Choosing
Steve Hsu has been considering correlations between a polygenic index and college completion rate. It appears that the genes are rather predictive of college completion. Steve constructs this scenario:
You are an IVF physician advising parents who have exactly 2 viable embryos, ready for implantation. The parents want to implant only one embryo.
All genetic and morphological information about the embryos suggest that they are both viable, healthy, and free of elevated disease risk.He adds that this scenario won't be purely hypothetical for long - though I'm going to guess that if the embryos are biologically descended from the same parents, such dramatic discordance is unlikely. I would also guess that if similar correlations were available for athletic ability, many parents would be even more impressed, especially in Texas.
However, embryo A has polygenic score (as in figure above) in the lowest quintile (elevated risk of struggling in school) while embryo B has polygenic score in the highest quintile (less than average risk of struggling in school). We could sharpen the question by assuming, e.g., that embryo A has score in the bottom 1% while embryo B is in the top 1%.
You have no other statistical or medical information to differentiate between the two embryos.
What do you tell the parents? Do you inform them about the polygenic score difference between the embryos?
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