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Suppose there are 100 genes which figure into intelligence, the odds of getting any one being 50%.
The most common result would be for someone to get 50/100 of these genes and have average intelligence.
Some smaller number would get 51 or 49, and a smaller number still would get 52 or 48.
And so on, until at the extremes of the scale, such a small number of people get 0 or 100 of them that no one we've ever heard of or has ever been born has had all 100 of them.
As such, incredible superhuman intelligence would be manifest in a human who just got lucky enough to have all 100 genes. If some or all of these genes could be identified and manipulated in the genetic code, we'd have unprecedented geniuses.
Let me be the one to describe this glass as half-empty:
If there are 100 genes that participate in IQ, it means that there exists an upper limit to human IQ, i.e. when you have all 100 of them. (Ignoring the possibility of new IQ-increasing mutations for the moment.) Unlike the mathematical bell curve which -- mathematically speaking -- stretches into infinity, this upper limit of human IQ could be relatively low; like maybe IQ 200, but definitely no Anasûrimbor Kellhus.
It may turn out that to produce another Einstein or von Neumann, you need a rare combina... (read more)