Can selective breeding maximize human intelligence without major complications?

Question

I am writing a story about an extreme meritocracy that applies artificial selection and eugenics to humans. This society (called Sophia) views intelligence as the most important trait to have. Almost everyone in Sophia does whatever they can to maximize the knowledge, brainpower, and wisdom of themselves.

The Sophian Government has a highly elite reproduction program. All children at the age of 9 have to take a comprehensive test that measures IQ and other intellectual capabilities. Only the top 10% of boys and top 70% of girls are expected to pass the test (there is a different target score for each sex). All the boys who didn't pass get chemically neutered; all the girls who didn't pass get chemically spayed. The sterile boys and girls are effectively a new gender societally speaking and do all of the less valuable jobs in Sophia. Physically demanding jobs that are too hard for eunuchs or women are handled by either robots or farm animals. The breeders get all of the leadership positions and valuable jobs. The highest performing breeders and sterile folks are part of a political circle that determines how the country is run.

The breeders who do pass the test sexually reproduce during their teens and 20s; afterwards they use IVF to maximize reproduction. All offspring are raised by hospitals, then daycare centers, and finally boarding schools. Many children have no idea who their parents are.

Adults in Sophia do whatever they can to become pioneers in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, philosophy, and art. Events similar to the Nobel Prize are the most important ceremonies in the country. Anyone that makes a great invention or discovery or magnum opus gets immortalized in a national hall of fame. Sophia is supposed to be the most technologically and mathematically advanced nation in its world. Sophia has a command economy ran by oligarchs. Sophia has mostly modern technology, but they're more advanced than real life Earth in a few areas (like having artificial wombs and advanced AI).

So my question is can a hierarchical society where humans are selectively bred similar to animals (only worthy specimens reproduce and the rest are sterilized) to maximize intelligence, function without fatal biological or sociocultural flaws?

Answer 1

No the society would be doomed to corruption and scientific stagnation.

This has been tried multiple times and the results are always the same, it becomes an autocracy of the test writers. Your system is anti-science not pro-science. Science can be practiced by anyone it is a methodology not an ideology. see late imperial, China or the USSR as examples. Science cannot function if it is exclusive to elites. Test based meritocracies always fail because test taking is not merit. So you are not even breeding for the right thing.

Science is messy
To get the most scientific advancement you want science being practiced by more of the population not few "elites". Many of the most influential scientists in history would have failed out of your system and been denied access. They disagreed with the standing consensus or were ignorant of it, they specialized on one field and were ignorant of others, they had horrid literary skills or struggled with math. You also have how important argument and debate is in science, science is not about memorizing the correct answer it is about discovering the most correct answer, can you jury rig a method when there is no good method not can you solve the same example problem you have solved a million times. Science is messy and requires the ability to fail and encourage new approaches. Using the known approaches only gets you the known answers, it can't innovate. Innovation comes from people thinking outside the box, which you can't test for, worse if you try to you just create an autocracy. people who know the "correct" out of the box answer advance and people who actually think outside the box fail.

You are falling for the myth of the lone genius scientist and its just not how science works. The more people you teach science the faster it will advance.
Lets also consider how many scientists have atypical neurology and classifiable learning disorders. More scientists leads to more advancements in science, excluding such people would just reduce scientific development. A million mediocre scientists can do far more than ten elite scientists. Even better a thousand specialists can advance information faster than a thousand generalists, more scientists allow for more specialization. There is a lot of trial and error and collective action in science. Science is a collaborative action, and you need more people. Ask a scientists and they will tell you their science lack bodies not quality. There is also a lot of experimentation in science , more scientists means more and different experiments. many advancements in science were accidents but even those that were not were the product of many hands.

Answer 2

No... But for a different reason then what anyone else has suggested.

This will lead to a lot of dead babies. And other serious problems... But not interestingly enough because of inbreeding or genetic problems. Something similar-ish has been done before. In Romania.

All offspring are raised by hospitals, then daycare centers, and finally boarding schools

Hospitals

I think it was Romania that tested this out. They had a perceived population shortage, so the government started encouraging people to have babies, and then stuck all of those unwanted babies the parents couldn't afford into orphanages to raise the future generation by the state for the better of the state.

A large percentage of the babies died, because they were not held enough. An even large percentage were severely impaired because they didn't have the interactions between a mother and her child that are required for brain stimulation and growth. (An aside the increased rate of non-maternal care corelates strongly with the increased rates of autism.)

The caregivers I assume are going to be made up of the population that has been sterilized? They will likely be extremely abusive towards the children (The Romanian nurses/orphanage staff were at least). Which will teach the older children that survive to be physically abusive to the younger children.

If I wanted to create a dystopian hell that lasts one generation as the second one is a horde of feral, psychotic , and mentally impaired young people, this is one of the ways that I would do it.

Answer 3

Your system would make people who are maximally adapted to the system.

Sophia is effectively implementing hill-climbing optimization. Eventually the system itself becomes the limiting factor that hinders eg. variance that is needed to avoid getting stuck in local maxima. You would be getting one trick ponies, smug ones.

Freer societies without such fixed goal and strict selection would eventually surpass Sophia as they can better avoid this and develop novel features that sometimes start with subpar performance.

Answer 4

To address just the question in the title: "Can selective breeding maximize human intelligence without major complications?" - no, not with the setup you've suggested.

Selection for any trait is highly likely to also select for undesirable traits. For example, selective breeding for red tomatoes also produces worse tasting tomatoes. No-one wanted those bad tasting tomatoes but consumers liked to buy nice bright red tomatoes, so that's what sold, so that's what breeders produced. If you breed for intelligence only, you're likely to co-select for a host of negative traits. In the real world, in order to deal with this you have to carefully track lineages and select pairings to breed out these negative traits and breed in the traits you want but, in your world, society is deliberately destroying lineage information.

And, unless you're selecting for exactly what you want you're probably not going to succeed: for example, in your case you're not actually selecting for intelligence, you're selecting for intelligence at age 9 rather than intelligence. The best way to produce that isn't being smarter as an adult, it's developing faster as a child; and those may well be opposing traits, as well as being likely to produce negative side effects in terms of skeletal development, etc.

Answer 5

I think the societal complications would be more dire than the biological ones.

I get it- you just want to focus on the biological health complications. However, Major Complications is pretty open phrase. Yes, I think neutering 90% of the male population and spaying 30% of the female population would lead to major societal complications.

1. Like the 60 percent of the population told that they couldn't have kids because they were "too stupid", eventually trying to overturn the government.

2. Parents would do anything to make their kids succeed in that system, and that would lead to desperate actions.

3. The way you describe Sophia seems to push towards a fairly narrow definition of intelligence, I am not saying this definitively, because you say "philosophy, and even art". Just generally speaking you seem to want only scientists, mathematicians and engineers in this society. As much as I admire the accomplishments of these groups, I think it may result in an imbalance.

(I have a slight detour to go on with my answer.

Generally society would want to foster intelligence to be as broad as possible. One of the reasons is we haven't yet defined everything that defines intelligence.

So far Eugenics movements, have probably resulted in more intelligences being discriminated out of the picture more than they have resulted in them being nurtured. Great scientists and thinkers were forced to leave Nazi Germany, for example. Einstein is the prime example.

In a book called "Neurotribes" I came across some interesting facts. The author intended to talk more about autism and the approaches people have had to it, and societal perceptions about it. He pointed out that some famous scientists such as Henry Cavendish who innovated precise measurement devices to calculate the Earth's mass and density in 1798, could not tolerate social company. In fact, Cavendish's idiosyncratic behaviour was probably somewhat ridiculed in his time, and wouldn't have been entertained were he not a) well-off b)and a great scientist. I think what the author Silberman was pointing out, is that we don't always identify correctly what is intelligence in society. He pointed out that Asperger, the foundational figure that studied autism in children, understood that high functioning autistic kids had completely unrecognized talents, and were about to be exterminated by Eugenics. However, the idea that intelligence often goes unidentified because we define it one way or the other- that goes for whether it is a scientific contribution or some other field.

Obviously Cavendish is only one type of genius, and it is hard to say whether he would succeed in all types of intelligence tests. It illustrates the point, which goes equally well for the "humanities" or the "art" genius, is that intelligence is unpredictable. Obviously social and emotional genius exists as well. People like that push conventional definitions.

I personally agree with the premise that if the definition of intelligence behind your eugenic system is too narrow and judges people too quickly, it will eliminate potential. )

That doesn't mean your idea for a story won't get into some complex issues, as long as you address the problems. Maybe Sophia would have a resistance movement?

Answer 6

Standardized testing is not effective at measuring intelligence

The entire premise of this society is eugenics based on standardized testing. A quick read through that article should tell you why that is an unworkable idea; not just all the problems with making sure the test is truly "fair" to takers from different backgrounds, but simply measuring something like "intelligence" through one narrow means is not possible.

But there's a second, even bigger problem.

The oligarchs are the ones writing the test. They are also the ones with the most resources to educate and coach their children to pass it (you say that the children have no idea who their parents are, but ruling-class parents certainly would). Something as simple as preferential funding for the creches in the rich parts of the country where the oligarchs' children are assigned would tip the scales more every generation.

Your advanced society would be better off nurturing the intellectual development and opportunity of all its members, rather than attempting to crudely select the "best."

Answer 7

I see no reason why it shouldn’t work.

Sure, it could lead to uprising of the suppressed second class and other social problems. Sure, you are only selecting for performance at a test while 9 years old (not actual scientific accomplishments, problem solving, working capability (in a team) and the like). Sure, you’ll probably have some negative traits like bigger heads which makes natural births more difficult and risky. In a state like the one you envisage other unavoidable negative traits like having a higher resting metabolism probably won’t matter.

But just look how much humans changed lots of species in just a few generations. Dogs, tomatoes, canola, corn … Suddenly a few points more on an intelligence score doesn’t look all that difficult.

Answer 8

Inbreeding

Apart from the problems others have pointed out, there is one very serious problem that is going to undermine any other advantage your system could have (and I think it has very few advantages).

All children at the age of 9 have to take a comprehensive test that measures IQ and other intellectual capabilities. Only the top 10% of boys and top 70% of girls are expected to pass the test (there is a different target score for each sex). All the boys who didn't pass get chemically neutered; all the girls who didn't pass get chemically spayed.

Let's say that when this policy was first implemented, you start with a normal reproductive pool. You then remove 90% of boys and 30% of girls via chemical castration from the pool. Next generation is going to be born from a much smaller pool of parents. Then you again remove 90% of boys and 30% of girls from the already smaller genetic pool. And so on, every new generation.

By the way, if your eugenics program is supposed to produce smarter population, why aren't higher percentages of boys and girls passing the test? Or is the test getting harder each time?

Anyway, even though your population may be stable, your genetic pool will be constantly shrinking. Pretty soon you will be getting serious problems from inbreeding (including problems with intelligence) that will far outweigh any benefits you could otherwise get from this system.

The problem could be offset from influx of fresh genes from intelligent immigrants into Sophia, but I imagine other places in your world will have different values and I doubt many people will find the idea of moving into a country where their children are taken away from them at birth very appealing.

So your country is either heading towards a complete collapse, or a major social unrest leading to the abandonment of the system.

Answer 9

Unlikely

Intelligence is a combination of personal abilities and education. Even the widely used IQ test in the style of Mensa are greatly affected by the quality of the education. So much that when the quality of basic education made a great improvement between the '30s and the '70 the scores of the tests used in that period had to be regularly adjusted. In such a society all the parents naturally would do anything they can to provide their childer the best education. This could cause two problems. The result would be skewed depending on who can afford the best teachers. The children would be put under pressure even more than what happens in the Chinese society.

Intelligence can have a lot of different characters. Children and also adults learn best when an argument catches their fantasy and their attention. Only when all the conscious and all the unconscious processes in the brain are put together to work on something we can produce some good insights. But this attention is not something you can get by force, it is spontaneous and different for each person depending on the attitude and the existing memories. Different arguments trigger different attention and different intelligence for each person. Measuring intelligence is impossible. In such circumstances the development of the society would not be determined by intelligence as a quality, but by the way they decide to measure intelligence. I mean that the measurement method itself would be more important than the measured quality.

Conformism. Given what is at stake the members of such society would be afraid of looking stupid if they said something that does not match the common opinion. Creativity would be suppressed and progress would be slow or non-existent. Well actually here you could put a plot twist. Those who think they have an established position and feel safer may also become eager to speak their mind. So the unusual feature would be a society were the old people are the most creative.

Super intelligence is unlikely. Evolution is slow. Simply rewiring the instincts built in our brain should be one of the traits easier to change. Humans began to live in cities about 10000 years ago. More than 3000 years ago the majority of the population was living in cities or villages with a population of at least 100 individuals. But our instincts are still tuned for the creatures who lived in small tribes. If instincts take more than 3000 years to develop you can easily imagine that super intelligence would require at least 10000. Usually societies reach their decadent phase much earlier.

Final thought. The usual conundrum of nature against nurture. We really don't know how much is owed to one or the other. But I can bet that we owe to nurture a lot more than what you think.

Answer 10

Yes and No.

On the Yes front - you've got for example the Ashkenazi Jews - who on average are a whole standard deviation smarter than the average person. This is a rather contentious topic - but some theories put it as a combination of factors:

• Jews tend to date/marry other Jews
• There have been a number of events that have put, shall we say, 'evolutionary pressure' on Jews - for example Mid-century Germany and Russia - and therefore only the smart survived.
• Strong, two-parent families and a culture of excellence.

So - from this point of view, yes, I think it is entirely possible that your society would produce intelligent offspring.

However - this line:

All offspring are raised by hospitals, then daycare centers, and finally boarding schools. Many children have no idea who their parents are.

In my opinion would absolutely undo all that genetic work.

Now, I don't have the scientific data to hand to back this up per-se and I'm inferring a lot from a number data sets and combining it with my own experience as both a child and a parent.

I do not care how good your daycare system is, there is a biological and emotional investment that a Parent has in the wellbeing of their child that a stranger quite simply does not have.

Children know that on an instinctual level and as a parent, you know it too - because your children are part you. There are aspects of your personality/psyche that only you are privy to, that you can see manifest in your children and allows you to connect with them in a way that other people simply can't.

Then you have the issue of knowing who you are in the world. A bunch of super-smart people with an existential crisis about who their parents are - that sounds like a recipe for disaster - I don't think you can create a cultural or legal prohibition against this strong enough to deter it.

Case in point - in countries where they throw people off of buildings for being Gay, there are still people that are Gay.

As a parent, when my daughter was struggling to learn to read - yes, the Teachers were doing all they could - but a Teacher is responsible for 20-30 other children. It was Me, the Parent who is only responsible for 1 other child (at the time) that sat down every evening for an hour or so, making my child read - I did it because I want the best for my child - and I can assure you, whilst the best teacher also wants the best for my child - it's like comparing the hunger for your favorite food between someone who just ate and someone whose been starving on a desert island for a week.

My level of investment in my child is SIGNIFICANTLY higher than any institution or job or 3rd party can ever produce.

So - to recap:

Yes, I think that the premise of high-IQ people being paired with other high-IQ people to produce high-IQ offspring is reasonably sound (with a real world example to point to) - the disconnecting of a child from their biological parent will, IMO, be contrary to the desired outcome.

Answer 11

No

As other users pointed out the selection method is error prone and on the long term it could backfire in many different ways. Too many different ways. Would a society of intelligent people choose such a blunt and rough method? Doubtful, very doubtful.

Chances are that those who chose to shape a society in this way were not intelligent, but obsessed with intelligence. Their offspring selected in this way would have the same feature, more obsessed with intelligence than intelligent. Thus they would not be able to maximise intelligence.