I’m inclined to agree with you. To flesh out the scenario: suppose that an organisation decided to clone Von Neumann (or Einstein or Marie Curie or whoever), then handed the resulting baby to the adoption services of a responsible Western country, knowing that the adoption service put a lot of effort into making sure that prospective parents were responsible and suitable to raise a child. (I believe the US is a bit of an outlier on letting random people adopt without stringent checks, so let’s say it’s the British or. Swedish adoption system.) The adoptive parents don’t know the baby is a clone-genius and raise him/her normally* I find it hard to say that this proposal to have a baby and ensure it’s raised by loving parents would be unethical.
Raymond D has some extra concerns about using Von Neumann’s genes without permission, but I’m inclined to the view that permission from the heirs would be enough to make that ethical. Von Neumann himself is dead and can’t suffer, so if the heirs are OK with the proposal, then I can’t identify anyone who would be harmed by it. Another possible solution to this problem: clone a living genius who gives their consent.
I’m still thinking about this, and these are not firm conclusions, but I agree that the clone proposal deserves thought.
* I understand that knowing you are the clone of Einstein and that if you do anything less than revolutionise physics you have failed to meet expectations would pile unreasonable amounts of stress on a child. So there’s a good argument for not letting the clones or their adoptive parents know they’re clones.
Not putting unreasonable expectations on the children is very important, and you’re right that not telling the caretakers is potentially a good way to achieve this. Excellent point.
That might be, but I could find points for the opposite as easily. After all, we are expecting the child to help save the world. If a child is to become someone of exceptional importance, then probably some sort of special treatment can help tutor them into that role. Take the Dalai Lama: he’s raised into his role since birth.
Studies such as https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ746290.pdf indicate that, if you take a genius child and make them go through normal school with their average age-peers (with no grade-skipping or other academic acceleration), then things go much worse than if you let them skip two or more grades. So you may want to make sure that the parents will (a) notice that the child is a genius and (b) take at least semi-appropriate action.
Of course, keeping a genius with regular age-peers is only one case of “failing to recognize a child’s special needs and accommodate them”. But it’s a remarkably common one: in the study, 33 of the 60 exceptionally gifted Australian kids were not permitted any grade-skipping at all.
I’m inclined to agree with you. To flesh out the scenario: suppose that an organisation decided to clone Von Neumann (or Einstein or Marie Curie or whoever), then handed the resulting baby to the adoption services of a responsible Western country, knowing that the adoption service put a lot of effort into making sure that prospective parents were responsible and suitable to raise a child. (I believe the US is a bit of an outlier on letting random people adopt without stringent checks, so let’s say it’s the British or. Swedish adoption system.) The adoptive parents don’t know the baby is a clone-genius and raise him/her normally* I find it hard to say that this proposal to have a baby and ensure it’s raised by loving parents would be unethical.
Raymond D has some extra concerns about using Von Neumann’s genes without permission, but I’m inclined to the view that permission from the heirs would be enough to make that ethical. Von Neumann himself is dead and can’t suffer, so if the heirs are OK with the proposal, then I can’t identify anyone who would be harmed by it. Another possible solution to this problem: clone a living genius who gives their consent.
I’m still thinking about this, and these are not firm conclusions, but I agree that the clone proposal deserves thought.
* I understand that knowing you are the clone of Einstein and that if you do anything less than revolutionise physics you have failed to meet expectations would pile unreasonable amounts of stress on a child. So there’s a good argument for not letting the clones or their adoptive parents know they’re clones.
Not putting unreasonable expectations on the children is very important, and you’re right that not telling the caretakers is potentially a good way to achieve this. Excellent point.
That might be, but I could find points for the opposite as easily. After all, we are expecting the child to help save the world. If a child is to become someone of exceptional importance, then probably some sort of special treatment can help tutor them into that role. Take the Dalai Lama: he’s raised into his role since birth.
Studies such as https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ746290.pdf indicate that, if you take a genius child and make them go through normal school with their average age-peers (with no grade-skipping or other academic acceleration), then things go much worse than if you let them skip two or more grades. So you may want to make sure that the parents will (a) notice that the child is a genius and (b) take at least semi-appropriate action.
Of course, keeping a genius with regular age-peers is only one case of “failing to recognize a child’s special needs and accommodate them”. But it’s a remarkably common one: in the study, 33 of the 60 exceptionally gifted Australian kids were not permitted any grade-skipping at all.