"john"  wrote in message
>
> Do two parents who are equally intellegent and beautiful produce
> a more intellegent and beautiful (healthy) offspring than either
> one of the parents?  Is there a limit to the intellegence and beauty
> that can be achieved without genetic mutations?
>
Generally you get regression to the mean. If the parents are exceptional
then the daughter will be still above average, but worse than either parent.
If they are stupid and ugly she will be less stupid and less ugly. If they
are average, she will be average.

This is because genes don't always have simple additive effects. Let's
suppose we have two alleles A and a. AA and Aa are clever whilst aa is
stupid. If both parents are Aa then both will be clever, but they have a 1
in 4 chance of having an aa daughter who is stupid. They also have a 1 in 4
chance of an AA daughter, but if A is dominant she won't be any cleverer
than the parents. If you have many loci like that, it is inevitable that
some will turn out aa.
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