{"id":157699,"date":"2023-02-11T18:25:29","date_gmt":"2023-02-12T00:25:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/02\/one-third-of-americans-would-use-genetics-tech-to-make-their-offspring-smarter-study-finds"},"modified":"2023-02-11T18:25:29","modified_gmt":"2023-02-12T00:25:29","slug":"one-third-of-americans-would-use-genetics-tech-to-make-their-offspring-smarter-study-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/02\/one-third-of-americans-would-use-genetics-tech-to-make-their-offspring-smarter-study-finds","title":{"rendered":"One Third of Americans Would Use Genetics Tech to Make Their Offspring Smarter, Study Finds"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Of the respondents, 28 percent said they were more likely than not to use gene editing to make their babies smarter, and 38 percent said they\u2019d use polygenic screening. The researchers also noted what they called a bandwagon effect, where people who were told something along the lines of \u201ceveryone else is doing it\u201d were more likely to say they\u2019d do it too. This is logical; our comfort with decisions is buoyed by a sense that others in our shoes would choose similarly.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to note, though, that the survey made it clear that genetically enhancing embryos didn\u2019t come with a guaranteed result of a smarter kid. \u201cIn this study, we stipulated a realistic effect\u2014that each service would increase the odds of having a child who attends a top-100 college by 2 percentage points, from 3 percent to 5 percent odds\u2014and lots of people are still interested,\u201d said<\/a> Michelle N. Meyer, chair of the Department of Bioethics and Decision Science<\/i>s at Geisinger and first author of the article.<\/p>\n

The numbers\u201428 and 38 percent\u2014don\u2019t seem high. That\u2019s a little below and a little above one-third of total respondents who would use the technologies. But imagine walking around in a world where one out of every three people had had their genes tweaked before birth. Unsettling, no? The researchers said their results point to substantial and growing interest in genetic technologies for offspring enhancement, and that now is the time to get a national conversation going around regulations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Of the respondents, 28 percent said they were more likely than not to use gene editing to make their babies smarter, and 38 percent said they\u2019d use polygenic screening. The researchers also noted what they called a bandwagon effect, where people who were told something along the lines of \u201ceveryone else is doing it\u201d were [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1902,11,412],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bioengineering","category-biotech-medical","category-genetics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157699\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}