Gene Editing and Intelligence: A Bad

There was so much more I wanted to talk about here...it's a hard subject for 4 minutes. Obviously the bad thing being glossed over in the beginning is "Well, so we're going to create a race of smart people to 'help' everyone else? Yeah that sounds like it will go fine! DEFINITELY NOT DYSTOPIAN AT ALL"

Another thing is that it seems likely that identifying traits that result in them being smart, is much more about what traits result in the the ability to acquire the mental tools and systems that we call "intelligence", rather than /having/ intelligence. Because I don't think intelligence is a thing on its own, I think it's a skill.

Which leads me to the last thing, which is that we might have really good systems for helping people with certain traits acquire intelligence. That's not the same thing as the traits being "intelligence." If there were different systems, different traits would lead to the acquisition of intelligence.

And ALSO humans are just not as individual as we like to imagine...we build systems out of people, and our focus on the power of individuals is much more about cognitive bias than it is about reality.

And, of course, we know so little about any of this that everyone talking about it is bound to be wrong, including me, about the eventual impacts of gene editing, especially with regards to intelligence.

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[jagrubster]

“I’m not even sure I have blonde hair” somehow sums up this entire video very well

[dominictemple]

What you said is, as always, insightful and thoughtful. It also reminded me of a scene from a John Scalzi novel, where a pet saleswoman talks about how she only sells old fashioned pets, instead of the new genetically enginered ones which are much harder to hurt or kill because she believes a good way to get children to treat animals kindly is to have consequences for bad behaviour. Or something along those lines, it's been a while since I read The Android's Dream.

[FiMilton]

As a person with a genetic disability I would love to see gene editing to make sure people are born healthy. I would not wish the pain and struggles I’ve gone through on anyone. It is also so heartbreaking to see others do things I know I am unable to do and I don’t want others to feel the despair I do.

[izstrella]

A big part of “intelligence” the way it works now is also performative. The ones we perceive as “genius” are often the ones who are constantly outwardly verified as such. I knew so many people in high school who took the more artistic routes and yet were a shit ton better at problem solving during group projects than any of the kids in my calculus class. But, because they weren’t in calculus everyone in calculus got a big head about how they were the most intelligent in the school (me included, but luckily I squashed that nonsense fast, haha). We weren’t, or maybe we were, but no one could really know because we were just the loudest.
Just think about how many “genius level” people are out there right now who think they are “stupid” because they didn’t attend an Ivy League school or something.

[jenniferlutzky]

Thanks so much for this video, Hank! I have an awesome daughter with sensory processing disorder and ADHD (and ulcerative colitis -- she may be your secret twin) and understanding intelligence in ways other than "I can do well in our rigid school environment structured for one kind of brain" is SO IMPORTANT. (Getting off mom soapbox now.)

[jazliek]

Gene editing makes me vvvery wary. Like I remember in freshman biology in HS my teacher saying something off hand about peoples sexuality being genetic and instantly my brain had alarms blaring because I do not yet trust humans to be able to genetically identify things like sexuality, disability, etc and not go straight to eugenics!!

[Beltonius]

ALso, our problems are not caused by a lack of raw intelligence (whatever that is). It's caused by social resistance to changes. We know how to, technically, solve most problems we have; we can't just get everyone to agree to the nature of the issue or if they're even worth solving

[mariahelena]

this is genuinely one of my favorite videos, i always come back to it

[ABPmusic]

This one of Hank's best takes of all time, and that's saying something

[heathervivaviennetta]

I've always considered Hank to have red hair...

[Hey-there-]

As a former educator, this one of the many reasons I left the school system and now work in a nonprofit that provides out-of-school programs and other supports. I saw that our kids first needed their basic needs (and beyond) met before they could be ready to learn to be ready to take a standardized test designed by “successful” people for students who were already set up for success. We focus on academics, sure, but even moreso on social and emotional wellness and self-worth. We help our families learn how to advocate for themselves and their needs in a system that wasn’t designed for them. Why can’t schools do more of this and less assembly line standardization? The answer is that it’s hard but I don’t think that reformation is impossible; we put our money into what we value, and right now that’s training teachers to teach to the test but it can be cultivating lifelong learners. (There’s nothing wrong with standards, but they should act as a compass not an obstacle.)

[t.nysted]

Very true. And good to open the conversation and working towards a different narrative on intelligence than the classical either you have it, or you do not.
Removing traits, such as those that flag as ADHD and Autism, both of which I have, seems kinda like purging the mutants from the X-Men universe. I am convinced my neuro-diverse brain is a superpower. A result of communal evolution because as a society we need the hyperactive, the oversensitive, the overthinker, we need the one to notice the flaw in the pattern or logic. We need that diversity as a species to adabt. That seems like the intelligent path forward.

[cloudfrost]

Great video. As an aspiring mathematician and philosopher I don’t believe we need “more intelligent” brains to solve some of our hardest current unsolved problems, unless we are talking about brains that are fundamentally, mathematically more powerful. We might get there quicker, but just as no supercomputer can do anything a Turing machine with six states and a roll of tape cannot, I don’t believe one conscious mind can solve problems another is truly unable to. (Whether any human mind can do more than a Turing machine is a debate too long to fit in a YouTube comment).

[carltonbanks]

"I am not even sure if I have blonde hair" I am SO glad we agree on that Hank, I've been thinking about that 😭

[TheProductofyourmind]

Looking at how life during COVID was/is, I have learned that being autistic may not be suited for modern society so well, but it's absolutely suited for a pandemic lockdown. Spending an entire year without most social contacts was such a non-issue for me personally and I know that for many neurotypical people it was really hard.

[emmajdoodles]

My 10 yr son has adhd and sensory processing issues and many days he struggled with many things, equally hard and exhausting for him and me but he's started to find something he really enjoys. Cooking. Hes never going to be as smart as Elon Musk or write like Stephen King but if he works hard he will be a damn good chef. Hes not afraid to experiment with flavours and he tells me all the time about his restaurants hes going to have.

[caiolynromereim]

we are talking about this in the BME major. where to stop gene editing and when it goes from helpful to society (getting rid of horrible disease) to playing god

[rev.rachel]

Yes. As a person who is autistic and proud of it, let's please not do anything that sounds like eugenics. A friendly reminder that just because you can't imagine thriving and being happy with some trait another person has, that doesn't mean that trait is something they experience as negative.

[PuppetsByPalmieri]

Genetic editing can give us more variety than we could ever get from Darwinian evolution.

[_maxgray]

Shout out to all the twins who have participated in twin studies! The world knows so much more about the effects of genes vs. environment because of you.