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Chinese Clinic Uses DNA Tests To Predict Kids' Talents
Death Metal writes with this excerpt from CNN:
"About 30 children aged 3 to 12 years old and their parents are participating in a new program that uses DNA testing to identify genetic gifts and predict the future. ... The test is conducted by the Shanghai Biochip Corporation. Scientists claim a simple saliva swab collects as many as 10,000 cells that enable them to isolate eleven different genes. By taking a closer look at the genetic codes, they say they can extract information about a child's IQ, emotional control, focus, memory, athletic ability and more. For about $880, Chinese parents can sign their kids up for the test and five days of summer camp in Chongqing, where the children will be evaluated in various settings from sports to art. The scientific results, combined with observations by experts throughout the week, will be used to make recommendations to parents about what their child should pursue."
It's only a small step from testing for these purported genes in kids, to testing for 'em in embryo bits. Then we get eugenics and kid selection, and surprise, there's a superhuman race inheriting the earth. *shrug* I think we all know how these things go.
Note: I was 13 when I wrote most of this. Take with several grains of salt.
Wont be long now until their obsession with "achievement at all costs" leads the Chinese to start genetically engineering their kids.
Seriously did anyone else see the resemblance?
they say they can extract information about a child's IQ
A quick scan over the summary and spotting that set off my bullshit alarms. The genes that go in to shaping someones intelligence and IQ are likely to be multitude, and we have virtually no idea how the genes, working together, come to influence ones IQ.
Nicely done China, you have discovered the well documented Pygmalion Effect. This is so common in society. For example, in Chinese culture there is significant attention paid to the oldest son. He's expected to do better, to succeed and eventually become wealthy. So he's encouraged. This encouragement and positive reinforcement can cause the child to succeed. Whereas other children are not given the same expectations and relatively do poorer.
So you these people will take their kid to this clinic, who will say, "this kid should become a scientist." Then the parents will do whatever it takes to make the kid a scientist. Possibly ignoring the signs that he/she might be attuned to being a musician or artist.
In other news... Looks like the Chinese have also watched and decided to implement in real life the movie Gattaca.
We do not know enough (or anything for the sceptics...) about the actual genes that control these traits, so I doubt this test is any more efficient than just examining the parents phenotype and predicting based on that. In fact, given they are stupid enough to think they can predict better, they probably are doing worse...
:(){
"My kid has better genes than yours and I can prove it..."
"It is fair to say many of the kids in Chongqing looked like they were having fun, whether they were jumping on ping pong tables, drawing or playing interactive games."
Jumping ON them doesn't seem to be the correct use of ping-pong tables.
something that Solid and Liquid Snake would argue endlessly about. Whether it'd be genes or DNA.
The sooner they know, the sooner they can ship them off to (insert Olympic sport) camp for the rest of their childhood.
I remember reading a big article in the German science magazine "Spektrum der Wissenschaft", that there is no such thing as innate talent.
They tried to find out, what made geniuses geniuses. And they found, that it's not relevant what you were born with.
What is relevant, is to keep yourself in proper balance between choosing too hard and too easy tasks to grow from. The closer this balance is to your abilities, the faster your abilities will grow. I can also say from my own experience, that it's true.
The other factor is, to be able to structure your thoughts and knowledge. Even for sports.
For example in chess, a beginner would try to keep the position of every figure in his mind,
While an advanced player might store the same state as "the Someguy move" with "the Otherguy variation" and "this pawn is advanced one field".
And a masterful player would most likely think of it as "the Fooguy setup" with "the Barguy move" and "this pawn doing the Bazguy-style attack".
So you put your thoughts into sets that fit in one of the eight (on average) short-term memory "registers" you have. And to create many associations in your long-term memory, so you can quickly get to many related things.
That's all there is to geniuses. So whatever someone told you about you being unable to do: As long as it is still physically possible (i.e. you're not 75 and trying to win an Olympic medal for 100m running), you can do it!
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Ok this sounds a bit like B.S. Besides, being more of a trans-humanist I look forward to a future where we can modify our bodies to posses any of the biochemical advantages that are today delivered by genetics. Look at something like Viagra. Before it came along people thought that not being able to get a stiffy was all in one's mind. Now anyone of any age can get one without having to read a ton of self-help books and years of Freudian psychoanalysis B.S. It will be hard for people to accept but the same thing will probably soon happen with athletic ability and intelligence. Soon the dream of everyone becoming what they dreamed of being but never had the natural ability to do will be realized. It will still take hard work, but at least it will be possible and those with genetic gifts will move up to an as yet undreamed of level of human potential.
Scoff now. But when China has that army of well-adjusted, talent-nurtured super kids, who's the one who is gonna be laughing?
"For about $880 ... children will be evaluated in various settings from sports to art."
The DNA test is just a cover to make the parents (or if the parents are really stupid, the program) look good. Consider that none of you noticed, it is a very good one.
It's just like how the oracle is always beloved no matter how misleading, but Socrates... So stop been afraid of magic, a technique that destroys the nature order will never exit. They just want your money / your just what to fell your problem which you can't solve, can't be solved by anyone, but only with access to a higher power. So it is not your fault.
This reminds me so much of Gattaca. If you send your children to this camp and one does well and another does poorly, you can't help but feel differently about the children. This is evil
They can do that in the Gene Projection now? Wow! Back in my day we had to wait until we were 16 to take the G.O.A.T. and find all that out!
In a way biochemistry is like the ultimate hacking frontier. People have no clue what our DNA actually does and mostly the only viable tools that currently exist are intutition and various methods of guessing until we get lucky.
Drug companies do the same thing except rather than guessing wrong and sending the next Einstein off to become a plumber people die.
Incidently, I am in Shanghai. And working in biology. I have heard of these clinics (there seem to be several), because they
are picking up up young graduates from the Universities to do the work. They pay well (compared to what the graduates get when
they do a postdoc), but obviously more money will disappear in the pockets of the managers/directors of said clinics.
From a biological standpoint, the whole thing is a scam. Perhaps they can predict some things a little bit, but from what I have seen I think they just tell the people what they want to hear.
Chinese easily fall for this kind of thing. Their (often only) child is their little emperor, and the newly rich (which are also still poorly educated) spend their whole income on them. Nevertheless, i guess it stimulates the economy, so we will be seeing this kind of things for a while (if you want to get rich quick and have no conscience, come to China!).
If nothing else it could make the kids run faster
Seriously, has any of this turned up in the literature? I want to see what for what they are looking.
Forget prediction for children, there's a number of different companies out there that do personal genome screening, and plenty of adults who don't know what they want to be when they "grow up" or want to change careers, etc.
Get off my launchpad!
Finally, now they know whether or not that daughter they're contemplating drowning is gonna be successful before they take the risk of letting her live and lose out on that precious male offspring.
Oh China, you never cease to entertain.
This is good stuff for the eugenicists like Holden, the US science advisor. Check out his book Ecoscience where he writes about Eugenics. It's going to be a bit like Brave New World, apart from non-Utopic, more satanic - like the worshipping of the Owl Moloch that the previous US presidents do at Bohemian Grove where they perform a mock human sacrifice. Hmmmm, can't wait for the future to come.
If your parents are stupid enough to pay for this, you're obviously from the shallow end of the gene pool as well, though you can be assured that the parents will ALL be told that their kids are above average - which is a statistical impossibility in a large-enough sample, but hey, there's one born every minute ... or in China's case 34.69 every minute*
* 1,330,044,544 / 1000 * 13.71 / 365 / 24 / 60 (chinese pop / 1000 / birth rate per thousand per annum / 365 days / 24 hours / 60 minutes :-)
Redundant? What the fuck are you smoking? First post, stating something not in summary, slammed with redundant. I'd assume it's cause other people said it. But aren't they the redundant ones if they're not first? I get not modding up for "not being substantial". But mod down as redundant? I'm gonna be more careful when I get mod points to make sure you morons don't pull the same stupid shit on someone else.
Oh God, I'm sure you all think this is bad, but since this is being conducted by Asians you need to multiply that stress by a factor of 3. I'm Asian myself, and I *can* speak for the majority of Asians actually born in Asia that parents who force their children down a specific path for the benefit of the family is an incredibly common theme. It's not just the parents, it's the culture, the schools, the businesses, *everyone*. It's crazy, and to be fair it's a problem that receives a lot of criticism from Asians who don't like watching their children shackled to a specific lifestyle from such an incredibly early age.
how do they handle things when you find out that you have the next Mao Zedong or Stalin?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Wow, I bet you post in every "WAR ROBOTS: Remote Controlled Cars With Guns" thread about Skynet and Cyberdyne.
Ah, who am I kidding? The first thing I thought when I read the heading on TFS was "damn, I need to watch that movie again".
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
and apparently I'm alone in thinking that. How many parents wouldn't want to know what their child's best chance for success will be? The whole 'denying that genetics play a role in development' thing is just wrong and passe.
For a discount price of $500 (first 1000 entrants only).
/s
I mean ok this is an annecdote an all but lets use me as an example. I almost didn't graduate from college because I couldn't pass the foreign language requirement. My school pretty much insists that there is no such thing as being bad at languages and that everybody can do it and it always benefits people who take it.(I don't know if they're just wrong or lying through their teeth.) The fact I could take the same course multiple times, fail repeatedly, and actually do worse the more I studied suggests that no, some people actually don't have a talent for it despite what they think. (Since you'd think the more I worked at it the better I'd do which didn't happen. For what it's worth I only managed to graduate when I got to take the reading version of the course. Yes I passed that one on the first try. Actually I should have just cheated to pass the course but some of us were naive and idealistic when we were young.) It's weird since I've taken and done well in physics and chem which are considered hard.(Yet that course was not considered particularly intellectually difficult.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Mod parent up! See the movie if you haven't; what that movie shows you is potentially where this is going, especially in the case of China where individual rights and freedom of expression aren't important.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!