[FortunaMaximus]

I have to agree with Mickey's stand on this.

There are already clear examples of eugenics in isolated communities without much influx of fresh DNA, so to speak. One might as well make the distinction between the pygmy tribes of Africa and Mennonites and European royalty.

And what arises from those examples, I think, is a early warning for future eugenics experiments. Those groups, in and of themselves, are no better and no worse than each other as a whole. And there are diseases that each group carry to a higher degree than most because it is embedded in their genetic substructures. (I know, no such thing, right?)

And this requires a concession to the validity of your argument that intelligence as a whole can be increased. But in a mortal species with constant growth and renewal, this may not be a signifcant enough net gain. Certainly, there is a recent example posted (the Ashkenazi argument) that has merit.

Genetics in present may not make the distinction on a broad spectrum between the range that is H. sap. And we are trying to turn this into a social differentation issue by attacking racism.

We, as a whole, learn from our mistakes, and the growth of any factor has to follow a recursive path that mimics the growth of our population. Trying to accelerate one while decelerating the other has to be creating a net loss somewhere.

There are benefits, I do agree. But there is great potential for irreversible mistakes that would require genome tinkering to fix. And our current understanding of the genome practically guarantees we will make more mistakes than we will successes.

What of creativity, of genius, of that intangible element that causes individuals to set himself/herself apart from the rest? This has to be more an artistic emergence than soild repetitive breeding. However, there is certainly an argument in where you could say you'd increase the probability of these singularities occuring.

Hmm. Rhetoric before breakfast can get weird.