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All three children are shown to have inherited the intelligence of John Paul and his wife Theresa, though there are hints throughout the Shadow series that they may have also been genetically enhanced.-- Wikipedia article about Ender's father

(hat/tip: DavRob60's answer to "Is Ender genetically-engineered? ")

The only genetic engineering that I recall being mentioned in the Shadow series was Anton (who was implied to have never done any practical work) and Volescu's experiment on Delphiki embryos, whose only surviving result was Bean. Neither had anything to do with John Wieczorek or Theresa Brown/Wiggin.

Is the Wiki wrong, or am I simply failing to remember some other hints I may have missed?

UPDATE: Never let it be said that SFF doesn't improve the Internet! That erroneous (as I was suspecting) statement was just edited out of Wikipedia!

19:20, 5 October 2013‎ Jeepday ‎ . . (3,469 bytes) (-129)‎ . . (Remove statement that is speculative, unreferenced, and to the best of my knowledge untrue.)

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Although there is nothing to suggest genetic manipulation in the books, according to First Meetings Ender was the product of selective breeding. Ender's father was forced to take a college course he didn't want, taught by a grad student he assumed was beneath him. He quickly realized she was brilliant and he became attracted to her. This was manipulation on the government's part to pair Ender's father with an intelligent woman, realizing they would need someone at least one generation later than Ender's father. The hope (and result) being that they would have brilliant children who would be good contenders for battle school.

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    "selective breeding" isn't what people typically mean when they say "genetically enhanced", though.
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Commented Oct 6, 2013 at 4:50
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Wikipedia no longer has the particular statement (as of 19:20, 5 October 2013‎), there is no reference in the books that I am aware of supporting genetic engineering for any of the Wiggin children. The reverse in fact, there are several bold references to the quality of the Ender's parents, and the difficulties they faced in trying to appear normal.

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  • Yup, someone edited it out: "19:20, 5 October 2013‎ Jeepday (talk | contribs)‎ . . (3,469 bytes) (-129)‎ . . (Remove statement that is speculative, unreferenced, and to the best of my knowledge untrue.) (undo)"
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Commented Oct 6, 2013 at 4:53
  • @DVK Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Even you or me.
    – James Jenkins
    Commented Oct 6, 2013 at 8:36
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Whoever wrote that in the Wikipedia article may have a broader definition of engineering...

I don't have any the book handy, but I'm pretty sure that in "First Meetings in the Enderverse" it's implied that someone pushed John Paul and Theresa together. So if you consider manipulating people to be very indirect genetic engineering, the statement could be right "from a certain point of view."

Other than that, I don't recall any hints of any genetic engineering of Ender's parents.

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  • "Someone"== Graph. See my answer in the question I linked to :)
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Commented Oct 6, 2013 at 4:51

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