Stanford's Response to Jane Austen
My wife pointed out the adjacent advertisement running in yesterday's Stanford Daily.
This must be a joke; a late-running April Fool's spoof.
After all, if you are running a serious full-page ad headlining your desire for a "Genius Egg Donor," wouldn't you use spell check?
We are a couple seeking a high-achiever egg donor to help build our family. You should have high standardized test scores, and preferably have some outstanding acheivements [sic] and awards.
Or maybe this is part of the screen. Any "21 year old Stanford student with A grade point average, near-perfect SAT score, several awards in high school and University" is bound to notice the misspelling and point it out in her application, right?
But diversity-worshiping Stanford would never condone eugenics by running an ad like this, so this must be a joke.
On the other hand, perhaps campus conservatives are setting up a Breitbart-worthy sting. In this case, the next installment will feature Kathleen Sebelius ordering all "ideal" egg donors to step forward and apply. Practically all women will enter the market for reproduction at some point, so, according to the Obama administration, the Federal Government is free to regulate this sort of thing under the Commerce Clause.
Any other possible explanations?
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Comments:
Mar '12
Re: Stanford's Response to Jane Austen
Oh, this is quite common, make no mistake. You can find this at most elite universities. Someone actually suggested I apply because my test scores and tested IQ are quite high, but I'm disqualified for a couple reasons. Most women will get weeded out for one reason or another during the selection process.
Women who are Jewish are particularly desirable, because Jewishness is passed by the mother, and many rabbinic authorities require the egg and the mother carrying it to both be Jews for the resulting child to be so. (Yes, you can easily convert a child to Judaism at birth, but it has its own complexities and non-Orthodox Jews won't be able to get universally accepted conversions anyway.)
Re: Stanford's Response to Jane Austen
Perhaps the couple are not geniuses, but want a genius child to add to their investment portfolio.
Ads like this ran all the time in my college's newspaper. I guess if you're looking for an egg donor and intelligence is an important quality to you, you might as well run ads at elite universities. Plenty of smart women who could use the money to pay off their enormous student loans.
Jan '11
Re: Stanford's Response to Jane Austen
If the kid turns out to be a dope, do they sue?
Jun '10
Re: Stanford's Response to Jane Austen
"Is that your new son? He has such a handsome.......forehead."
Apr '12
Re: Stanford's Response to Jane Austen
I've heard the quote, "The wise learn more from fools than the fools from the wise;" this ad seems to be a bizarre exception.
Edited on April 7, 2012 at 7:27pmMay '10
Re: Stanford's Response to Jane Austen
Has anyone ever watched the opening sequence of Idiocracy? Check it out and see if this ad brings the yuppie couple to mind for you, too.
Mar '11
Re: Stanford's Response to Jane Austen
Check the Stanford Daily now. A correction has been made.
Edited on April 7, 2012 at 8:10pmJun '10
Re: Stanford's Response to Jane Austen
I have two unmarried sons. Do you think I could persuade her to marry one of them (after she fulfills her prior egg donorship obligations)?
Should I advertise?
Edited on April 7, 2012 at 9:23pmMay '10
Re: Stanford's Response to Jane Austen
Found her!
Jan '11
Re: Stanford's Response to Jane Austen
On the other hand, maybe they're looking for a genius precisely because they can't spell check.
Feb '12
Re: Stanford's Response to Jane Austen
This ad brings to mind the question: If a liberal couple wants sperm for artificial insemination, would they just as soon have the sperm of a someone with an IQ of 85 as someone with an IQ of 130, because "IQ is meaningless" and "IQ is just a matter of environment"?
I suppose so---just like they would never send their child to a private school. Not.
Apr '11
Re: Stanford's Response to Jane Austen
They are probably fooling themselves. There is no indication that smart people have smart kids because of their genetics. Intelligence is probably the most complicated, dynamic, and complex trait humans have. The best you can hope for is to find a donor who is unlikely to give you genetically caused brain development problems.
You would have better luck trying to find a particularly athletic person with a clear family history of healthiness. That is what I would shoot for in my test tube baby.
Plus I would like to point out that intelligence is the most over valued trait in the world.
Aug '10
Re: Stanford's Response to Jane Austen
No, there is plenty of evidence for the heritability of intelligence, though certainly genetics doesn't account for all variance.