Re: How can we enhance the intelligence of our children? Genius children?

This is a great question!  The simple version of the answer would be YES it 
is probably possible to create genius children, and YES scientists have 
tried and in some cases have been successful in creating genius (or smarter 
than average) mice.  But let me back up a bit and give some background 
information about this subject.

How intelligence arises in children is a very interesting but difficult to 
answer question.  One reason is that what we define as "intelligence" is 
not very clear and very subjective.  We could define intelligence as an 
ability to derive complex mathematical formulae, for example.  Or we could 
define intelligence as having the ability to survive and reproduce in a 
complex environment.  Now you might immediately realize that a person 
defined as highly intelligent based on definition #1 probably would be 
defined as a complete imbecile based on definition #2.  So how can we come 
up with a number that correctly measures true intelligence?  The answer is 
that there is no way.  The best we can do is to devise rudimentary tests to 
measure certain specific aspects of intelligence (like pattern recognition 
for example) without trying to really measure "true" intelligence which we 
cannot define anyway.

But let's say that an IQ test measures at least something about a person's 
intelligence.  How does an adult person come to have a particular IQ?  Is 
it good nutrition, time parents spend with children, TLC, stimulating 
environment, encouragement, and genes too - as you suggest?  The answer to 
this question seems to be that your genes are by far the most important 
ingredient in defining your intelligence.  In fact it appears that unless 
the child is growing up under extreme conditions (like major abuse or 
starvation), it doesn't really matter very much how parents raise their 
children - at least in terms of IQ.  The current belief (based on some 
really amazing twin studies done at the University of Minnesota) is that 
very good parents can perhaps slightly speed up how quickly their children 
reach their adult IQ levels, but the final adult IQ seems to be independent 
of parents and nearly completely defined by one's genes.  A great account 
of these twin experiments are presented in a book called "Born that Way" by 
William Wright published in 1998.

What this means is that there is not much that parents or anyone else can 
do to help a child become a genius.  So if scientists wanted to create a 
genius child, they would have to manipulate the genes of the child.  While 
we are rapidly getting to the point where we have the technology to 
manipulate the genes of a human embryo (or at least select the embryo with 
the "best" genes), we don't know enough about the human genome to know 
which of the 100,000 genes are important for intelligence.  This knowledge 
will require knowing the full sequence of the human genome (due to be 
completed early in the new millenium), and cataloging variations in the 
genomes of thousands of individuals.  The amazing thing is that this field 
is moving so rapidly that all of these studies might be near completion 
within the next 20 years or so.  So perhaps 20 years from now, we will be 
routinely selecting for smarter children (ever seen the movie Gattaca?)

Now, about animal experiments.  Since intelligence is difficult to define 
and measure, most scientists that are trying to genetically modify animals 
to make them smarter concentrate on more easily measured things like 
learning and memory, for example.  For simplicity, let me concentrate only 
on experiments done in mammals.  Since mice are the easiest mammal to 
manipulate genetically, most of these experiments have been done in mice 
(as opposed to rats, for example).  One very interesting experiment was 
done where researchers modified the mice genetically so that a little more 
of a certain chemical (actually a subunit of the NMDA receptor for those 
who want to know) is present in their brains.  These mice (remarkably) have 
significantly better learning and memory abilities than normal mice!  It is 
actually quite remarkable that such a simple change could make the mice 
"better" in some way.  Why hasn't evolution figured out this easy trick?  
The answer is that it probably has, but for some reason these mice were not 
able to survive as well as the mice with lesser learning and memory 
abilities.  In fact we now believe that it is just as important to forget 
things than to remember them.

This brings us to the final point of this discussion.  Do we really WANT to 
start creating genius children?  If we found a way to turn all new-born 
children into Einsteins (and actually accomplished this), my feeling is 
that society would cease to function and the survival of the human race 
would be in jeopardy!  People who we define as geniuses are usually very 
good at one thing, but terrible at many other (very important) things - so 
you should better think twice when you decide to have a genius child.

Keep up the great questions!

Your MAD scientist,
Dave Hackos


REFERENCES

1.  Born That Way : Genes, Behavior, Personality 
      by William Wright, published in 1998.

2.  Living With Our Genes : Why They Matter More Than You Think
      by Dean H. Hamer and Peter Copeland, published in 1999.

3.  Tang et al., Genetic enhancement of learning and memory in mice,
      Nature, Vol. 401, Sept. 2, 1999, pp. 63-69.