In 2014, Quartz reported about a Shenzen-based company that is mapping the genes of math geniuses in the hope of screening embryos to pick the smartest one. Traits such as intelligence are heritable, but their genetic basis is known to be quite complex. The company doesn’t do any genetic engineering, but if it’s successful in understanding the complexity of the genes involved and has a technology to engineer the embryo then there would be great temptation to use it.
“Confucian thinking says that someone becomes a person after they are born. That is different from the United States or other countries with a Christian influence, where because of religion they may feel research on embryos is not ok,” Deng Rui, a medical ethicist at Shanxi Medical University, told the New York Times.