All of Bazza's Comments + Replies

Answer by Bazza-20

Selection of embryos based on polygenic scoring is a cute idea but is decades away at best.

Your ability to pick an appropriate partner to conceive a child with has been honed over 100,000's of years (actually, more like 'since sexual reproduction began'). However, it's far from perfect and there are some gross genetic failings (existing and de novo) that genetic screening can recognise that aren't obvious at the everyday scale of day to day living. 

9Jackson Wagner
How can it be decades away if a couple of random "transhumanist" couples are already doing it? Mass adoption might be decades away, but lesswrongers are weird people who are often interested in early-adopting new technologies (like cryptocurrency, cryonics, etc). https://www.geneticsandsociety.org/biopolitical-times/first-polygenic-risk-score-baby

Just chanced on your post and am moved to comment as I was a 'late talker'. My parents tell me I had few words (I was a 3rd child so they had prior experience) until sometime after I was three and instead mostly relied on nonverbal communication (gesture, pointing, facial expressions etc). Then over the course of maybe a month or two developed normal speech and began asking incessant questions. I also followed this pattern with reading and other intellectual skills as an older child and adult, though this may be coincidental.

Now, 60 years later I have been... (read more)