Oliver Curry is an evolutionary theorist at the London School of Economics who has gone on record saying that in “the future” humanity will fork into two species: one that is hot, and one that is not.
He basically envisions a genetically altered world comprised along the lines of the critically acclaimed film: Twins, starring that Arnold guy. The plot of the film is pretty simple: ol’ Arnold is engineered in a laboratory to be the Übermensch. Statuesque. Chiseled. Perfecto. And his twin brother, played by Danny De Vito, is all the crap left over.
And that’s the bleak, distopic vision Curry sees an unrestrained humanity running towards [Oh, and his new race of super humans would of course, have genius-level intelligence too].
Well, fortunately for mankind, Mike Judge has come to the rescue, kiinda (he ends up bashing affluent yuppies for the sake of their affluency). He was the director behind the classic movie: Office Space. He released a new film this year called Idiocracy, starring Luke Wilson.
The gist of the film is this: Luke Wilson plays a supremely average guy from the year 2005, who is used as a guinea pig for a government project which places him in hibernation for 500 years. Upon waking up in the year 2505, he discovers that society has become so incredibly dumbed down, he is now by far the most intelligent person in the world.
While one could argue that millions of people are actually participating in this government project today (e.g. public education), that is a topic for another time and place.
One of the premises in the plot is that smart people stop breeding altogether. And just as bad money runs good money out of town (Gresham’s Law), invariably, the “dumb-ass” gene ends up dominating the gene pool.
While I have not had a chance to see the new film or even peer into the future, the fact of the matter is “artificial” breeding has taken place for thousands of years. In the past, various peoples in ancient civilizations would only “mix blood” with certain persons (Jewish tribes come to mind, as do the nobility starting with the Pharaoh and on through Ceasar, etc.).
Today, many families plan, save, and design a system in which their offspring are able to live healthier lives. Lives filled with more chances to innovate. Chances that are comprised of better educational and training tools.
Thus, there is nothing heinous or unethical about providing a better world for ones posterity, and this includes screening and selecting genes that could enable your posterity to live a fuller, more productive life.
See also: Genes and jeans, do you own both?, as well as the artificial selection of the Heikegani crab. And here is a review of Idiocracy from The Onion.