Bankruptcy plan 'genius factory'

Robert K. Graham, the father of the "genius factory" plan - Photo: Slate

When she was born, the famous American ballet artist Isadora Duncan once told the British actor Bernard Shaw about a child of two people: ' Imagine my body and his brain, we will giving birth to a genius '. Bernard Shaw replied: ' But what will it be, dear, if it has my legs and her brain ?'. The story was reiterated by the press when upstream 20 years of studying a plan of 'genius factory'.

American journalist David Plotz has investigated and elucidated the evolution of an utopian plan in the 20th century in an article published in Slate No. in the middle of February.

The plan is tied to Southern California scientist Robert K. Graham, an optician, who earned $ 100 million by inventing a plastic lens that doesn't break. Graham has a racist view, cultivating the human genome. The only way to preserve and promote the human race, according to him, is a sperm bank of geniuses of the era.

By artificial insemination of sperm of elite people, one can produce a generation of super geniuses. With this intention, Graham invested all the money of 100 million USD into the daring plan of 'selection of germplasm', storing sperms of Nobel laureates (also known as 'genius factory'). ).

On February 28, 1989, the article appeared in the Los Angeles Times: ' All Nobel laureates will be sperm donors: the project to enrich human gene potential '.

Along with calling for the sperm donation Nobel laureates, Graham organized an advertisement to find mothers in Mensa magazine. They are educated women, financially secure, but married with infertility. After obtaining a list of 'maternal candidates', Graham sent a letter of introduction to the husbands:' Mr. Fuschia, an Olympi gold medalist ' athlete , good:' Mr. Gray-White, professor university '.

According to journalist David Plotz, Graham's plan requires absolute anonymous or nickname so people cannot know specifically who the father is. And also to ensure privacy, the mother's identity is also concealed.

But the publicity of Graham's plan led him to be severely criticized. However, the 'super kids' still started to be born. The first child was reported by the National Enquirer in 1982, and then they continued to appear.

Until Graham died in his 90s in 1997, his stockpile claimed to have produced 229 children in the United States and other countries around the world. Graham later confessed that none of these children were children of Nobel laureates.

Reason: the characters who were announced to win this Nobel Prize are too old, so Graham finally took the sperm from some young donated scientists! It is only known that three Nobel laureates may have donated sperm as the famous mathematician John Forbes Nash, Jonas Salk - the maker of polio vaccine, and the semiconductor maker William Shockley.

Two years after Graham died, his bank also closed in 1999. The growing 'super kids' are not well known, apart from the only one being Doron Blake. Blake has a high intelligence index: 180. At age 2, Blake knew how to use computers and 5 years old read Hamlet.

In 2001, Plotz found Blake, studying at Reed College. According to Plotz's description, Blake is now a long-haired hippy with a nonchalant look. But Blake had just dropped out of school and was immersed in studying spiritualism.

Blake said sadly: ' The genius factory, it's a bizarre idea. People hope I will achieve great achievements. But not. I can't do anything special. As long as I have a IQ of 100 instead of 180, I will also do what I am doing now . '

TRAN DUC THANH