Why Clone?

Also, why would anyone want to clone cats? Christ, dontcha think there are enough cats out there?

Why would anyone want to clone people? Christ, dontcha think there are enough people out there?

I.e. This debate is dumb as a brick, brought on, cheifly, but the very skewed view of what cloning actually is by the movie indiustry.

If you want a flesh-and-blood body to do your fighting, the easiest, most reliable, most cost-effective way, is to create it the old-fashioned way. Why waste time and energy to create humans in another manner, when the manner your mom and dad used to make you has worked so nicely for millions of years?

It's dumb.

We do not have the technology (yet) to "tamper" with the genetics enough to get some form of "mindless, docile" clone. And these would still be people. Yap about "soul" or "no soul" is just hogwash. They will have as much "soul" as any other being of comparable brain capacity. Dumb them down to chimp level, they will have the "soul" of a chimp. (Still easier to breed and train chimps, they make new chimps for free, heck, they even enjoy doing it )

You still have to grow and feed the clones. It's not like they pop out of tubes fully grown (well, only in the movies, of course). A clone of a 24 year old person takes 24 years to grow, and will have experience love, sorrow, grief, and beauty over those 24 years and will be as much a full fledged human being as you and I, and it'll be just as wrong to kill it.

Ergo: WAY Easier to just hire som Mexican farmers for peanuts as mercenaries.

/Z

 

I, too disagree with cloning humans. Especially to "create a grand army of the republic". I feel this would greatly desensitize humanity more so than it already is.

On the other hand, cloning extinct organisms such as Dinosuars, etc would be interesting.
In addition I suppose cloning my wife could have its benefits. But can I order one without a voice box?

 

cloning is just another way for man to play god

 

I understand the scientific and medical reasons that encourage cloning, but I have moral and religious reasons that keep me from supporting it. I think that we can find other ways to cure diseases and etc without having to result to cloning. Other than the scientific/medical reasons for cloning, I can't think of a good reason to do it. IMO it's playing God and I absolutely do not think that we should be doing such activities.

Flame away.

 

Man cannot "play god". It may seem like we are, but we aren't even close. We won't be able to "play god" until we can create something from nothing.

EDIT: That's not meant as a "flame", Vezner, I can see where you're coming from. But to think that man can achieve anything even close to what God has already achieved is laughable...

 

I am against designing babies, but the benefits of therapeutic cloning are too important to be ignored.

Peace,

V-03

 

To me, it simply comes down to this: Would I have a child so I could either send him/her off to war in my stead or to harvest organs from? No. I would therefore not ask that of a clone.

If we can reach the point where you can scratch a few cells off someone and grow just a new organ for them in a jar, I'm all for cloning to your heart's content. I'm also for cloning when it helps enable couples that just can't pass on genetic material to produce offspring (although I do think there's enough unwanted children in the world that adoption should be considered first and I can't abide people wanting exact clones of themselves as children) and for the simple discovery of just what our DNA does and does not do for us. I just don't want some poor manufactured, but still human, 'twin' to have to die to preserve my own life, especially if they have no say in the matter.

 

I'm referring to the manipulation of cells, not the creation of children to harvest their organs.

Cloning cells and inducing them to become organs is quite a bit different from having a child and harvesting its' organs.

Peace,

V-03

 

I say we should start cloning soldiers! That way, no problem with our sons and daughters dying, it will be some mindless clone doing it for us!!!

 

Some news:

---

[b]UK scientists win human cloning licence[/b]

British scientists say they have received permission to clone human embryos for medical research, thought to be the first such licence given in Europe.

A spokeswoman for Newcastle University says researchers will be allowed to create embryos as a source of stem cells to cure diseases.

The university says the go-ahead has been given by Britain's reproduction regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA).

"It has taken a year of work, and I am most pleased that the HFEA has recognised the potential of this technology in modern medicine," Newcastle University's Dr Miodrag Stojkovic said.

[b]The scientists say they plan to duplicate early-stage embryos and extract stem cells from them with the aim of developing new treatments for degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and diabetes.

The embryos will be destroyed before they are 14-days-old and will never be allowed to develop beyond a cluster of cells the size of a pinhead. [/b]

Cloning to create copies of human babies is outlawed in Britain but therapeutic cloning is legal. [hr][/blockquote]

Do you agree with this decision?

 

Doesn't bother me at all.

This has the potential to help millions.

Let the scientists do their work (under the strictest ethical standards), but let them do it.

Peace,

V-03

 

i'm very strongly in favor of the recent UK decision. i'd also like to add that as time passes, more and more countries that aren't saddled with the streak of religious conservatism we have to deal with here in the US will move in the direction the UK has moved today. if the US fails to do so as well, the science and technology and the attendant financial and medical benefits will simply move elsewhere.

as an aside, cloning as discussed in most of this thread bears so little resemblance to actual cloning that it's basically sci-fi.

 

I have a phobia about starting new threads, that's why I upped this one.

I agree with you both as well - I really hope that this research leads to some wonderful discoveries that can help people. I hope other countries follow suit as well.

 

Actually embracing cloning research is a good way to keep control of it and prevent a "Frankenstien's Monster" that people seem to be afraid of, yet still get the research needed.

 

Mrs. Bush gave an impassioned speech against it the other day.

It really angered me; her logic basically followed the line of "the promises have been exaggerated", a claim that she is not qualified to make, IMHO. Her remarks were clearly for political gain; it is a shame to see such a promising avenue of medical research sidetracked by politics.

Recent poll (ABCnews.com): Favor federal funding for embryonic stem cell research-47; oppose-28%.

Interesting.

Peace,

V-03

 

This may be "off topic" but if you read this entire thread, that might be good thing...
I have heard that a napkin soaked with Alan Keyes' sweat has been posted on Ebay. And there are other people out there that have collected other famous people "memorabilia" such as used cups, half eaten food, etc... The Cloning question I have then is, It doesn't seem that far fetched that someone could clone a famous person right now, raise another Michael Jordan, or maybe create their own little Elvis. This technology does exist today. What are the implications of someone "stealing" another person's DNA and replicating them as their own child? I?m not concerned with ?souls? or ?playing god? but is their any sort of paternal claim to ones own DNA?

 

Why Clone?

So a field of nine different 'Ted Williams' can take the series for Boston!

Woooooooooooooooooooo!!!

 

I'm against cloning, more so for the sake of the cloned person than anything else. I'm assuming there would be no difference between a clone and someone made by the conventional means. Obviously with man's fictional belief in souls clones would most likely be viewed as sub-human and that scares me for their sakes. The potential for abuse I think is too great when the gain is nothing but the advancement of science and scientific knowledge.

 

Cyprusg, you and I have vastly different religious views, so to you, a soul may not be a big issue. To those of us who believe in God, our souls are very important. No one will be able to answer this question, but I wonder about clones and souls. I'm not sure how they would get one but don't know what the point of living would be without one. Those are just my observations and to me, that is a drawback to cloning.

 

No one will be able to answer this question, but I wonder about clones and souls. I'm not sure how they would get one but don't know what the point of living would be without one.

do you generally believe that identical twins only have one soul between them? do you normally worry about whether or not people conceived through in vitro fertilization have souls?

if you believe natural-born humans have souls, and artificially-conceived humans have souls, there's no reason to believe that cloned humans would not have them. they would be no less human than anyone else.

 

do you generally believe that identical twins only have one soul between them? do you normally worry about whether or not people conceived through in vitro fertilization have souls?

No, they are two separate individuals. And I don't worry, I just wonder.

EDIT: I'm really curious about the benefits of cloning. What purpose does it serve to be able to create an exact copy of an individual? I've heard they could use medically, but for what?

 

No, they are two separate individuals.

clones and the person they're cloned from are also two separate individuals, no more closely related than identical twins, and in many practical respects, less so.

 

My main concern with cloning full-fledged human beings is that if the clones are made from somatic cells (as opposed to germ cells like sperm/eggs), the chromosomes have aged to an extent and the genes being copied may have accumulated errors. The net result of this is that cloned babies may end up with unforseen health consequences that are impossible to predict in advance at our current level of knowledge.

In part because of this, I feel even more strongly that we need to pursue embryonic research, so that we can learn. There's a lot to find, a lot to discover.

Peace,

V-03

 

I'm in favor of well regulated embryonic cloning research, but reproductive cloning to me is even more of a bigger no than legalizing drugs.

 

It's too bad we can't clone food.

I think cloning for medical research is an excellent idea. I guess that falls into the stem cell research debate, but I'm not certain.