[johnsonjo]

Yeah. I agree that at least to our standards these answers are not modest. Having a relatively high IQ and a relatively long life expectancy are both (separately) relatively unlikely. So, to us these do not seem modest answers.

The goal of their study, however, was to see if it was true that when given the choice to have some attribute or quality of your life maximized with few limits would you choose the maximum. They say the choices were modest simply because in philosophical writings they often assume people will always choose the maximum if available. That is why they found this surprising and modest.