The Galactic Question Center

Six or seven for both. Being a bit better than ones peers is great - standing out like a freak is horrible. No absolute scale is necessary - only the range for your group (whatever that may be).
 

being a ten on the intelligence scale is preferable, and being a ten on the attractiveness scale opens unimaginable doors, especially paired with such smarts. Faced with that decision, most people would pick perfect tens, which would force other people to do the same to give their kids the edge, and pretty soon those who could afford the technology would have even greater advantages. As new technology evolved, the benchmark for a ten in each category would keep getting more and more sophisticated, which would perpetuate the problem, throw the process of natural selection out of whack and result in unthinkable consequences against which nature would surely find a way to rebel.
 

Beautiful and intelligent to whom?
 

Both of those qualities are extremely subjective and yet we are expected to give them an absolute value.

I agree with Bdleaf. Well, Bdleaf posed a question, not a statement, but I agree with that question anyway.
 

Ten, certainly. If it was just the beauty that was affected I'd probably go for six or seven, because intelligence would be negatively affected if my kid could just go through life on his/her looks without ever having to determine any depth of character, but since it's both, ten.
 

Tintin.
 

I think it's monstrously wrong to anything BUT set dials to 10 in this situation. If you can move your species forward and give your own children as many advantages as you can, DO SO. Any worries about how the rest of humanity handles it is backpedaling, and the worst kind, too.
 

Ten.
 

I Think what Cliff means here is that you have a total of ten for BOTH. So the analogy is more of a meter or point system givine ten to intelligence leaves nothing for beuty.

My opinion i would put a 7 to intelligence, i have always valued brain power over beuty but i would still like my children to have some form of a social life and friends.
 

If tens are just "high" I'd go with tens. If it meant really, really high I'd go with eights or nines.
Too high makes me feel it might inhibit them socially.
 

I would set both to 10, as true beauty of CHARACTER leads to happyness when one is intelligent enough to take advantage of it and chance doesn't screw you over.
 

As intelligence and beauty are both positive traits for anyone to possess, why wouldn't I set the dial on 10 for both of these? There is no dilemma.
 

what if the dials are linked inversely and you can choose only one parameter?.. for instance, if you set intelligence to 10, beauty automatically becomes 0, and vice versa.