they will also all have tiny penises

Chinabollocks normally runs predictable courses, based off ignorance, projection, or fantasy. But sometimes a rare gem is thrown up among the sludge, an idea so bizarre, so completely out of touch with reality, that one cannot criticize, but just gasp in awe.  In that spirit, I give you genetic scientist Geoffrey Miller's answer to the Edge question, "What should we be worried about?" - China breeding a super-intelligent generation

 

 

Comments

[CMcM]

The boy has form: from wiki

In 2007, Miller (with Joshua Tybur and Brent Jordan) published an article in Evolution and Human Behavior, demonstrating that lap dancers made more money during ovulation.[6] For this paper, Miller won the 2008 Ig Nobel Award

[Phil]

I particularly like the twist in the last paragraph, where it turns out that Chinese eugenics isn't "what we should be worried about" after all - he for one welcomes the Han ethnic utopia! What we should be worried about is that the US isn't working towards a generation of 22nd-century enhanced-IQ superheroes. We cannot allow an IQ gap!

[Phil]

Stroll on. He's nicked it all from something that came out in 2006 - and I do mean "all":

Author Eric G. Swedin, an "information systems and technology" professor, writes: "...[W]ithin the next two decades, we will likely see human beings born with enhanced genetic characteristics in China, and competitive nations such as the United States are unlikely to allow a 'smart-baby gap' to emerge."

What a hack.

[ajay]

I would imagine that China could probably do much more to build a super-intelligent population by simply getting serious about lead decontamination. Stack scrubbers on the power stations would be a start.

[coldglass]

"My Frank Herbert/James Clavell mash-up, let me show you it."

[ajay]

Hmm. Maybe the pollution is actually all part of the plan. In their teeming, anarchic cities they are breeding a race of ruthless soldiers immune to poison!

("Dosadi" does have a kind of putonghua sound to it.)

[Alex]

I would imagine that China could probably do much more to build a super-intelligent population by simply getting serious about lead decontamination.

The Chinese Crime Wave of 2028! Hold on to your hats. And your wallets.

[ajay]

They were urbanising heavily in the 80s and took lead out of petrol in 2000, so it should be... any moment now, actually.

[Chris E]

Shades of Kenny Macleod 'Intrusion'

[Alex]

any moment now, actually

Mass group incident, how are you.

[hellblazer]

The guy's name and the tone rang a bell before I clicked on James's link. Can I suggest that an ev-psych blowhard is *not* the same thing as a genetic scientist?

[Chris Williams]

Hold your horses. Wikithing implies that China only had about 5 million private cars in 2000: clearly we've got vans and trucks to consider, but in a population the size of China's, that's a drop. Also, yr rural in-migrants will be the ones most likely to have lived lead-free.

[jamie]

2000 is about when car ownership really began to take off:

http://asiasociety.org/arts/literature/country-driving-peter-hessler

[ajay]

Most of the lead is coming from power station stack exhaust, I should think. (Air quality in Beijing has now gone to 11. Or rather 755. The scale only goes up to 500. Everything over 300 is "Hazardous".)

[JamesP]

It's actually a balmy 277 right now; the smogpocalypse was on Saturday, when I went to walk the dog and had trouble breathing.

[ajay]

Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read; outside of a dog it's too stuffy to breathe.

[Chris Williams]

As B&T's offical Hong Kong correspondent for a brief period, I can confirm that (a) I can breathe and (b) China was looking pretty hazy when I flew over it just now. But I have no idea how hazy it normally is, so I'm afraid that my opinion on that topic is largely worthless. I can confirm that Tsingtao for breakfast tastes nice, though, and it has a very retro can pulltab design.