SMART GENES?
What price are we going to pay for giving this Viagra of the mind to our children [THE I.Q. GENE?, Sept. 13]? I'm not talking about the financial burden involved in genetically making kids smarter. What about the well-being of a child? Will children suddenly seem as if they are 40 when they are really 14? How about the mental stress that so many of today's geniuses complain of? Are we solving a problem for our children (was there one in the first place?), or are we only creating problems tenfold? EMIL VON MALTITZ, AGE 19 Buckhorn, Canada
Memory may be found to be affected by genes, but no gene has been found to have even a small causative relationship with normal "intelligence." Intelligence has never been successfully defined or measured, unless one refers to the highly specialized, arbitrary, narrowly defined and largely learned skills measured by American-designed IQ tests. (Where, for example, are skills in second-language acquisition or the physics of a thrown object, both essential skills in our history?) Why would genetic intelligence have evolved strictly along the lines of IQ tests? Since most human family lines have become literate only in this century, how can we argue that literate tests provide a fair measure of evolved skills? MARK NATHAN COHEN Distinguished Teaching Professor State University of New York Plattsburgh, N.Y.
Without even realizing it, we have begun case-by-casing what "improvements" we can ethically tolerate. This will eventually create a snowball effect, and we will find ourselves in a genetic twilight zone. The only way really to fix what we have done will be to continue fixing our genes. Here's hoping for wiser, not smarter. KELLY SCHROTER Middletown, R.I.
Let us hope our memory starts to fail soon and we forget all this talk about splicing a fetus' DNA to produce smart little human babies. If the technique of genetic engineering were implemented on humans, it would be the first step into Huxley's Brave New World. TURHAN SARWAR, AGE 14 Kenner, La.
Your article on the potential for genetically manipulating humans has left me wondering if scientists have been doing it for years. I am sure Australian swimmer Ian Thorpe is the product of splicing the tail gene of a humpback whale onto the foot gene of a human. PETER CHARTER Durban, South Africa
Brain chemistry does not explain intelligence any better than pencils explain literature. MICHEL CAPLAIN St. Hilaire du Touvet, France
Once these people we have engineered start intermarrying, how do we evaluate their offspring? At what point do the engineered genes start becoming dominant and insert themselves into the gene pool? At what point do we start seeing the health problems associated with heavy inbreeding? JAN DELUCIEN Reston, Va.
Take a lesson from astute dog breeders. We know that mentally and physically active dogs don't need ginkgo to improve their memory or enhance canine problem solving. An active environment (with lots of affection) plays the crucial role in fueling smart genes. We've taken our lessons from centuries of humans who squandered the wise genetic pluses found inside their babies, rearing them in barren environments. KATHRYN BRAUND Wildomar, Calif.