You are using the same mistake as most people when they associate the word eugenics with mass forced extermination of certain traits. Because of fear and certain individuals in the past.
The word can be used in a modern context, where eugenics is performed voluntarily, on a very small population, and under scientific supervision for causes that benefit the entire humanity. The rest can live and love whoever they want.
Genetic manipulation functionally falls in the same category, but it is better accepted because it doesn't have the negative history attached to it.
"Eugenics" is actually currently practiced, but described as pre-implantation diagnostics. This allows parents who are carriers of a deleterious mutation, such as that causing Tay Sachs Disease, to avoid having children with the condition.
It isn't voluntary for the offspring that are created through such efforts. Sure, that's not the case for procreation to begin with... but the difference is that these people would effectively be bred for a specific purpose. Then, to keep it voluntary, I guess we would lightly suggest to them at some tender age to consider going into field which requires high intelligence? Or do we not interfere at all, and just observe them from a distance (since you mention scientific supervision)?
Nobody has a voluntary choice in their birth and eugenics doesn't have to breed people for a certain position or job. It may be something as simple as egg/sperm analysis that calculates a favorable (in whatever way the technology designers determine that) gene sequence and then the child would be raised normally. Eugenics doesn't mean the decay of the moral fabric of society or the loss of basic ethics in research. Why is it so hard to imagine eugenics integrating into modern society?
It's not surprising at all. Eugenics on a large scale is also know as population control and it elicits negative visceral reactions for good reasons. Large undertakings usually require some kind of central control and the history of such control is not positive at all.
Now if the choice comes down to something between two individuals because technology makes it possible to make certain choices that's a different matter but even then you are treading in dangerous territory. Who gets access to the technology? How do you verify that the technology is safe? Is there a beta test period? Who gets to be a beta tester? Anyway the list is long and the technology is nowhere near where it needs to be for even these kinds of choices to be made between two individuals let alone at the population level.
I find the idea in general just intuitively unappealing. Humanity can't breed itself out of the problems it is in. Being smart is simply not enough. Anything worthwhile requires hard work. So are you going to breed for hard work as well now? I don't see these scientists looking for those genes though.
The word can be used in a modern context, where eugenics is performed voluntarily, on a very small population, and under scientific supervision for causes that benefit the entire humanity. The rest can live and love whoever they want.
Genetic manipulation functionally falls in the same category, but it is better accepted because it doesn't have the negative history attached to it.