Transcript The Ethics of Intelligence

The Ethics of Intelligence
Can we make ourselves smarter?
Outline
• The old Nature vs. Nurture
• Nurture
– School
– Enrichment programs
• Nature
– fMRI
– Drugs
– Genetics
Nurture
• Different programs for increasing
intelligence
– Private (better baby institute)
– Public (school age programs)
– ¼ of U.S. enrolled in school (Jamieson et. al., 1999)
• What ethical issues do these raise?
– Fairness (who gets more attention)
– Not giving child a choice
– Socioeconomic privilege
Nurture
• What if we could give everyone the
same potential?
– Raise the standards while making people equal
Nature – fMRI
• Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
– Uses increase in blood flow during neural process to
map areas of brain used for different cognitive
functions (The Future Role of functional MRI
in Medical Applications, 2005)
– Same moral questions as intelligence testing
– Advances in this area may allow us to ‘see’ what a
person is thinking
• Privacy issues
• Preemptive punishment?
• Imagine the telescreens of 1984
Nature - Drugs
“I don’t need no drugs to calm me” (pink floyd)
• Drugs exists to ‘cure’ mental
disorders like depression and ADD
• tacrine and donepezil reduce the
effects of Alzheimer's (capone, 1998)
• Cheaper and less invasive than
genetic manipulation
• Steroids for the mind
• Many issues surround production and research in
commercial pharmaceutical environment
– Profit motive
– rush development, keep research secret, and inhibit recall
Nature - genetics
• Genetic Manipulation
• Study of identical twins reared separately show a .72
correlation in their intelligence scores
(Grey & Thompson,
2004)
• Heritibility increases from 50% to 80% as one gets
older (Finkel et. al., as cited in Plomin & Spinath, 2004)
• There is no one gene for specific cognitive area (Plomin &
Spinath, 2004)
– Gene therapy would likely raise
general intelligence (g)
• Could use genetics to remove
mental disorders/defects
Nature - genetics
• Problems with genetics
• ‘playing god’
• Unforeseen consequences of tampering
– Homogenization reduces biodiversity
• Is it really better to be ‘normal’ ?
– Many of the most intelligent people could also be considered
‘crazy’ or have a mental handicap
References
Capone, George T. (1998). Drugs That Increase Intelligence?: Application for Childhood Cognitive
Impairment. Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Research Reviews. 4, 1, 3649. Retrieved April 11, 2006 from PsycINFO
Gray, Jeremy R., Thompson, Paul M. (2004). Neurobiology of Intelligence: Science and Ethics.
Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 5, 6, 471-482. Retrieved April 11, 2006 from Academic Search
Premier.
Plomin, Robert and Spinath, Frank M. (2004). Intelligence: Genetics, Genes, and Genomics.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 86, 1, 112-129. Retrieved April 11, 2006 from
PsycINFO
Jamieson, Amie, Curry, Andrea & Martinez, Gladys (1999). School Enrollment in the United States
– Social and Economic Characteristics of Students. U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved April 16,
2006 from http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/p20-533.pdf
The Future Role of Functional MRI in Medical Applications (2005). Columbia University Functional
Research Imaging Center. Retrieved from http://www.fmri.org/fmri.htm