly offering IQ predictions, based on genetic tests, to help people select which embryos to use for in vitro fertilization. Bay Area demand is high for the services, costing around $6,000 at Nucleus and up to $50,000 at Herasight."
[one couple] "made a shared Google spreadsheet and both ranked the importance of each trait."
"“What percent additional lifetime risk for Alzheimer’s balances a 1% decrease in lifetime risk for bipolar?” they wrote. “How much additional risk of ADHD cancels out against 10 extra IQ points?” After vigorous discussion and some complex calculations, they came up with scores for each embryo."
This reminds me the sperm bank whose donors were Nobel Prize winners in science. See Book Excerpt: 'The Genius Factory' from ABC News in 2005. Excerpt:
"Robert K. Graham was a millionaire who set out to create a sperm bank stocked solely with the sperm of Nobel laureates. During its 19 years, The Repository for Germinal Choice, also known as the genius sperm bank, sparked a great deal of controversy. Critics accused Graham of being a racist and a white supremacist for trying to create a race of "superkids."
The sperm bank produced 215 children between 1980 and 1999."
"he was distributing it [the sperm] only to women smart enough to qualify for the high-IQ society Mensa. Graham had given his sperm bank a name that had the thud of second-rate science fiction: "The Repository for Germinal Choice.""
Related posts:
The preference for partners of the same education has significantly increased for white individuals (2017) (It seems like well educated whites want partners that will share their values in developing the human capital of their children (like sending them to college))
What Will College Students Do For Money? (2013)
""College newspapers and Craigslist carry advertisements seeking women
and men, particularly students with high GPAs and SATs, who are willing
to "donate" their gametes."
"Egg donors in the United States are typically paid $5,000 to $10,000, a
voluntary ceiling established by the American Society for Reproductive
Medicine. Sperm donors get about $100 per donation;...""
