April 03, 2005

The "Genius Babies", and How They Grew : A journalistic series covering a (notorious) eugenics project - Repository for Germinal Choice - carried out in the US.
  • I just went through the whole series. My reaction varied between "despicable" and "fascinating". I can't imagine what kinds of pressure might be felt by those children born of genius sperm.
  • It's an interesting story. It would be more interesting to follow them over the years, though that would be an invasion into their privacy. But I don't see the "despicable" part. Most parents put pressure on their kids, and the parents talked to at least claimed to not go overboard. And, it appears that the families couldn't have children of their own, so it wasn't that they were avoiding their own genetics. If you were unable to produce children, but were willing to go to a sperm bank, would you prefer anything less than the best chance?
  • Very interesting. I'd never heard about this before.