So there are two issues here, both loosely under the issue of community relations. The first is relation to the public community at large, as expressed in school educational policies. That are seeing further erosion or elimination of gifted programs as some kind of solution. As of this fourth post in the thread, this has not seen further discussion. Maybe because people fear being outed or doxxed... Though this forum is somewhat anonymous and in fact that's why I'm using it for this controversial topic.

The second issue is turning then to the gifted community. (Which of course may be further subdivided into, HG vs. PG... but let's not go there...) Its great to hear positive experiences like Eagle Mum's. Though also there are less positive stories like cricket3 and thx1138 have related.

I'm not sure this is a way through in the short term, but the third article is entitled "Which kids are most likely to succeed in school? Scientists say genes offer a clue" https://www.nbcnews.com/news/educat...-will-succeed-school-look-their-n1243152

There's now a startup in Silicon Valley that purposes to use DNA to measure some aspects of cognitive ability. https://www.cognidna.com/ However, to my knowledge they are giving the gifted community a wide berth, simply marketing themselves as helping you predict some of your child's abilities so you can plan ahead. I don't expect the word IQ to appear on their website.

This forum being "THINKING BIG About Gifted Education", I can't say if or when we might get there, but if and as the AI works out, it could inform gene targets for China to genetically engineer smarter babies. Even, is there hope for recombinant DNA to improve my IQ?

In the medium term though, circling back to the original article, if IQ can be estimated straight from DNA, how will that inform gifted education? It might solve the racial issue the first two articles raise. "You can't study for this IQ test." So minorities could step up to proportionate representation, with gifted assessment based purely on nature and not nurture. No possibility of test bias, or parents cheating by test prep or having their kid study harder, or having more books in the house.

But what if it such a test generates data that is not politically correct? Lately it seems that science is not even allowed to ask certain questions, let alone research them.

It does sound like a science fiction novel, to envision a school district that says "we have a gifted program, admitting students based purely on their DNA."

Last edited by thx1138; 10/15/20 05:15 PM.