A review of David Plotz' new book The Genius Factory, from Nick Schultz in the WSJ:
It was over breakfast one February morning in 2001 that Tom Legare, a precocious but otherwise typical American teenager, learned from his mother that his real father "was a Nobel Prize winner." The man married to his mother for so many years, it turned out, was in fact not biologically related to him. Rather, another man was, presumably a "brilliant scientist" (name unknown) who had contributed to the Repository for Germinal Choice, a "genius" sperm bank founded by businessman Robert K. Graham in 1980. Thus Tom was one of a far-flung brood, since many other infertile couples — like the Legares — had availed themselves of this high-end gene pool.
Tom's existence really begins with Graham, an entrepreneur who had made a fortune in the eyeglass business only to turn his attention in the late 1970s to what were, for him anyway, grander and more noble pursuits. He hoped to save the human race from what he deemed a "genetic catastrophe."
An experiment in 'positive eugenics' — using Nobelists to boost inherited IQ.
reg-free url for BB readers: Link to WSJ story (via politech)
