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Human clones priced at $50,000
A private consortium of scientists
plans to clone a human being within the next two years. They claim they will develop ethical guidelines to determine when to clone and not to clone. This assumes the scientists that develop a technology are able to limit society's use of that technology. It also assumes scientists are the best judges as to whether society is sufficiently mature to use a given technology sanely. Both questions seem debatable to me. What do you think?
Nope, I'm a Quake 3 WFA man myself =)
This article was posted with the Einstein
icon.. Got me wondering if they could clone
him, and get him adopted into a nice family.
I saw on "History's Lost and Found" (on the
History channel) that pieces of Einstein's
brain are all over the world. Would it be
possible to clone him?
metric
do you really think a world populated by any intelligence species (or at the very least intelligence as we know it: humans) could go on without using techology for war and destruction? our history and evolution has, in the end, often been decided by who survives. you can say "you shouldn't do that" all you want but all it takes is one person with the intelligence to make the discovery and pandora's box has been opened. i don't think it possible that the atomic bomb would never have been developed, regardless of how horrible a future it could potentially lead to.
You are the idiot who, when confronted with Galileo says "things are fine as they are there's no reason to introduce this imbalance." you think the astronauts on the Challenger were fools? do you really think the wonders of zero gravity will do nothing for medicine? that's like saying the people who died finding a vaccine for malaria were fools.
the fact that this got modded up makes me ill
sell your certainty and buy bewilderment
It would seem to be the same as the argument that comes up everytime a digital copy-protection scheme is mentioned.
All it takes is one copy to produce more.
I'm sure that among all the people in the world you will find some female willing to give birth to a "headless abomination" (that's hyperbole, not personal beliefs) for the right amount of cash. It has been shown time and time again that the human creature will do bizarre things for all sorts of reasons, perhaps there are even folks out there who would think it would be cool to have the worlds first headless child.
All it takes is one copy to make more. The only difference is the amount of time involved.
Fist Prost
"We're talking about a planet of helpdesks."
Fist Prost
"We're talking about a planet of helpdesks."
-Jaron Lanier
Actual problems with clones has everything to do with genetic diversity. If a couple loses their ability to reproduce, and subsequently loses their only child to some disease, a genetic sibling of that child will potentially have big problems with the same disease. Other problems are not necessarily ONE additional child, but MANY identical twins running around, plus the potential stigma attached. If it becomes accepted, thousands of parents will want their children to be just like that "Tall, Blue-eyed, Handsome Guy." If it becomes too common, the stigma will be on those that weren't created in a laboratory.
In small quantities, cloning probably won't hurt anything, except socially. It will have everything to do with social aspects. But in large quanties, lack of genetic diversity (either immediately or the clone's children breeding with others from same clone) is indeed dangerous to the race as a whole. Genes will go to fixation, usually resulting in big genetic problems. cf: genetic diversity in cheetahs and inbreeding in humans.
It's already been done with a study of identical twins (also identical DNA) split at birth, apparently nurture doesn't contribute much.
Whenever the subject of cloning humans comes up, invariably someone will mention, "What if they cloned Hitler?" People assume that a Hitler clone would be evil. This shows that they think that our genes determine our behaviour, and that we don't have control over our actions. Yet those same people will tell you that we should be punished for our bad actions because we voluntarily choose our behaviour. So, do we have free will or not? Are we, or are we not pawns of our genetic predisposition? If we really do believe that we have free will, and that our behaviour is consciously chosen, then why do we fear the cloning of Hitler?
I personally have no ethical objections to anything of this sort as long as the 'clone' will grow up just like any other human child would (i.e., not in a lab and bonding with a single pair or parents). I think this is an absolute must for the scientific world to explore.
I think the religious people are so terrified of it because it will strongly suggest the lack of existance of a soul, since this 'creation of life' will be accomplished, at least in inception, by purely mechanical means.
Should be interesting to watch.
I wonder of the kid'll get beat up a lot at school. "hey LOONEY CLOONEY CLONE!! I'm gonna KICK YER FAG CLONEY ASS AFTER SCHOOL!!!!"
First, they ignore you.
Then they laugh at you.
Then they fight you.
Then you win.
- Mahatma Ghandi
The world's human cloning community is approacing the third part.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
You see, once the scientists have made a sound decision and weighed the possible outcomes and they make as good of an educated guess if the possible outcomes are more hazardous than the possible benefits it is a VERY political issue.
Think about it you or I can decide okay there is a 10 percent chance we ALL die from this do it or press on in the name of science?
Heh, I think id rather not leave things to chance in the sake of being the first one to do that...
Jeremy
1:
Just because someone is cloned, does not make them more / less likely to become effected by a bacteria strain. Without mutation in the birth process, they will have about the same resistance to foreign entities. Now, the argument that a bacteria could take over the world in a cloned world vs a bacteria not taking over the world in a non cloned society means that the entire society would have to be cloned or be offspring of this clone.
2:
We all came from somewhere, and assumably it can be assumed that the evolution of the human being all started with a male and a female. If we all started from them, then in your eyes, we should have the same strengths / resistances as eachother. As we have seen tough, we have mutated to contain different traits, effectively making us the different people that we are.
3:
You say that we are not as cleaver as nature.. I would ask you to define nature's intelegence... Nature is not defined by intelegence, but by random acts that cause random effects. The averages of these events is what I see as nature. In us changing the way nature has worked is not counter to nature, it is changing nature to adapt to our changes. An example of this is artificial selection, a deviation from natural selection which we cause. Nature is not an all encompasing static entity, but dynamic and changing. This is the foundation of evolutionary thinking.
Bye!
I think I finally figured out the Catholic church's REAL problem with cloning;
A person who is cloned, when they find out their origin, how easily will they buy-into the thought that God made them? Right now, scientifically-minded religious people can rationalize it by saying, "Nature made me, nature is God's tool." But not if they were cloned. God made the original. But the clone is different.
How will clones think of themselves? Will they have a harder time accepting spiritual notions? Could they develop a psychological complex over the issue? What if the genetic donor was a terrible person? Will the clone feel predisposed towards that? What if the genetic donor has pictures posted of themself on the internet doing it with a goat? Can they sue the donor for posting what are for all intents and purposes, pictures of THEM?
There are just a lot of issues we "natural born" humans seem to be taking for granted here, that might just cause some emotional distress for the clone.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Not quite the same thing as cloning, but that's only a minor technical detail to be added, technology and legalities permitting.
but i have to wonder about all the health issues "dolly" the sheep suffered. premature aging, etc.
/usr/mp3s/britney/oops_i_did_it_again.mp3 &
if a clone has major health/lifespan issues, can they sue the researcher who created them for malpractice?
after all, they cannot possibly have signed a waiver or agreement prior to the dd...
small_dick@clone.factory bash> dd if=/dev/britney_spears of=/tmp/playtoy_001 count=1 &
small_dick@clone.factory bash> mpg123
small_dick@clone.factory bash>
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Yes, we are cleverer than nature. Witness:
Heavier than air flight
The eradication of smallpox (except in labs)
The very helpful drugs you are complaining about.
A pilot, in those days, was the only unfettered and entirely independent human being that lived in the earth.-Mark Twain
Here`s a little thought experiment that your small minded brain may be able to handle:
Roll a dice 30 times and write down the number that you get (or 40 times or 50 times, it doesn`t really matter). Now calculate the probability that you would roll that EXACT number: pretty high isn`t it? But it just happened! The universe is infinately more complex that you or I can possibly imagine but I don`t need to postulate some mythical "daddy in the sky" figure to accept that as fact.
Get off your moralistic high-horse for one second and think about words like murder before ignorantly spouting them in such a manner. The "where to draw the line between contraception and abortion" argument has been done to death before so I won`t go into it here.
If you can`t debate the ethics of a complex issue like cloning without resorting to childish "don`t mess with the big daddy in the sky" ignorance then please don`t bother: you are just wasting your own time and everybody else`s.
(jeez, work must be really boring me, that I`m responding to god-bothering flamebait...)
A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
to a simple stone.
We have already practiced nuclear war, and the expierence that comes from it is here helping us understand a variety of other related technologies. Humans will do something because they can do it in most cases. Being prepared for the consequences is another, and a much more ethically challanged arena to debate. Yet, to side line a technology out of fear is irrational. Unless there is documented proof of humans being able to use it for unrelentless or uncontrolable harm I see no reason to object to it. Technology creates tools not idealogy, change society do not forestall science to make a mere reactionary point.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Wrong. Stephen Hawking is not an evolutionary dead end. He's useful to the human race. It would be nice to engineer out the ALS/MND though, if you're going to use his genetic material.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
My existence does not cause others to starve. In fact, because I'm gainfully employed, I make things that help others to eat. If one person can create a surplus, two people can create twice the surplus. A productive person that lives twice as long will contribute twice as much.
Destructive and lawless behavior makes people starve.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
werd.
;)
i find it amusing that www.winsucks.com (from your profile link) generates 500: Internal server error when clicked.
No, I'm not looking to replace my wife with a clone. That's not possible, because a person is as much a product as their upbringing as their personality, and besides, I'm not interested in a wife decades younger than I am. A clone of my wife would be my daughter, not my wife. Again, there is nothing particularly new about a father having to deal with a daughter who happens to look, and act, very much the way his wife did at that age--that's the way genetics often works. Most fathers manage to maintain an appropriate father/daughter relationship in spite of any such resemblance.
As to whether I would marry again, having a wife from a former marriage is always a potential difficulty in future relationships, but I don't see the exact percentage of her mother's genes as being a critical factor.
Genetics isn't "about" anything, it just is. This is just the old, kneejerk "It ain't natural" reaction. And as I said before, we have more human genetic diversity than ever existed in history. And that will continue to be true even if we have quite a bit of cloning.
On the contrary, I saw this coming decades ago, and have been contemplating the ethical implications for many years. And one lesson the history of technology teaches is that the problems people worry about in advance are rarely those that actually turn out to be the most troublesome. Cloning is a red herring--it sounds scary, but the issues involved are familiar ones that people have dealt with in one form or another for generations.it's fscked. I'll sell the domain tho =)
Sorry, I don't have a relevent link and I don't know the margin of error.
And now, for $50K, she can become a mold.
Sadly, we men are obsolete. If we're ever to be needed again, they can just take some old genetic samples out of the freezer.
I teach physics and I often tell my students that scientists need to take moral leadership in the technology field. Most scientists, even most in industrial labs, are sufficiently unconnected from the potential profits of a new technology (the companies profit, but not so much their R&D staff) that they can (if they are so inclined) make sober, relatively fair judgements about the future use and consequenses of new technology, and warn the public should dangers arise. In fact, some minority of the science community has always done this. Without at least some scientists with a moral and social conscience, we don't have a hope of controlling abuses of technology, because any attempt to limit or stop a bad application of a technology requires that the opponents be well-informed. So one good thing about all the public paranoia about genetic engineering is that the scientists involved in it are putting a lot more effort into dealing with ethical issues than in most research, where it is never publicly discussed at all -- until it is too late an there is a public health crisis. So I say, if the scientists do what they say they'll do (with regard to ethical concerns), we should all support them - but with skepticism and scrutiny. If their pronoucements turn out to be smoke and mirrors, they should be ruthlessly criticized, as publicly as possible.
PEACE LOVE FREEDOM ANARCHY
The thing that terrifies me about all the hype about cloning is that it reinforces the belief that clones are "manufactured" human beings, and do not have the same rights as "real" people. In the real world, clones don't melt into a puddle of green slime when they're killed... they are, by definition, as human as the donor from whose DNA they were fertilized.
MSK
Moondog
When scientists do decide to create that first human clone, what will be the reason? Will it be because they want to see if they are successful or will it be because a couple can't have children and this is their alternative? Let's say it was the first option. What happens when that clone reaches a certain age and is informed it is a clone, that it's sole reason for living is all for the good of science? How is that being going to feel? To know it's just an experiment? I hope that if human cloning does take place it is for a real reason and not the aforementioned reason.
"Dre don't get as high as me.... I'm Cheech and Chong" - Snoop Dogg
As for your more philosphical question about souls, what makes you think you have one? Dolly seems to be a normal sheep, and when a natural clone occurs (identical twins) you get two individuals.
At the end of the day any issues reguarding souls, etc. will be sorted out by whatever cosmic force makes those descisions. It's not something we need to worry about.
Andrea Dworkin describes such a utopian future future of the "androgynous community" where the perceived "deviance" of sexualities disappear and we're all free to become what we already feel we are but repress.
Hooray! Now we can get rid of sex forever!
Thank you Andrea Dworkin!
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
Too bad it's still cheaper to do what Hitler did, which is make brothels for your SS troops.
Steps in cloning:
1) isolate a cell from the donor
2) remove the nucleus/genetic material from the cell
3) prepare a host egg by removing it's genetic material
4) insert the material from the first cell into the second
5) artificially inseminate the egg into a host mother or keep alive in a test tube
6) wait 9 months
The "old fashioned" method
1) find two members of the "superior" race of opposite
2) allow them to have some fun
3) while not pregnant goto 2
4) wait 9 months
It's certainly easier to obtain a new "genetically" superior human via the second method. Besides, either method requires that you wait at least 12-15 years before the new human is at all useful. You cannot out-populate other races using cloning... fools with these sorts of delusions will unfortunately turn to the methods which you were so kind to point out: genocide.
Doug
Venn ist das nurnstuck git und Slotermeyer? Ya! Beigerhund das oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
I hear people always saying how they are afraid that cloning and genetic engineering is going to "create a monster"... that we open ourselves to all sorts of nightmare scenarios. I can't say I buy that, personally. A friend of mine, retired engineer, made a really good analogy for me on the matter. He compared the situation to the story of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley... Most people assume that the moral of the story is "don't mess in God's Domain", but if you read the book you realize that isn't the case at all. The moral is, simply put, if you make a monster, you damn well better take care of it. The only reason the monster goes homicidal is because it is rejected and neglected and hated by everyone. So it is with cloning and genetic engineering. The monster exists. If we shun it, force it underground and make it illegal, the result could be disasterous. People are going to use it anyways and advance research in the field along limited goal-oriented lines (after all, it will be underground and privately funded). If the community as a whole is not keeping up, we may be ill-prepared for what comes up from the underground. In Austrailia (I believe) the search for a new form of birth control ended up creating a new virus instead! It's easy to imagine a similar incident occuring in the field of genetics somehow. Why should allow ourselves to be ill prepared for it? Anyways, that's my two cents... you're probably expecting a penny in change :)
----
Fuzzy Knights: New RPG Strips Tuesday and Friday!:
http://www.fuzzyknights.com
3) Sentience is equivalent to a 'soul'.
Sorry buddy, step three is an pretty big leap for me. I don't think very many people truely know what a soul means to even themselves.
i think we should all get a spare of ourselves, in case of accidents.
...would be to transplant my brain into a new copy of myself and get to enjoy youth all over again. Imagine being 17 and knowing then what you know now.
.. do the same with my beautiful wife and I'd be groovin.
society is sufficiently mature
Society can't BE mature or immature... that term only pertains to individual people. What does it mean? Nothing.
Does this mean I can buy all my friends their very own Cowboy Neil?
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I think it's bogus.
There's a cult that's been promising to do this. I can't tell by the article whether Zavos is one of the culties.
If not, then it's certainly a promotional stunt.
--
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
As I recall one of the largest problems with cloning is that the age of genetic material which you use as a source remains in the formed clone. I.e. If you take cells or other material from a fifty year old man and make a baby with them then the baby is genetically fifty years old when created and likely to die at an early age.
It isn't as simple as it first appears.
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Although I'm not opposed to cloning in the ethical sense, it seems that we already have a pretty massive population problem to begin with. The $50,000 fee might keep the majority of people out of the race to begin with, but these costs defray with time and competition. And anyway, many luxury cars go for more than $50,000.
------ Work is so much easier when you don't
Advanced Biolab: $25,000
Tissue samples: $10,000
Lobbying congress to make it legal:$100,000
An endless supply of fresh CmdrTacos: Priceless
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
"... clones would simply provide a better control comparison... I believe that clonig stands to benefit not only genetics and biology, but other fields like psychology and sociology as well.... I believe that clonig stands to benefit not only genetics and biology, but other fields like psychology and sociology as well."
So the clone will be just a guinea pig, right? Aren't you forgetting the fact that the clone will be a human being?
The omocigotic (identical) twins share the same genes; the differences between them come from their growth inside the mother, one growing bigger than the other, etc. So your clone will not be has similar to the DNA donor than you think, since he will have a completely different mother to begin with, throwing away your "better control comparison"
I know it, My GF have a "identical" twin, but her sister is taller and wears eyeglasses, among many other differences between them.
I'm not completely against human cloning, but aside the argument that it should be done because it can be done (and a good business to do with rich, childish infertile couples =) it's useless. It's the answer to a problem that doesn't exist, and a source of many new problems. Aside the genes, what will be the difference between raising an adopted child and a cloned one? They wouldn't deserve the same love from their parents? Wouldn't you love the child just because he (she) doesn't look like you?
Mexico: 100% conservative's America now!
Ummm.... Cloning = $50K + cost of having a baby. Why not just head to some third world country, deposit $100 and a bit of sperm, pay the normal cost of having a kid, and skip the $50K? More fun, eh? Or, just zip over to some such country and purchase/kidnap/etc. a "body" ready to use?
Luckily, I can't say it happens all the time, but if one were inclined towards slavery and such, there are much easier and cheaper ways to go about it. Heck, there are a lot of people here in the states that will do almost any kind of experiment for a six-pack, carton of cigs, and $20.
Stupid people will be persecuted to the fullest extent allowed by law.
Human beings seem to have been GPLd by God- you can change the DNA (either with prebuilt scripts (normal child), or programming (genetic engineering)), but you have to release the source, where the rest of the world can further change it. hehehe
". To me there is no ethically justifiable killing, even in self-defense"
It amuses me that people choose to constrain their actions based on some fabricated system of morality or ethics. Opinions on "moral issues", e.g. abortion, execution, cloning are for teenagers, who haven't yet realized that objective right and wrong are a myth, much in the same way that father christmas exists for small children, and god exists for people with mid-life crises.
". If someone knows how it feels to be punched in the face, why would they ever do that to another?"
Some people like the feeling of punching someone in the face- some people enjoy being punched in the face. Pleasure and pain are not the hard, black and white things your naive "moral system" requires.
Richard Dawkins had it right. He da man, and that.
Heh, tell you what, mate, you're right about animals having souls and personalities and all that.
Let me tell you, my dog, Bob, right? He's such a character! When I pick up the lead to take him for a walk, he gets all excited like, and runs about me feet... he loves it!
And I swear he knows psychically when I'm about to come in the house, because you can see him at the window when I come up the path! You can! Aye....
Me best mate, Matt, he says right that it's all Pavlovian SR conditioning, but Matt's always been a bit of a queer cunt for stuff like that.
Oh, yes, Bob? Had him for years now... He must be, let's see. about 412 in human years now.
Yes, so don't you uninformed young 'uns try to tell me my dog's got no soul. Because I'd say, "Then how does he smell?", and you'd say "Fucking terrible, mate!" ahahah the old ones are the best ones. It were funnier down the pub...
"perhaps there are even folks out there who would think it would be cool to have the worlds first headless child. "
Heheheh. You'd save a fortune in hats, for a start. And haircuts.
Your child couldn't get pierced ears in order to rebel against you.
Then when they took a "head count" on school trips they'd always be one out.
The child's peer group would always be taller "by a head".
Just think of the embarassed looks when someone started to say "You'd lose your own head if it weren't... oh, dear, sorry..."
How would your child keep a scarf on?
I'm sure there's more.
Apologies to all parents and relatives of headless children for the offensive caused.
"Do you mind providing a link to the story about the "chappie" with no brain? I for one don't buy it. "
Refraining from making any jokes about students on Social Policy courses, I will mention that this story probably got created chinese-whisper style from the one where some oxford undergrad had half his brain removed because of epilepsy and still passed his degree.
(But how do you have the heart to fail someone who's lost half his brain?)
Griffis
"forcing a clone to grow up as you is child abuse. "
But this is what all parents do- try to force their children to grow up as them, or as an idealized them, anyway, a clone of them that learned to play the piano and didn't swear in front of their grandmother.
So anyway, you seem to have a weird (i.e. different to everyone else's) definition of child abuse. You're probably one of these "save the whale", "recycle your lemurs", "'hymns' is a sexist term" kind of people.
"Take some sociology classes."
...if you find psychology too hard to understand
"The only real differences between men and women that are not socialized have to do with the production of children."
...duh, like what about the cortical differences, i.e. men on average being better than women at spatial reasoning vs women being better on average at language? It's a right brain/left brain jig m'dear.
If you don't like slashdot, go write a book on "Gender Studies", wear dungarees with a wrench in your top pocket, cut your hair real short and have huge dangly earrings.
Very good point, and I definately agree. That's where things like opinion and religion start influencing your stance; at what stage exactly have you crossed the critical point where there's enough of a potential for it to be considered murder? Some people think contraception is bad for this very reason.
:)
I'll have to try that line, though.
Don't wrestle with pigs; you'll both get muddy, but the pig likes it.
I guess you meant "aisle 6", but "isle 6" is more of a John Brunner "Stand on Zanzibar" kind of tie-in whatsit irony.
I don't think we should be forced to "leave technology on the shelf". When medicine came into practice some argued that we should let them die as it was "natural order" or "God's will". I think that looking back we'll find opposition to cloning just as ludicrous. But asides from the stem cells and organs, why would you want to clone? Would there be a point to having a genetic copy of yourself? Even in the event of say an infant that died early and the parents wanted the same one, it is not like you are creating the same person, you are creating a genetic copy, similar to a twin.
For those of the population who labour under the impression that my knowledge of where on the internet to locate a study somehow affects it's margin of error, you can find many links on Minnesota study of twins reared apart. I doubt this is the study I was refering to, which tended to focus on the cases with large environment difference - one being raised jewish and the other nazi for instance, but the Minnesota study of twins reared apart is probably more balanced.
I keep envisioning scenes from the Matrix after reading your post.
--
Maybe you are talking about http://www.ronsangels.com/. It was all over the news and tabloids when it was first launched. Beautiful women selling their eggs. Hrm, at least they aren't letting their eggs "go to waste". But something about it still seems wierd. I mean, aren't they taking all the fun out of getting to use the eggs of a beautiful woman? Or are women who want beautiful babies buying into this?
Either way, it seems strange to me.
Withdrawal before climax is very ineffective and those who try this are usually called "parents."
And we should also make them all use Linux.
Man, haven't you watched *any* sci-fi movies in the last 3 decades???
We are *not* putting anything resembling operational software anywhere near these headless bodies. The possible consequences are dire!
Dancin Santa
Heck, that's been a fantasy of mine since I was a teenager and realized things were only going to get worse :)
:)
Problems (which will hopefully soon be solved):
While brain transplants have been successfuly done (monkeys back in the 70s or 80s), they still can't connect the brain with the spinal column. Hence, paralysis.
Also, growing the clone to adulthood in a relatively short period of time. Unless you want to plan ahead and let it grow for 15-18 years (keeping in mind the costs involved to keep it alive).
And unless you have no moral qualms about letting the clone live its life until it was 15-18 and then essentially killing it by replacing its brain with yours, you'd also have to find a way to grow it without a brain from the get-go.
And even though your body is new, your brain isn't. Imagine being an 18 year old and suddenly come down with Alzeimers!
Of course, these are just some idle thoughts I had. I bet there are lots of other problems you might have as a result...
My two cents... your change is in the mail
Fuzzy Knights: New RPG Strips Tuesday and Friday!:
http://www.fuzzyknights.com
Ummm...how about tangerines? And dalmatians? And any other domesticated plant or animal you'd care to name? "Simple minded meddling" is what enables us to feed 10x more people than we ever thought possible at the beginning of this century. Selective breeding works. Genetic engineering will also work. Are there concerns? Sure. But just trying to keep the genie in the bottle is a) foolish and b) impossible.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
1. On requiring government approval and study of every new frontier of science prior to proceeding with commercial exploitation.
- Like I said, in an ideal world, we could do this, but we have lots of wackos in office, so things could be fought, fillibustered, and pork-barrelled to death. But it's still a good idea, rather than proceeding outside of the rule of law.
2. Women giving birth "the old fashioned way".
- not necessarily; for instance, something that could get a LOT of people's dander up, two gay men approach a woman to be a surrogate mother to twin clones of the gay men. . . I know that surrogate motherhood can be very complicated wrt emotional entanglements and such, but scenarios can arise where the birthing mother's role is trivial, and roughly equivalent to the "brewing vats" we know and love from Sci Fi B movies.
3. On corporations "owning" clones.
- you tell me to not be ridiculous; tell Amazon.com to not be ridiculous about 1-click shopping. I'm totally serious because they're totally ridiculous. This is why I firmly believe that we need a rock-solid legal foundation to build on before we go start cloning people willy-nilly.
4. On the past success of animal trials.
- the way I understand it, the animal trials do NOT indicate that there are no problems with this. 2% success rate isn't very convincing. Surely we'll overcome many of these problems, but as problems are overcome, new ones will arise (as it is with programming, once you get the GUI running, you can test the functionality of the engine, and as you fix GUI bugs, you discover previously hidden engine bugs), and who will be the guinea pigs when some fat pharmaceutical company bribes their way into government acceptance? The poor clonees. And when a clone gets sick, how will they be able to tell if they just acquired a "normal" illness, or if it is one caused by their unique origin - and who knows if the company that invented the process will have that information but keep it secret because it's proprietary? (and would expose them to legal action).
I'm not saying it should never be attempted, never be done. I'm just saying that maybe we have to think about this a WHOLE lot more than we have. Stupid Arnold Schwartzenegger movies don't help much.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
It is physically hazardous, and the risk is bourn by the clone, not by the person who decided to have a clone. Risks include many pre-birth failures to mature, deformity, possibly abnormal aging.
A child should be free to discover their own talents and weaknesses. This is much harder when someone else has taken your genes along the same path 40 years before. It is bad enough trying to live up to an illustrious parent without having identical genes. Imagine the angst of achieving little with the same genes as your famous clone parent. Note that this is different from identical twins, as they are the same age.
Why should any such risks be taken by the clone for the benefit (ego or whatever) of another person? What valid reasons can there be to inflict such risks, when a normal conception can always be done more safely and easily?
(One possibly valid reason could be if the individual has no viable germ cells - but still then only if the clone would be expected to be reproductively normal.)
(I'm not some unreasoning technophobe, but there were no highly moderated comments giving the anti-cloning viewpoint, so I am posting to increase balance.)
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
I also don't think that we should try to stop it; we will never know the true long-term consequences of this technology until we get there, and even though there are guaranteed to be some misteps, society will adapt and learn to live with human cloning as an accepted part of life. Society is not going to do something stupid and self-destructive simply because new technology gets involved. We learned to live with the Bomb, and with cable-TV, and we're still here.
One thing I don't understand is the wacked out predictions that people have made about this. A clone is every bit a person as its donor- slavery and "organ factories" should be non-issues because we already have the technology to create them, yet it isn't being done. After all, someone could use in-vitro fertilization to make an embryo, remove the to-be brain cells, then implant it and use the resulting human body, sans brain, for organs. We don't see it happening, though. Then there are the people who say that humanity will stop reproducing sexually because we can clone ourselves. Right... who really thinks that people will stop doing something that's highly pleasurable because they don't have to?
I think human cloning will only become commonplace if it provides a significant social advantage. If it does, questionable cloning practices will remain on the fringe, with all the other ethically questionable things.
--WH--
I see all these people talking about cloning and how its not a big deal, and I'm starting to see that they are right. Maybe its not that big of a deal, but what is the point to cloning??? to see what you would have looked like if you hadn't fallen off that bridge?
It seems that my whole concern the whole time was that why would some one do something like this. I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything this is a seriouse question. I wanna know why any one would want to clone some one.
This makes perfect sense as a business proposition! It could be hugely profitable - do you have any idea how long the waiting lists for organs are? High-demand=high margins, = high profits.
The clones could be made using the transplant recipient's DNA, or possibly with the proper technological advances, the DNA could be altered ahead of time to produce tissue that's a close match. Whether this is legally considered murder (compared to shanghaiing someone in an alley and cutting out their kidney), depends on the laws of our theoretical impoverished third-world country. If we're talking about a freaked out religious fundamentalist government, they may be pretty easy to convince that a clone is not a human (the Taliban are already convinced that women aren't human).
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Mod me down accordingly...
Clones (We're All)
I'm a clone
I know it and I'm fine
I'm one and more are on the way
I'm two, doctor
Three's on the line
He'll take incubation another day
I'm all alone, so are we all
We're all clones
All are one and one are all
All are one and one are all
We destroyed the government
We're destroying time
No more problems on the way
I'm through doctor
We don't need your kind
The other ones
Ugly ones
Stupid boys
Wrong ones
I'm all alone, so are we all
We're all clones
All are one and one are all
All are one and one are all
Six is having problems
Adjusting to his clone status
Have to put him on a shelf
All day long we hear him crying so loud
I just wanna be myself
I just wanna be myself
I just wanna be myself
Be myself
Be myself
I'm all alone, so are we all
We destroyed the government
We're destroyed time
No more problems on the way
I'm through doctor
We don't need your kind
The other ones
Ugly ones
Stupid boys
Wrong ones
I'm all alone, so are we all
We're all clones
All are one and one are all
All are one and one are all
I'm all alone, so are we all
We're all clones
All are one and one are all
All are one and one are all
In the light of that, I'd say that theologians, philosophers, and religous authorities would be best off deciding such things.
-------
CAIMLAS
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
G.W. Bush v8 has announced his candidacy for President of the United States. The current president, G.W. Bush v7, has repeatedly called his opponent "nothing more than a feeble attempt at mimicing my stand on the key issues."
But seriously, $50,000 is a helluva lot of money to 99.99% of the world's population. So the rich now not only dominate in one life, but they get to perpetuate themselves infinitely?
If you think the Kennedys are a powerful political clan now, think about what they could be like with cloning at their disposal. Imagine the hiring policies of corporations who develop techniques to determine which particular clone donors make the best cloned workers. Think about the power not of death, but of life, misapplied.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
And for someone who probably includes himself among the 'very intelligent' you have missed the biggest problem with cloning. Clone an infertile man and you will get an infertile clone, if the sterility is a genetic problem.
This infertile clone will also demand the "right" to a child of his own and will want to be cloned as well...
It's a human ponsi scheme...
This makes no sense as a business proposition. The advantage of using clones as organ donors is that, if a person had a clone made, that clone would be a perfect match to its progenitor.
Such is not the case for general-purpose clones, which are no better than anyone else as organ donors for the public.
If some company just wanted to mass produce organ donors, they would find it vastly easier to just find a bunch of mothers in third world countries and pay them to get pregnant a lot. Or even easier than that, just go kill people as needed for organs. Why make babies when you can go murder fully grown humans for their parts?
These crazy anti-cloning ideas never have any real basis in logic. The real argument against cloning is just that it's a very spotty procedure that barely works in animals -- until techniques are much improved, it would likely be pretty ineffective in humans. If you get 30 stillbirths and nonviable fetuses per success (and countless more attempts that simply failed in the test tube) it's just going to be an unnecessary risk to the mother.
I suppose there is the problem of the clone of the famous person growing up under the pressure of inflated expectations. Probably that clone of Einstein will decide to become a performance artist just to defy everybody's assumptions.
This struck me as interesting. What if you went your whole life, just bumping along normally, when you got to college and realized that you looked a whole lot like Albert Einstein, at the same age. Far too much like him to be coincidental. You confront your "parents", who inform you that, in fact, you are as much Einstein as he was.
There are some other issues that would need some clearing up, as well.
I lost my wife before we had a chance to have children. It would be wonderful to have a daughter like her.
You're crossing very deeply programmed relational bonds when you do this. Every culture of humans on this planet has incest taboos. You would be putting your "daughter" in a role/relationship you formally reserved for your lover. Would you inform your "daughter" of this? How do you think she would feel about her place in the family? What do you think she would feel she had to do to live up to your expectations? Would you re-marry? How would your new wife feel about your first wife living in the house in the form of your "daughter". Would you not re-marry, because you feel that you can satisfy the same emotional urges with your "daughter"? There are other issues. Imagine the social pressures felt by children of same-sex coupled households. Do you think there would not be similar pressures placed on your "daughter" by her peers when they find out that she's your daughter and your wife? Kids can be mean. We all poke fun of Maine and Kentucky for this, and now the intelligentsia are considering it? You think your "daughter's" friends won't hear their parents talking?
I think you threw out the idea because of the emotional swell you felt while remembering your wife, but I really don't think this is the sort of situation you really want.
Why roll the genetic dice again when you already had a winning throw?
This is also a very dangerous sentiment. Dice games are what genetics is all about. I don't need to get into the whole argument here, but just remember that your wife might never have existed if her parents had opted for a clone instead of a little more genomic diversity.
I'm going to hazard another guess and say that you adopted cloning without contemplating any of these issues. It scares me that this is how the decision will be made, just like so many other technology-related decisions before it. Without serious forethought given to negative consequences. Scientists and technologists aren't generally known for their contributions to philosophy, theology, ethics and morality, or any of the other ways in which society gauges the value of ideas and behaviors. They're just the peons that invent the shit that the rest of us have to deal with for ever after, usually motivated by ego and greed (arguably the same as anyone else, but still not qualified to make decisions for anyone else. Hell, I don't even remember voting for scientists. Certainly I didn't write any of them a note that said to go ahead and clone some guys.)
My point, in summary, is that we've gotten ourselves into quite a few predicaments due to running around finding genies to let out of bottles, without taking enough time before hand to wonder why we should do this, instead of making others argue why we shouldn't.
There's an enzyme called telomeraese that adds telomeres onto the end of chromosomes. It's normally active in germ-line cells (the cells that produce sperm), cancer cells, and stem cells, I think.
Even if this is a problem, there's a way around it.
I grew up on a farm, where we have all kinds of animals. They reproduce just fine by themselves. Now the press here in the UK got themselves all worked up over cloning when scientists at the Roslin Institute (I was staying a couple of miles away at this time) cloned "Dolly the Sheep"
"All the farmers will want to tamper with nature and use clones!!" went the banner headlines...
What they entirely failed to take into account was that it cost *thousands* per embryo to clone a sheep. And only a couple out of every hundred survived.
Now sheep cost about £30-40 per head at the moment. Do the math.
To get back to the subject in hand, I don't think anyone is desperate enough to stake $50k on a <6% chance of having a baby.
"It also assumes scientists are the best judges as to whether society is sufficiently mature to use a given technology sanely."
Who gets to decide? In this kind of debate everyone has an agenda. The scientists obviously want their work to develop, and to see how far they can go. Those that are against it will probably never be convinced. Those that have no opinion cannot be convinced because it isn't a question of proving anything, It is merely opinion. The whole debate may come down to a gradual change in what people deem to be acceptable. In which case we may as well do it now in order to gain full advantage.
The fact that you CAN do something may not mean it SHOULD be done, but it certainly does mean it WILL be done. The wisdom or lack of wisdom of scientists doesn't matter. The decision makers are business people, who are probably speculating right now on what form the cloning industry will take. Some thoughts...
Reproduction: My guess is that some people with the vanity and bucks may have themselves cloned in lieu of having randomly variant children. Then consider all the yuppies who would pay top dollar for the cells of the bright and beautiful. Gifted child, hah! We got Linus Pauling here. Most of us will stick with the old fashioned way.
Organ replacement: Growing an extra human body for spare parts will be far too expensive for the masses. Once the cloning scientists work out the mechanics, I believe they and the genome scientists will shoot for mass-produceable plug-and-play body parts and really good anti-rejection drugs. The organs will probably be grown in pigs, or some new animal engineered for the purpose. Like any other industry it will trend toward standardization, low cost, simplicity and maximum market. Do you want fries with those McKidneys?
Food: Speaking of fries, let's face it, somebody somewhere is gonna grow big juicy chunks of cholesterol-free, ozone-layer-friendly filet mignon in a tank. At first it will probably be popular in high-class restaurants in Japan, where it will enjoy daily massages before being harvested. When the price drops to cruising altitude we'll all be eating it and loving it. I'm buying stock in Soylent Corp. as soon as they IPO.
Wake up and smell the gravy!
No brain eh? This wouldn't be autobiographical by any chance? And BTW spare us your delusional beliefs.
Lack of flexability is what keeps us from licking our own cocks and assholes.
An *ideal* clone is just another copy of a human being. But we can't make those clones yet. The clones we know how to make have a one or two percent success rate -- meaning dozens of embryos are wasted before one goes to term. Many clones die early. And the ones that live, like Dolly the sheep, show some signs of premature aging as a result of shortened telomeres inherited from the original creature.
Right now, to get a human clone, you're going to put the surrogate mother through an average of 50 miscarriages, with a high possibility of infant death, only to create a human being who may suffer progeria and die before they're a teenager. We are not ready to start cloning human beings.
Once those technical problems are worked out, *then* we can talk about the psychological problems that the clone will go through, the sinister possibilities of cloning (like human organ banks), and the incredibly dangerous class inequity that will result when only the rich are able to clone themselves. But those worries, at least, are still a few years away.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
Unless the clones egg comes from your own mother, it's going to have different mitochondrial DNA than you, and certainly be LESS like you than an identical twin would be.
Thank you for making my point perfectly. The normal way of obtaining new human beings is infinitely easier, cheaper, and generally more pleasant.
Doug
Venn ist das nurnstuck git und Slotermeyer? Ya! Beigerhund das oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
By "non-biological" I mean something other than "men have penises and testosterone, women have breasts, vaginas, and estrogen", which is what (sadly) some people think is the only difference between men and women and that every other gender difference (literally *every* difference) is attributable to society "imposing" "gender roles" on people. I think some things are social, but others are not inherent in the way the sexes are hard-wired reproductively and are also not social.
--
Uh, aside from the fact that this story about the "chappie" often appears in anti-science religious literature (you know, the pamphlets handed out by those annoying bastards who need to get both a life and a real job), I've never seen a real, accredited source talk about this.
If you can point me to one (since this is a topic of science, I'd like to see an article from Scientific American, not some religious magazine for wackos), I'd be interested. No, really, it is an interesting tale and would be very startling if true.
Unfortunately just because someone says x doesn't mean x is true, the point is that better scientific magazines make a good attempt to verify the veracity of what's being published, or at lease make sure the person publishing it has actually been doing research in the field in the topic of the article... at least usually...
Psst, BTW, you know the bible should never be taken literally right? It was a verbal tradition for so many years that man, being man, corrupted the word of god. I personally feel that God exists but man corrupted (and continues to) his word for their own selfish goals, so the bible is as much a work of fiction as any fantasy novel. Doesn't mean you can't worship him, just means that you can't quote chapter and verse.
Nevertheless I would have children if I could. Damn it, all these 'single' women can have kids! Why can't I? A single white ugly some bitch who is quite clever in some ways...
Actually, if you outlawed the government from doing anything but protecting your right to life and property, you wouldn't have to worry about wars and thus mustard gas would be irrelevant.
It isn't scientists that are the problem. It's politicians leading the masses of common yokels on crucades. Sad Al Gore lost the election (not that Bush is some ideal candidate)? You're part of the problem.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
I can actually a friend for once. Myself. Cool.
Hopefully, when they clone me, they take one of my personalities with it.
GO CLONES!!!
TW
Television is dead. Long live That Weasel Television
I see what you're after, but let me reduce your last statement to its logical conclusion.
Tonight, I could be making babies. Lots of 'em. Therefore, every woman I come into contact with and do not impregnate is as much murder as is abortion (of course leaving aside for purposes of this argument whether or not abortion is murder).
Hmm..."I'm sorry. I have to sleep with you or else it'll be like I'm killing our unborn child!" would be an interesting pickup line to employ.
I argue that intention is not relevant. If I "meant" to make a human and instead I made a dead body, that's not murder. To my mind, murder is defined as depriving a sentient being (or proto- or post-sentient being) of its sentience. (that means war is mass murder...not that I necessarily agree that it's always a crime...blah blah getting complicated...).
Hmm. There's a cogent argument in there somewhere.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Wasnt the same thing said about birth control and vaccinations?
Huh? Abstractions can't be real? When we say that "society can/can't be trusted to [whatever,]" we're talking about the effects that the [whatever] would have on everyone else. Society cannot be trusted to have, say, nuclear handguns readily available, even though some individuals may be perfectly able to carry that responsibility intelligently and maturely. The possible negative effects of cloning/genetic tweaking are less obvious, but still there.
of course, that's assuming I could do as good a job of child-raising as her equally delightful parents ... And there you hit the nail on the head. Children are as much a product of their upbringing as their genetic makeup (IANAParent, but I have looked after other people's children).
If you clone a child to replace a child lost to illness or accident, and try to raise that child to *be* a replacement for the dead child, you are going to end up with a very very disturbed child very quickly.
Plus the whole idea of raising a child in a dead child's shoes creeps me out a bit.
I'm sorry to hear about your wife. Perhaps the cloning techniques would be much more useful if they could "naturally gene-splice" your DNA with your wife's (mimicking the chromosomal interchange in convention fertilisation)?
The previous line reads a bit cold-blooded, but is not meant in that way.
Not necessarily. It didn't happen with an experiment with mice:
. ap/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2000/NATURE/09/20/mouse.clones
Nearly all the comments so far have basically asked the question "why shouldn't we clone human beings?". I think in this case the more relevant question is "why *should* we?". Is there some missing piece of society that we feel can be filled by cloning? Is there some pressing need to do so? Is it worth the potential risk? No, I don't know *what* risk at this point, but to quote "Jurassic Park": "we were so worried about whether we *could* that we didn't stop to think whether we *should*..."
I take Pinker with a grain of salt, but he makes some good points on gender differences. He does not, however, come close to telling us how the mind works, just as Daniel Dennett didn't explain consciousness in Consiousness Explained. The Language Instinct is bad, I know, but it's an amusing read and at the very least you glean the knowledge that the Eskimos really don't have that many words for snow (four being the substantiated count, I believe). And Pinker isn't the whole field, either. The only point I was trying to make was that there *are* gender differences beyond the obvious reproductive system constructions, something which Andrea Dworkin and her supporter don't agree with (and they're wrong)...referencing evolutionary psych was the first thing that popped into my head to use as a refutation.
A soul is what makes us human and different from animals.
Are you sure that animals don't have souls? They sure do have personalities, and those personalities have to come from somewhere. And don't give me a load of garbage like instinct or surounding environement. These answers are too easy and leave too much unexplained.
if we don't like the clones, we can always transmogrify them...
Scientists that throw morals to the wind i think are a problem. I would hope no scientist would want to create something that caused death and destruction, and indeed, if all scientests took this stance, maybe we wouldn't have mustard gas.
I don't think its the gov't; people were fighting long before there was a formal gov't.
Oh great. I can just see it now...why will my insurance company pay my family six figures if I die unexpectedly when they can just clone me for $50k? Too bad it won't lower my premiums. "Here he is, ma'am...good as new!"
...in CYTEEN, is that so soon as a private consortium of scientists develops the ability to clone a human, they'll attempt to clone one of their own. Bring a dead genius back to life.
I'm not sure if that's how it will play out in real life, but in Cherryh's hands, it makes a damn good story.
hyacinthus.
There are a couple of things that concern me regarding the issue of cloning babies for infertile couples.
I can see the clones (children - whatever you want to call them) getting pretty screwed up. Like who am I created from, can I find them, am I just a sub human... It might become like a whole new catagory of humans.
The other main concern is that there are many children who needed parents to adopt them. Why create clones when you can adopt a child who already needs someone to care for them and love them. If someone can afford to create clones they are surely eligable to be adoptive parents, and those children will be much less screwed up than any clone child.
Saying your OS is the best because more people use it is like saying MacDonalds make the best food
If I'm the first one with a Brittney Spears clone. :(
WOOT!!! Shazbot just because it will never happen.
TW
Television is dead. Long live That Weasel Television
We should begin immediately with the organ factories. I am not kidding.
Sig:
Navy nuke sub lifestyle?
I dunno; since i've been alive these things have been around. But i would there there's a difference between making yourself temporarly infertle and making an exact gentic clone of you. As far as vaccinations go...thats the right way to deal with disease. You're working with nature in that case. you get to learn how to fight off a severely weak form of virus before you get hit with the stronger variant. In any event, your body does learn how to attack and repell disease, the vaccines just give your body more time to adapt.
Cloning is on a whole other level; it gets very close to playing god, and i had hoped we learned that playing god only leads to disaster.
That's Tyrell, monkey.
If you're going to make a Blade Runner reference, at least get it right...
If you don't want to be cloned, then don't.
But I'm shedding skin and hair all over the place! How am I supposed to stop!?!
Withdrawal before climax is very ineffective and those who try this are usually called "parents."
Cloning != vat babies
God does not play dice with the universe. Albert Einstein
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
If I piss everyone off and nobody wants to hang out with me, why the hell would I want to hang out with myself?
: )
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
There are of course controversies over who is an "evil" leader and who isn't. But, for example, the Lenin clone wouldn't just be a specimen for research - the guy would actually be running around in society. Of course that can happen in the course of normal genetics anyway, but, would you really *want* to initiate a genetic clone of Lenin? (And as the allededly most well-preserved of the trio - discounting the "wax dummy" theory - he might be the most likely candidate, give or take the effects several decades of embalming... )
I've got 5 mod points, but I replied before I noticed I was given points :-/
Yes, except that fingerprints are not genetic. Identical twins have different fingerprints.
There's nothing to stop you from takinga DNA test from the unidentified body, of course, but you needn't make a clone to get that.
What makes every one think that a cloned human wil have a soul any way? I dont think that cloning a human will be successful for many years to come because there are numerous things that scientists still dont understand about the human brain not to mention the human proccess as a whole.
Ye gods. Where to start...
First of all, oxytocin is NOT what makes mothers (surrogate or not) feel attached to their babies. The real cause is something called "love"--perhaps you've heard of it? Did you ever notice that humans who are not mothers (or even female) will frequently drop everything they are doing just to make silly faces at a baby?
Second (in random order): if you're getting genetic material from an "anonymous third party", then there is NO POINT in making a clone to harvest organs. The only reason cloning is related to organ harvesting is that you--with YOUR OWN GENETIC MATERIAL--can create another person who is genetically identical to yourself. This means that the chance for tissue rejection is nil.
Granted, there is danger of starting a trend of murdering cloned persons for their organs, but the first suspect for the crime would be the progenitor. The real danger, as I see it, is that the world's governments, showing their usual lack of clue or caring, will declare cloned persons to be non-persons, and therefore legal to slaughter.
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
I believe one of the big controversies in the field of cloning at the moment is not the fact that exact genetic duplicates are being made, but rather that the science of cloning at the moment isn't exact. There have been a few reported incidents were clones died shortly after birth. As well, dolly the sheep had tolemeres (DNA counters that specifiy how many times more a cell can devide) as short as her mother, which may imply that if you were to have a clone, the two of you would expect to die about the same year (your clones life expectancy would be shortened by your current life span.) There are several other aspects of the science as yet undetermined.
Would it be ethical for a 50 year old woman to clone herself, only to find out 10 years later that her daughter had a life expectancy of 30?
And we don't know what the health concerns of a human using the latest flu medication will be, either, but there comes a time when you have to stop testing it on mice and move to the human trials. "We don't know" is, to me, not a reason not to do something - how will we ever find out, if we don't try it?
If most of the Christian Churches of the world find the issue spiritually troubling, I think it would be fair to acknowledge that others might find the issue a little less trivial than you do.
I didn't say it was trivial (although I do think it is). But spirituality is one of those things that are so personal and individualized, that you know what? we don't make laws about it. At least, not in the US, where the original poster and I, at least, live (well, half the time I live there). So discussing whether cloning should be allowed "for spiritual reasons" is spurious.
And you find the government studying the science before clearing it repugnant?
No, I find the idea of sitting around, waiting for the gov't to say "OK" repugnant. I find the thought of the government getting into the bioethics business equally repugnant. It is not up to the government to make moral/ethical decisions for us. They're not good at it, and it's not what we put them there for.
And no, since you keep alluding to it, I am not in any way connected to cloning research (I'm pretty sure there isn't an "industry" yet).
Cyclopatra
"We can't all, and some of us don't." -- Eeyore
"We can't all, and some of us don't." -- Eeyore
Can you see the social ramifactions of creating a person artificially? Already we have problems with basic human rights and equality in the most civilized nations. How would you like to wake up into the world finding out you were a carbon-copy that is definitely less important than the original? Where would the rights of "constructs" start and end... they will all be humans, and not stupid broom-pushing worker drone ones at that, just another twin of John Doe. This is just eugenics all over again. This whole idea is an offramp that says "Disposable Humans Here." They will not be clones, they will be humans that just happen to be cloned into this world. Stop thinking about your organs that you didn't take care of, and think about an equal life that you will snuff out for your personal greed. This is not like raising cattle. THIS IS RAISING HUMANS AND TREATING THEM LIKE CATTLE. I thought intelligent, scientific, enlightened people would like to protect all the rights of human beings. Hearing people joke about raising humans without cerebrums for parts makes me ill.
How could men be more promiscuous than women? Every heterosexual act involves one of each. For men to participate in more sex acts than women they must resort to homosexual acts.
Cloning of famous human beings leads me to wonder whether or not the major industries responsible for said famous human beings will try to copyright the genetic structures of said famous human beings.
Imagine Microsoft owning the copyright to Bill Gates, or the US government owning the copyright to past US presidents.
Think of the lawsuits which may occur. What happens if, say, someone in the near future clones Bill Gates? Will Microsoft sue? If they do sue, what happens to the clone? Will it be put to death, turned over to Microsoft, or simply freed in to the world?
And would not copyrighting your own genetic structure pretty much allow companies to copy you at will, with or without your permission? What role would consent play in cloning? I mean, one may be able to clone a human being from a tiny sample of blood, tissure, or hair. Such things can be taken from the subject without his or her knowledge or permission. Imagine yourself walking down the street, only to see someone who reminds you so much of yourself twenty years ago that you have to wonder if he actually IS you. And if a company cloned you without your permission, would you be able to take legal action, or would you be screwed?
Just my thoughts on the subject...
Tzimark
-A fake geek would say "Think Gnu" here. A real geek would say a fake geek would say "Think Gnu" here.
Hmmm ... how about "anatomical"?
There's an even chance it would produce a democrat as well.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Ah yes, so when [random animal species]'s males and females mate, it's because of socially-imposed standard in [random species]'s societal structure, right?
Women have the right to mate or not mate with whomever they choose. Women claim that they want (and, on some levels I think they do want) stability in a partner, so promiscuity is a bad thing. And note that this is not anything to do with society. Species that have no "society" whatsoever have this same problem - from the male's point of view, many mates=good. From the female's point of view, promiscuous mates can be a bad thing, because you want that male devoting his resources to you and helping you raise your offspring. We species that have language skills call it the "battle of the sexes". This is a reason why societal structures may develop (arrangements like marriage in complex human societies or like males who have "harems" in some types of social species, or other arrangements as well...let's not forget about bees, ants, and termites with their queen-oriented female-dominated societies), but it is not by its nature a social phenomenon.
Messing with geneitc diversity is not at all adviseable. You are setting yourself up for a massive die-off when any one "bug" gets into the population, from hosting on the same genetic stock again, and again, and again, and again, and again...... until it mutates to the point that it adapts to you so well, that you're all toast. Choose wisely, and choose different to avoid catastrophe. Besides, the universe will become bored of football if everyone chose a child with the Joe Monatana genes, and they ALL would. Nerds and all those different would be sexy in the land of Barbie and Ken. Go see GATTACA.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of...
Nah... I won't go there.
Amendment XIV-US Constitution (laws vary elsewhere)
(1868)
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
We successfully outlawed the ownership of other human beings in 1868. Mind you, if the corporations decide they want to reverse this, they can probably throw a few billion around to get it. However, I suspect that the people are probably going to make things pretty ugly for them in the meantime.
In space, no one can hear you moo.
I happen to agree with you that the opposition to cloning is grossly overblown. However, there are a few issues to consider which are legitimate which are at least cause for pause:
I wonder what legitimate purpose anybody would have for cloning themselves. The "spare parts" concept is the only good reason I can think of, and even that seems creepy. People who would want to clone themselves for fun (and who have the means to do so) would scare me even more.
Then again, traditional breeding merits equally great consideration (it is unfortunate that it rarely gets it).
-----
Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
absolutely!
genetically manipulating ourselves is the next step in human evolution. its our turn to evolve ourselves! As a first step i would like to take my genes and clone myself a beard. but not just any beard... a beard made from my very own dna beard. a perfectly groomed and intelligent beard with legs. i would name him louis and he would follow me everywhere i go. we would take long walks in the park, me and my beard and we would go swimming and drink large frothy dark beers out of tall frosted glasses.
my new best friend.
"Tension is the great integrity" -- R. Buckminster Fuller
The scientific community as a whole has an excellent ethics record when it comes to biotechnology (IP notwithstanding). During the 1970's, when the first genetic engineering experiments were taking place, scientists discovered means of introducing genes for antibiotic resistance into live bacteria. These experiments were carried out in "bio-reactors" with triple air locks and negative pressure seals. Even then, the scientific community realized that they were dealing with potentially epidemic-inducing technology, and they completely stopped all further recombitant DNA research for a period of 6 months.
During that freeze period, guidelines for safe DNA research were established, and special "research strains" of common bacteria were developed (E. Coli strains MM294 and GH5 being two prominent examples). These strains were disabled in half a dozen ways, including the removal of the slime layer that protects bacteria from digestive juices, as well as making the bacteria lycine-dependant (so that they are unable to synthesize proteins outside of the lab). Now, I use those very same strains in my high school Recombitant DNA class. I firmly believe that if the same sort of precaution and careful planning are taken with regards to cloning, we have nothing to fear.
Anonymous Luddite: "What do you think of the dehumanizing effects of the Internet?"
Andy Grove: "Not Much."
5) A body with no head has no sentience.
What about guy's that think with their crotch?!
"And like that
I would pay $1 million to have a clone of Christina Aguilerra for myself :)
DAMN I shoulda stayed in Biochemistry instead of this computer shit.
Just use CPRM on the cloning instructions and nobody will be able to clone unless you consider it ethical and let them. Of course, this will all be legal becaue you'd be the first to clone a human so you can patent it, right? It doesn't matter if everyone knows how to do it, you own the patent anyway... Then you can sue anyone who clones without your permission by breaking the coding!
The problem with capped Karma is it only goes down...
SIG: HUP
How can you be so sure that the same laws that "prevent you from enslaving your neighbor's child and doing the same thing" will apply?
How can you know that these cloned humans will even be given any rights? After all, they ARE made from part of the person that was cloned, so why not make them that person's property. That way, if someone needs a replacement , well, hmmm... let's just clone ourself, take the body part, and incinerate the clone. We can always do it again if we have to.
Granted, I AM playing the devil's advocate here, but how many ways could this be a BAD thing, versus how many could it be a good thing? I can count LOTS more bad things that could happen than good things.
Now maybe I can actually get something done at work!
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
Ethical committees worldwide will argue against this, then those that do think its a good idea passing it will have enemies in the long run. Money talks as we all know and for those who are familiar or remember Pablo Escobar, the billionaire drug kingpin, as a scientist what would you say when he flashes a cold hard million bucks to have a clone of himself. If any remember he had paid millions to someone just to have plastic surgery to look like him.
Anyways aside from that I think you would have to have a big fscking ego to want a clone of yourself.
Think of the downfalls involved:
1) Your wife/girlfriend/ or husband/boyfriend will probably screw them to spite you afterwhich a court of law will decide [WHAT] in order to determine payment?
2) Your clone robs a bank while your a college grad and kills everyone in the bank. (your face, likely your prints)
Then the upsides:
1) Train your clone to be your slave. Work for you, go to school for you, etc., while you partay
2) Screw his girlfriend since you have the right, after all he is your clone.
Pimping ain't easy!
"When I was a Buddhist, it drove my parents and friends crazy, but when I am buddha, nobody is upset at all"
This is just another example of how society fears new things. Every time a new groundbreaking technology has been developed there have been double digit IQ types who have been afraid of it. Why? Because they don't understand it and it isn't something they have been exposed to.
Imagine if someone offered you a way of heating your home, cooking your food, and running your hot water heater. This method was cheap and easy to use however it had the nasty side effect of being based upon a highly explosive gas. Most people if asked this question would say "no way!" The problem is many of them are already using it, its called natural gas. You don't hear people complaining about it even though it is quite dangerous potentially. Why? Because they've grown up in a world that already uses natural gas and has learned to handle the risks involved.
Cloning, genetic engineering, gene therapy, etc, etc are new technologies. Their ultimate impact upon our world is not yet known. But this is true of any technology. Most of the people who are so scared of them are simply fearful for lack of knowing and lack of brain power, not because they posess some insight into what these technologies will mean to the world.
Human knowledge and human technology is increasing at an exponential rate. Genetic engineering provides us with a means to ensure that human intelligence can keep pace. This world is chock full of idiots. Anything we can do to raise the average IQ is a good thing. Of course these technologies can be misused, or used unwisely. That is the danger but it is a threat which must be faced because the potential gains are too great to ignore. If this technology can be used to make us all smarter then it seems to me that the potential misuse problem will be a self-correcting issue.
Lee Reynolds
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
SHEEIIT! Duz dis mean I 'kin marry 'ma sisteer 'en not have retawded chillins?
Your Momma's so fat she makes emacs look like nano!
For example.. growing up in a caring, stimulating environment will likely form a strong, creative, and well rounded person.
Conversely, growing up in a dark, sewage laden pit where passing primates hurl feces at you will produce a Slashdot troll, $cr|p+ k|dd|3, or possibly even a Republican.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
From my point of view - we are not wise enough socially or scientifically to start messing with our own DNA in this way. I think this is a technology that should be left on the shelf. The fact that you CAN do something doesn't mean it should be done!
That isn't to say that there isn't reasonable and ethical uses for cloning technology - say from stem cells to build a new liver for someone, or similar approaches...but entire beings - nope- should be done!
Have you compiled your kernel today??
As Long as they don't clone Rosanne Barr, Jon Katz (sorry jon) or Barbera Striesand(sp?), they can Clone away!!!
Of course you can always get a CowBoyNeal clone for US$ 1.99 !!!
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This space left intentionally blank.
Some assumptions and conclusions:
1) It seems to me that creating an object with no 'soul' is not unethical.
2) All sentience is isolated to the brain.
3) Sentience is equivalent to a 'soul'.
4) It is not impossible to manipulate genes to produce a desired cellular mass.
5) A body with no head has no sentience.
6) It is possible to create a human body with no head.
7) These bodies will likely be derogatorily called 'organ factories'.
8) Organ factories are *not* unethical.
Therefore we should start creating organ factories in order to increase our human lifespans.
Dancin Santa
As Long as they don't clone Rosanne Barr, Jon Katz (sorry jon) or Barbera Striesand(sp?), they can Clone away!!!
Kids, you better be good, or your parents will have a replacement cloned... No one would ever be the wiser...
I am become Troll, destroyer of threads
While I agree that the many sociological gender distinctions present within our so-called 'civilization' are arbitrary and harmful, removing the physical gender barrier is not the solution.
Our society as a whole revolves around prejudice -- even we Geeks tend to prejudice ourselves, say, against Windows users if you're a Linux zealot. If you remove a *source* of prejudice (i.e. gender) without removing the societal programming that causes the behavior, new sources of prejudice will develop. We may, perhaps, become even more shallow, aligning ourselves on physical differences like hair or skin color -- something we are still struggling with.
I think our time is better spent working for gender equity than throwing away the biological division in gender.
--
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
You don't see what the big deal is, I don't see what the big deal is, but I bet there's about 5 billion people who DO think it's a huge deal... I am sure they are trying to be as ethically cautious as possible initially, if only to get the world used to the idea. Once it is a proven technology, I am sure its applications will gradually become less restrictive.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
...gholas?
[From the article]
> injecting genetic material from the father
> into the mother's egg, which would then be
> implanted in her womb.
So does that make her an axlotl tank?
-Chris
...More Powerful than Otto Preminger...
Yeah, there was a movie about 60 years ago like that, starring a guy named Adolf Hitler. And there have been recent others, in the Balkans, etc. Clearly humans' fascination with "genetic superiority" isn't limited to the movies and can lead to horrifying ends - and that's why a lot of people find the idea of cloning very disturbing.
I remember reading somewhere that they had got around the problem of cloned cells having shorter lifespans. I think what happened was that when they cloned Dolly the resulting cells only lived for as long as Dolly's cells themselves had left (rather than their full lifespan). Then they made some cows using a different cloning technique and found that the resulting cells didn't just have their full lifespan but 50% more as well. Apparently they had no idea why... I guess if they are using this technology you could have clones living for 150yrs.
Incidentally the idea of people trying this out in their own garages seems a little way out. I might give it a try - can you get DIY cloning at home kits nowadays?
Shouldn't we be spending more money on making sure that we can support the current population before we investigate new ways of increasing it?
It's not as though we're struggling to populate this planet. We're still having a lot of problems coping with regular reproduction -- the last thing we need is a new way to make people. Once we're good at controlling our sex urges, then maybe we can be trusted to control our scientific urges.
We can't even agree on what people make good parents -- who is going to parent young clones? Do we vote on it, and mysteriously elect George Bush? Do we use ebay? Or sell the clones to an American set of parents, kidnap them, and resell them to a higher bidder in the UK? Some parents don't seem to mind killing their regularly-conceived children if supporting them is too much work -- I imagine that it will be more difficult to invest your life in a clone.
-Paul Komarek
it's not an issue of organ factories or evil races being generated, it's a religious issue, you twits.... Think about the implications of cloning yourself. If you value who you are, and have come to accept that you are an individual, maybe not capable of becoming "whatever we want" as the world leads us to believe, but being whatever we choose to make ourselves. Be it good, evil, funny, sad, you name it. all the characteristics that make us who we are, define us as individuals will be shot right out the door. any emotions we cling to become null and void. we no longer become human, but a product created in a fucking lab. I unfortunately use the same argument here that i do with the idea of reincarnation. someone tells me "i believe in reincarnation" and i say "no you don't, whoever the fuck you were x amount of years ago does, your just a shell, with no individuality. You don't beleive in anything." the reason why? because there isn't a "you" anymore, not if there are two just like you.....what if upbringing isn't all that defines a person? then does that mean that evil is inherent? do we REALLY want to find out?
Currently, it is possible to feed everyone on earth. World hunger exists for a variety of economic reasons, mostly to do with keeping the price of grain up, but it's *possible* to feed everyone. By the year 2030, this will no longer be possible. And now they wanna make more people?
You know that saying, how you always kill the one you love? Well, it works both ways.
A good tomato to you is quite different to someone that will in the future be exclusively raised on bio-engineered food. Once you take the naturual food sources out of the equation for a sufficient time, people will not complain as much about how good things used to taste.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
How long before they sell THESE on eBay?
aztek: the ultimate man
No sig for you!!
For the record, twins are much more similar to each other than a clone would be to it's original.
A potential clone would only have the 1/2 the base material to work with, but the egg, womb, environment and time period would be different.
A twin comes from the same egg, the same sperm, the same womb, the same environment and the same time period. It is as close to being a hollywood-sci-fi clone as you can get.
So if you are worried about "duplicates" and "lack of genetic advancement of the species", I think you better run in fear of the Barbie twins instead of Joe Clone.
Cloning doesn't harm anyone, and it does not destroy any life. It creates life. So whats the problem? There would likely be very low demand anyway.
You know exactly what to do-
Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh-
You know exactly what to do-
Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh-
I think of little else but you.
I think the reason people are afraid of it is much simpler than they believe it's "unethical", or "wrong". Sure that may be the prescribed reaction based on the dogma that some are brought up with. But, I think the real reason is it just doesn't happen in nature and it's unsettling to think about. Say a 5 year old child is lost in a car accident, and the parents clone a new child that is physically EXACTLY the same. Would that be wrong? Nah. However, thinking about is somehow psychologically disturbing. Bringing back all those memories of the child you had lost and go through your natural process of grief. It's just... well, confusing when you start thinking about how it would be.
Also, humans on a fundamental level, while we are social, also require to be different. It's how we establish ourselves in the pecking order. Or maybe creating duplicates is unsettling because it immediately strikes us as how we see ourselves in dream states. Which is typically a place where we do what we *really* feel. Where we all can be monsters or we are tormented. Where we are highly sexual and more often than not unethical. I know that if was standing there looking down on a 10 year younger duplicate of myself looking up at me I would definately have a flash back.
Okay, so maybe if I had raised the child from infancy it wouldn't be so shocking. But my point is that the immediate notion, you have to admit, is strange. And people love to attack things that are strange...
MyopicProwls
MyopicProwls
My homepage
Now you mention it, I have read about this.
Things like twins seperated at a very young age who grow up to have the same kind of job and car, and similar-looking wife, etc? That kind of thing?
I agree that "nurture" cannot entirely override "nature". Of course, cloning a dead *child* would probably result in a pretty similar child, akin to a monozygotic twin, and a similar upbringing would more-or-less "complete the job".
But it would still be wierd...
Anyway, my point was that if you cloned yourself, or your SO (let's not specify wife, or husband), then all you would have is a clone of yourself or your SO, not your child. For the simple reason that a child's genes are a mixture of its parents'.
It's interesting (well, it interests me) to see that you can get a pretty good idea of how a child will look, from looking at the parents and grandparents. This is because the child is most likely to pick up the strongest genetic traits from the parents, so you compare how each parent is like their parent. Works for pretty much any mammal.
lets just forget the long ass already been done debate about this and get it ported to windows for the masses. i want clone tanks to run about $42.50 and to be just about as avaliable as printers.
then, after crackhead dave down the street stops burning mp3's and finally gets the usb cloning tank going, i want to see how this whole "nature balances itself" thing works out.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
the last thing the world needs is more people, cloning billgates or hitler will not get you bill gates and hitler it will get you two people who have to live the rest of thier lives being hated and under a microscope. The world doesnt need anymore people. the earth can barle stand the drain we are putting on it now, thanx to the people who thank there only on this planet to reproduce., the last thing the world needs is more mouths to feed
The only unethical thing I can imagine about cloning is if you clone them when they have aged--because the DNA aging persists in the cloned creature.
Besides, as soon as Punker's get a hold of gene therapy for things like, growing eagle wings on their backs and a large rat's tail--human cloning will look very conservative.
--Matthew
What do you need to make a clone of someone will a strand of hair, skin cells, finger nail? Its an interesting prospect to clone the intellectual giants of previous generation. And if we could in fact clone these greats whats the probability that they can repeat thier feats of greatness? Is it the enviroment they grew up in or is they physical traits enough to resurect thier genius? Just a thought. Lets see what Einstein can do with todays technology. (My spelling is attrocious(sp). yuck.)
Patrick C. Lamoreux lamoreux@iastate.edu
I guess one of the important issues that needs to be solved first is how our mental development is related to what we obtain genetically. That is if you clone two people from the exact same DNA, are they going to be exactly the same mentally, or are their mental characteristics determined by the environment they are brought up in?
This has been disputed many times over and over. The first real life case is where two twins were seperated a birth. Both grew up to be firefighters and had the same personality and active lifestyles. Neither of the two twins ever knew about the other one until late in their lives though. This shows that something in there mental characteristics was inherited from their genes. The second case is two more identical twins. Two identical twins were born and were exactly the same in all physical characteristics yet had completely different personalities. They were born at the exact same time from the same parent and so from the same genes, yet their personalities varied completely.
Both of these cases can probably be seen every day in identical twins. How many twins do you know of that have personalities that are identical, or completely opposite? So this brings me to my final question. If you clone someone from someone's genes, how do you know they are going to have the exact same personality just because they have the same genes? The only part that can be considered a "clone" is the very initial stages of life in the egg. Once the baby is born and starts to develop it's personality, it may then become a completely different person. I don't think people will lose their individuality when they create a clone of themselves any more than if they were born with an identical twin.
Although there are very basic mental characteristic inherited genetically, a person is still shaped by the enviroment they are brought up in more than anything they inherit mentally. A clone will just create an initial "skeleton" of a person. This skeleton will then evolve into whatever it wishes based on the world around it, and this world will be different from the world of the original person the clone was from.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
-Moondog
What in the world does "ethical" and "moral" mean?
It's just a self-serving philosophy that protects and serves the interests of human beings, and only human beings. It's a way for people to get along together in a civilized manner.
Being ethical/moral doesn't mean it's "right". There is no such thing as being "right". We kill animals for food and for fun, is that "ethical"?
So, is cloning un-ethical? Yes, it is not advantageous to current human survival. Why? Because it aims to perfect Homo Sapiens in many fantastic ways... Heath, height, ability, looks, strength, EVERYTHING! It has the potential to evolve us into a new species, which means today's "Homo Sapien" might not exist in 500 years from now.
But, evolution is about the survival of the fittest. All it takes is 1 successful breeding to get the ball rolling. And then... how are we to stop it? Who doesn't want to have better looking, smarter, taller, stronger, faster, healthier children?
It is too bad we justify a humans life to the likeness of money, some people are not capable of reproducing and others are and choose not too. Such is life. Remember you are unique, just like everyone else
Anything that seem cutting edge or ethically touchy like the subject of cloning was probably done 10 years ago in some US military lab. We shouldn't be surpsired that this is coming to the surface now. However, I think society as a whole needs to determine the restrictions to something like this BEFORE we let scientists race ahead and make potentially dangerous mistake. Scientists working for the Manhatten project thought there was a small chance that the nuclear explosion they were about to create might start a chain reaction and burn off most of the earth's atmosphere but they went ahead and did it anyways!!!
Cloning is really no worse than choosing a mate based on certain criteria, like intelligence and looks.
Sounds like a perfect recipe for lots of fuzzy "ethical/moral" rationalization to me...
If the difference doesn't come from biology, where does it come from? A platonic gender ideal?
Though evolutionary psychology has some interesting points, it's far from resolved and more often used to prop up reactionary ideas. Yes, there are differences between the sexes, but only when spread across an entire population (exactly what they are is still up for debate). Treating individuals as instances of a type ("It's ok honey, I know it's just your genes that don't want to sleep with me") is just going to annoy people and set yourself up for a fall.
Scientists are usually better judges that governments.
-jfedor
Usually, when you have a child, it is because you love your partner and you have decided to share this "experience". Your child has half your genes and half the genes of your partner. But in cloning, 100% of the genes of the clone are identical to the father's genes for example. Where 's the share then ? Don't you find weird to breed a child that looks exactly like you, that has the same genetic weaknesses as you, and that could be your twin ? I personaly find very selfish to "carbon-copy" yourself to have a child. Alternative solutions exist (in vitro fecondation, hormones treatments) for people that have problems giving birth and if all these methods fail, why not thinking to adoption ? Your child will not have the genes of the mother and father, but it is also the case in cloning (the mother's genes aren't present). Apart from that, it would be interesting to see people's opinion on this problem in relation with their geographical location. I come from France (sorry for my bad english) and I think that in Europe we are more likely to refuse heavy genetic engineering such as cloning than in the US (I'm not talking here about genetic therapy, which is, from my point of view, a good thing). Am I right ?
How about learing something about the immunology? Viruses mutate
much, much faster then humans evolve -- in terms of months of
years. Human response to viruses is mostly immunological: you
start getting it literally with your mothers milk and continue to
do so all your life, and all your life it adapts to the current
situation in the viruses gene pool. The thing you are describing can happen with rabbits infected by Australian scientists with a lethal virus -- 99% of the population dies, the resistent 1% survives and reproduces. I don't know whether you have noticed, but there are not many viruses that cause a 99% mortality of a human population -- not even Black Plague or Ebola. Not even HIV. Human evolution, even if it has not stopped, then it slowed down to the minimum -- at least in populations where the prereproductive mortality is less then 90%.
Speaking of immunology -- some food for thought to you. It is known, that viruses coming from other species can more easily infect humans with immunodeficiency, then adapt to the host organism and that way be more proficient in infecting healthy people. So, how about killing all people with immunodeficiency? They present a threat to human population, don't you think so? They would die very quickly anyway in a non-pharmateucised society, wouldn't they?
This example should warn you that talking about preserving human variability and returning to Nature's ways of dealing with things. Remember that "Nature's way" is killing 90% of your offspring and letting you live on average 30 years.
On the other hand -- you have a point, though no clue (that is, you arrive at some reasonable point using wrong, dangerous arguments). It is dangerous to overuse antibiotica -- because the germs evolve faster than we are able to synthetise new antibiotics. But that problem is, AFAIK, very specific to the U.S.A., where, as I heard, doctors prescribe antibiotics by just any infection (even viral, though viruses are not affected by antibiotics) -- just in case the patient would die and his family would have sued him, and to prevent longer absence in the job (antibiotic therapy usually *is* quicker). In Europe, the doctors are much less apt to prescribe antibiotics; and I have taken them once or twice during my whole life.
Best regards,
j.
Just what is the great danger of human cloning?
--
"They claim they will develop ethical guidelines to determine when to clone and not to clone. This assumes the scientists that develop a technology are able to limit society's use of that technology."
...
It also assumes that these so-called scientists who are fueled by either 1) research grants from corporations; or 2) the prospect of making huge amounts of money; are actually ethical at all, or that their ethics jive with the rest of the world which would not be making money from their monopoly on a wholly unique new field in scientific excess.
I would argue cloning for the sake of providing a child to a couple that can not have children: is not ethical at all -- If my opinion meant anything in the grand scheme of things. These so-called scientists should be arrested the day they succeed.
""The irony about it is that there are so many people that are attempting to do it, and they could be doing it even as we speak in their garages.
It is time for us to develop the package in a responsible manner, and make the package available to the world. I think I have faith in the world that they will handle it properly."
What this guy is saying - 'People can't be trusted to be responsible [with cloning], so we are going to jump on the bandwagon and be responsible; but don't worry about anything, because we have faith that everyone is responsible'.
If it sounds ludicrous the way I said it, then read his quotes again; he literally makes that exact catch-22 argument.
Ace
1 your clone will be much younger than you
2 your clone will develop its own personality
3 your clone will have similar capabilities as you and might actually enslave you. So if you are not a nice person, chances are that your clone will have a bad character as well.
4 as far as I know clones still need a mother to grow in. After the embryo has been implanted, development is exactly the same as with normal embryos. So there's absolutely no need to treat them any different than you would treat normal children.
So don't worry.
Jilles
1) Better scientists judge than polticians.
2) It's gonna happen ANYWAY, so deal with it.
People have the right to create life.
Second rate scientists should be paid NOT to do research.
Pandora's Box.
it's all well and good to discuss the benefits and disadvantages of something like this...but we do not, and cannot, know the full implications of human cloning. I think it's ridiculous to believe sci-fi views on the matter. No one is going to clone an army of uber-villains. But it's also ridiculous to believe that this isn't going to have a substantial impact on our worlds' culture.
Take everything you know about life and reconsider. Mom, how are babies made? What is life, really? Do clones have the same rights as any other human? Will this create a new sub-class of humans? Most likely. Can scientists fully control cloning? And there are a thousand more unanswered and highly debatable questions that we have yet to ask ourselves.
I agree that this is going to happen whether we like it or not, but i can't agree that this is going to be a good thing. Scientists are notorious for the proliferation of evil based on a sort of relative amorality. It becomes easy to abdicate responsibility for such attrocities as nuclear weapons, the hydrogen bomb, the holocaust (you think Hitler knew the best way to gas jews?), the list goes on. "It wasn't me!" the scientists cry. "How was i to know that this was to be used in such and such a way?" In truth, we are all scientists in some way, and, conversly, scientists are all members of the human race. And i cannot see a reason to let anyone evade responsibility for happenings as a direct result of their own actions. "The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray"
The answer to the question of "should we clone?" is most certainly no. We simply do not know enough about ourselves to do this. Petty squabbles over Michael Jordan sneakers, Wars over extremely small plots of land, murder, rape, discrimination, theivery. I cannot tell you whether cloning is morally wrong. Frankly, i do not know the answer to that question myself. But, if you ask me if this society is ready for it...if you ask me if we are far enough along, not technologically, but socially...the answer is no.
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Available in all shapes and colors. Low 3.9% interest financing offered to qualified buyers. $50,000 sale price does not cover MSRP, taxes, title or licensing. No trade-ins accepted.
Don't be lazy, find it yourself. I guess from your tone you wouldn't believe it if you did the scans personally. And if you couldn't be bothered to post nonymously, why should anyone take you seriously enough to go looking for you? Einstein was missing his parietal operculum, do you want photos of that, too?
Sorry, am I to understand that you refuse to believe in God because some people use religion as an excuse for not thinking? Now doesn't that just sound soooo reasonable?
You yourself are using religion as an excuse for not thinking, aren't you?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Bill Gates, Seinfeld and ABBA
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Clones are people, two!
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I'd like to have my wife cloned seven times. Then we'd have a better chance of having sex on any given night of the week!
Yeah, I'd rather see politicians and lawyers taking care of this stuff. They're much more ethical and are always looking out for everyone's best interests.
He said it would "develop guidelines with which the technology cannot be indiscriminately applied for anybody who wants to clone themselves".
sticks in my craw.
Why shouldn't anyone who wants to be able to clone themselves? What is everyone so afraid of with cloning? I'm not talking about grow-me-a-new-body cloning (ie, having a clone made for organ donation, etc), but about allowing cloning for anyone who wants to raise a clone of themselves, regardless of whether it's their only way to have children or not.
What is everyone so afraid of when it comes to cloning? If I want to have a child and can't find a man I consider suitable to be a father, why should I have to trust that sperm donors are going to be any better?
The closest thing to an argument against this that anyone has given me is whether parents can make the distinction between their clones and themselves. However, my mother certainly couldn't have had any more trouble recognising that I didn't exist to make up for her mistakes if I had been her clone. We don't place any restrictions on who can have children (regardless of whether we ought to; that's another argument entirely, and one I have a different opinion on depending on what day of the week it is). Why should we place restrictions on how someone can have them?
-Cyclopatra
"We can't all, and some of us don't." -- Eeyore
"We can't all, and some of us don't." -- Eeyore
GONG! for a startling example, one chappie achieving good university results hurt his head and had it scanned, only to discover that he had essentially no cerebrum (brain) at all. Yet until the scan, he and his friends family did not know.
GONG! ``And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.'' - Genesis 2:7 - and who would be better qualified to define a ``soul'' (herein, nephesh, also translated ``breath'')?
IMHO, if you make your own human body from scratch (and good luck with that little task!) you can do with it as you will. OTOH, if you tamper with existing, living genetic material you wind up with a damaged human being, not a mass of meat. You do realise that a foetus is fully human from conception, you haven't been sucked in by Heackel's 130-year-old lie? If you altered a zygote, you would be altering a person, just like yourself.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
"God shmod! I want my monkey-man!"
-Bart
My cousin is *really* attractive. I'd clone her in a second. I know a few other guys who would too.
what is interesting about this to me is that when these scientists talk, its clear that there are differences between cloning and natural conception. This is because the DNA is modified in adults and certain genes are turned on which affect the growth of the animals. The cloned animals are bigger at birth and I think eventually they may get bigger than the original too. This is an unknown dimension of cloning - the experience of the clone will be different because there are genetic differences between the donor and the clone. If this happens I guess we'll hear about how this effects life. sheep monkeys and cows can't talk about that stuff.
Second, the premise that there are certain problems that shouldn't be solved by certain people. If a couple are infertile, and it is possible to create a child via cloning, then by all means DO SO (providing you can afford the costs of the treatment).
Besides, as the failed 'Drug War' has so completely and utterly demonstrated, where there is demand, there will be supply (if it exists).
"Avast! Prepare for the rodgering!" THWACK! "Arrr.. me nards.."
Mr. X is an astronaut. He is about to go on a long journey at near-light-speed. When he returns he will have aged a mere 15 years. All of his friends and family will be much older. In fact, they will probably be dead. But, just before he leaves, Mr. X makes a trip to the neighbourhood Klones-R-Us store. Mr. X has collected genetic samples from each of his dearest friends and family. Upon his return he expects to see some familiar faces ...
Just to be the Devil's advocate: What exactly is the problem with cloning a human being? I mean, ethically, what's the big deal? "Playing God?" I think we've already gone well past that point (recombo DNA, GMO orgtanisms, synthetic polymers that can mimic DNA). Robert McKinnell, a fellow Minnesotan who I believe was the first to sucessfully clone a vertabrate (a frog) once commented that what you get if you clone a frog is a baby frog. What we got when we cloned a sheep was a lamb. And when a human is inevitably cloned, we will have a baby on our hands and the ethical issues of what we do with that person will be exactly the same as they are with any human being. What threat is it that to any of us beyond freaking us out? So Bill Gates could make ten million copies of himself. BFD. He'd be broke, someone would have to pay to deliver and raise 10 Million kids (remember, valid or not that $50K pricetag is just the beginning. Have you seen the way college costs are going?!), and it'd still be a drop in the bucket of the world population. Anyone have genuine (not ridiculously speculative or merely based on population - those arguments are just as valid against screwing as they are against cloning) why human cloning shouldn't be legal? (Bonus points if you can clone Robert McKinnell's objection to human cloning!)
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
I'm sorry; is this a biological fact?????
-- the most controversial site on the Web
fuck man, are you the same kid who i play counterstrike with? --bistromath
Yhis "giver of life" of yours.. gave you a brain too.. USE IT! Your brain is made to protect you.. advancing technology and civilization is what "the giver of life" intended.. otherwise he will think you are wasting his precious gift and you will rot in hell dumbass - clone or go to hell
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Esobofh - Currently drinking fresh mango juice.
So.... when all the frontal lobe lobotomies were performed in the first half of the last century it was sheer coincidence that they came out of the surgery with little to no emotional response?
rosie_bhjp
A radio maverick jumps to internet only. The Future of Rock n Roll
Finally, somebody else sees that this isn't a big deal. No more of a deal than having twins. Nobody has any problem with the notion that maternal twins are effectivly clones of each other. Why should there be a problem with having a genetic clone? There are already laws reguarding the use of genetic material. You couldn't legally use Brad Pitt's fingernail clippings to clone him any sooner than you could use his sperm to create a baby. Technically, a corporation could hire a woman to sleep with Brad Pitt, preserve his sperm, and use it later to fertilize his son. It just doesn't happen.
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
"Like those who are poor enough will have access to such technology"
????
One western life costs X dollars per year to support = 379 3rd world lives.
The point is, when rich western lives are extended, it costs more (consumption, pollution, exploitation) in terms of shortened 3rd world lives.
The real danger, no offence, is people who choose not to see past the end of their nose...
Don't bother, he's not worth it...
Now that we have cloning (or are about to, in any event), it's clear that we need to remove some redundancy from the human species by abolishing gender. No longer is it necessary to have two separate beings for the purposes of propagating the species, so it's safe to do away with the separation between the sexes.
I don't advocate abolishing only men, and I don't advocate abolishing only women. We should abolish both, in one fell swoop.
Andrea Dworkin describes such a utopian future future of the "androgynous community" where the perceived "deviance" of sexualities disappear and we're all free to become what we already feel we are but repress. So many of the problems our society faces are because of these artificial attributes we assign to gender (which itself is completely artificial), but it's always been hard to get rid of gender before; the presence of biological "sexes" always breathed life into the outmoded and pernicious fact of gender.
Now that we can get rid of sexes altogether, we can finally slay the vile gender beast and realize Andrea Dworkin's vision. I'm tingling in anticipation.
Read the rest of this comment...
Thank you, finally someone with some respect for life and the power of God and the inherent respect that ought to be due. Too often are people bombarded with "respect belief" and "respect others right to choose" (to murder) and such without considering what is right. And this isn't one of those well what's right for me isn't right for all debates, anyone who goes down the track of arguing for atheism is in deep deep trouble. If someone wants to deny the existence of God without considering the infinite complexity of the world we live in and the perfection with which it operates (with the exception of human perversions (see above)) and then consider the probability that such a world complete with so many diverse organisms and relationships evolved from nothing with no guiding hand but that of chance, that's their problem - don't go spreading ignorance. People like that have either never been educated in the sciences or arts in order to understand the complexity and beauty of our being or have never taken a Probability course to understand the likelihood of this world just happening. think how many monkeys it would take banging on keyboards to develop not Shakespeare but the world and all its intricacies. It'd take a lot more monkeys than there have ever been and a lot more time than there has ever been. So anyway, there is a God, we shouldn't mess with him or his creations and that includes murdering the child he created for our sake, murdering the person who has given up just for the sake of his piffle pain (imagine that: how much does it take before your life has no meaning? I'd say life has meaning not in a being's level of pain but in his conscience and consciousness) and last but not least creating a man in our own image for our own satisfaction. To manipulate what we know about the workings of life to our own ends. This is just plain wrong.
Of course there's always a price to pay. Nothing in life is free. When you get up in the morning every action you do has both positive & negative consequences.
If Dr. Gatling did intend his gun to end warfair (I've never heard this before), I'd say that he didn't study his history or human nature very well. The Pope (I forget which one) in the middle ages thought the crossbow was a good invention because it was so horrible that it would certainly end warfair for all time. Both were wrong and, believe it or not, people are aloud to make mistakes. Society has survived the crossbow and the gatling gun. Cloning isn't even designed to be a "weapon", but a medical advance.
True, Dr. Guillotin did intend for his invention to be a merciful form of killing and, for it's day, that's exactily what it was. Hanging at the time was a very messy ordeal and very painful. Given the technology of the time he saw his invention as being a more merciful way of execution. If he hadn't invented it people would still have been hung. He didn't invent his device and say "he look, now we can kill people", he simply said "if we're going to do it let's do it as painless as possible".
Heroin does eliminate suffering. The problem with it is that it's extremely addictive and we now have better methods of controlling pain. Would you rather suffer in pain?
As for the "fools who went down on the Titanic", where do you live? Every action of every day has risks. More people have died in car accidents than the people on the Titanic and yes some good did come of that tragedy. Because of the Titanic most countries force commercial ship lines to have enough life boats for every person on the ship. If the Titanic had not sunk this may not have happened. Society always tries to learn from it's mistakes as well as it's successes. The Challenger accident was another case where the proper safety methods were not in place and, as a result of the tragedy, we now have a more safe space program.
Now we come to your argument of calling people ignorant and imoral. All I have to say on this is that it must be so easy to stand back and enjoy all of the fruits of other people's labor and still say "I TOLD YOU NOT TO DO THAT!!!" when something get's misused or an accident happens. When's the last time you were sick and took a sulfer pill? When's the last time you went to the doctor and he put leaches on your body to "drain the evil spirits away"? When's the last time someone you know contracted Polio or Small Pox? We don't even give these things a second thought because Science has given us a way to combat them. It's no accident that the average life span has almost doubled in the last 100 years.
We all will forge the "Brave New World" to come. Including you unless you die or become a self sufficient hermit. If you really want to be productive do more than just bellow negatives.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
... a Sandra Bullock, and a side of Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Holy Cow. I can't believe that NOT ONE of the posts on this headline deal with ANY of the Social ramifications or the moral issues involved with cloning. You can not have a discussion and say it's right or wrong without covering ALL Aspects of Cloning.
Of note would be the fact that people would suddenly find themselve face to face with something that looks like them, acts like them, thinks like them, but was Made or Manufactured by someone else. There could be a tendancy to treat it as property, not a human being.
What about the fact that as of now, EVERY single person in this world is unique. Totally and completely. What happens if I were a someone who cloned myself to have a child. I did a crappy job of raising that child, and he started to commit crimes and so forth. Guess what. He is Me. How do I prove it wasn't myself that did it, and it was the other me instead? (Yes, there are holes in that example, but don't miss the point.)
Personally, I'm on the side of NOT cloning. I'm a bit religious, and find it immoral at a minimum. I can see the point for organs and such, but there really should be a line. Personally, I think the line was crossed with Dolly. But hey, that's just my opinion.
-= Rhyas =-
Someone should put up something similar to amihotornot.com, for human pricings....when I find out that I am worth about 10 cents, then I could *really* have my ego shot down....
My little sad piece of the internet: www.mtndewd
I agree, it seems that scientists get too carried away with what can be done before they consider if it should be done. The side effects are never considered because they really don't care.
Another great acheivement that comes to mind is killer bees...that really worked out well didn't it?
The clash of honour calls, to stand when others fall.
When there is money involved it is not ethical. I don't disagre on cloning, I disagre on the $50.000 price tag. Make it free and the decision process will be very different, so price is everything when it should not be at all. We are talking about life not a sports car.
When it comes to news on genetic engineering and cloning, it is very easy to see when the organization is biased for or against it. More often than not, it is against it.
When reading through the article on BBC News about $50,000 for a cloned human, I could not help but notice a few interesting quotes:
I was laughing out loud when I read that one, as it would be very highly unlikely that someone could actually clone anything in their garage, unless they had some sort of a laminar flow hood, or equipment to keep specimins sterile, otherwise they would most likely end up with nothing or release pathogens. Cloning and genetic engineering is something that has been around for a long time, and it boggles my mind that people only focus on the negetivey of it. It is used on plants, was used to make Penicillin, and is being used to try and allow couples to have kids that otherwise couldn't. Now here is where you run into the problem of playing God, but think about all of the genetics based diseases that are out there, and think of how we could be able to prevent them from even happening, by eliminating that gene, and making it so we didn't even know those diseases existed. Doesn't that sound good?
How do you know it isn't safe or possible. The only way to find out is to TRY IT. Some people don't see past their own ignorance to see that this could really help the world if handled properly, but not allowing things to be tried and tested, doesn't allow researchers to make it happen. Plus, who says it isn't "in the best interest of the child" to be a genetic copy of their parent, ha.
The best thing to do is to start educating the world on how cloning and genetic engineering is already being used, and explain to the what the actual process IS, and let them decide. When you say cloning now a days or genetic engineering, people look at you like as if you swore at them, and that is insane. Ignorance does not make the world work.
*Believe in miracles*
You drive a hard bargain, but I guess this cloning business is just natural evolution. Fine, I'll sell my little sister for $10,000. Come on, that's cheaper than a good set of lungs now a days, a real steal! ;-)
;-)
Disclaimer: I'd never sell my little sister for her organs. But I'm sure we could arrange a time-share/rental agreement.
Information is the catalyst for revolution
#include
"We were half way to Rivendell when the drugs began to take hold."
-- Hunter S. Tolkien
It would be nice to think that everyone is good, at least on the inside and we just put on a mask to protect ourselves when we need to. If this were the case, it should be safe to say that any decision could be made correctly and appropriately if we just go on our 'gut' instinct. Not to take a negative perspective, but society IS corrupt; at least to some degree, it is untamed and will do bad if not controlled with a good spirit. If this is true, then it is not safe for EVERYONE to make a decision based on their gut, for maybe they were mistaught (maybe they had misguided parents) and their instinct-based decision would not be correct and appropriate according to what is good and not corrupt. BUT, for those that are good, is it not safe to say that most things either feel right or they just feel wrong? Is the answer not apparent and obvious based on the simple fact that there is so much debate on the topic ...so much just at /. Consider abortion ...maybe there is large debate here bc it IS corrupt. Sure there will always be someone or an entire group for that matter that will argue anything, but by and large people don't seem to debate what is obviously good and just to the degree that such topics as cloning and abortion are debated. Some will argue that it is good to clone for the purposes of providing organs needed for surgery ...maybe, but I think there would be no life without death or good without bad (you know, the natural cycle of things). SO, maybe there has to be this debate, but hopefully good wins in the end, hunh?
We should all get our genes mapped out and then copyright them. Just incase some one trys to clone you illegaly, or is there such thing as illegal cloning yet?
PH34R my uber-cloning skillz!
Now all we need is some soma and Huxley would be right. ;)
-Shieldwolf
just = (My)Opinion.toCents();
Poor guy.
--
"Cut word lines. Cut music lines. Smash the control images. Smash the control machine." - William S. Burroughs
We are not ready for gentically altered life. Right now we have no clue why a genetially altered beast has such a short lifespan. possibly because it's not meant to be. Also look at how many failures are required to get a genetically altered monkey... we are going to create some monsters, that's for sure. Now as far as the scientists who think they will have a gentically altered human at thier disposal.. wrong, if such a beast should live, it's still based on human DNA and NO ONE should own it. A clone isn't a clone in every sense of the word, it may look, smell, act like the original, but it does not have the life experience as the original. I would not want a lab to keep a clone of myself on ice just in case I get pancriatic cancer and I need a new pancreas. The clone in my eyes isn't MrJerryNormandinSir II, it someone who's genes were altered to look like MrJerryNormandinSir. These mad scientists have forgotten a very important fact that we human beings have a soul, and you can't clone a soul.
Here's a kid who's developing years will be completely transparent to everyone: science, the media, and so on - our very own "Truman Show". I just don't know what all that would do to someone's mental health - going through life knowing that they were a successful science experiment.
I suppose one could make the comparison with the first test-tube baby --- whose name I can't recall, so I suppose that says something about the long-term impact of her situation in the media --- and hope that things turn out for the best. However, aside from the ethics of actually performing the cloning, there are the ethics of taking on the societal responsibilities after a clone has successfully been produced.
Too often are people bombarded with "respect belief" and "respect others right to choose"
WOW! Nothing like being open minded and fair to other peoples beliefs. Remember that not everyone is you. I have an idea, let's round up all of the people who don't think like you and shoot them.
As for your less than rational explanation for the proof of God let me point out a few things.
First, nature didn't happen by chance. The process is called "evolution" and "survival of the fittest". One species evolves from another and if that evolution is successful the new species survives, otherwise they don't. Look at the Neanderthals. They were very close to us but they were not able to compete with our ancestors so they died out. If you want to believe God had a hand it this or not that's up to you and your personal belief system.
Second, let's assume for the sake of argument that if there is a GOD and it is the same GOD as you believe in. My Catholic education has always tought me that GOD gave us a free will. To me it seems like if GOD didn't want us to do something he would simply make it impossible or would defer to our free will. Aparently GOD has no trouble making things almost impossible for us. Time travel & going faster than the speed of light would be nice, but I don't think GOD wants us to do that (or not yet) so I would say that either he believes that it's our choice or we're ready for it.
Personally I believe that cloning is very premature. The success rate is so low that we should test on other animals to refine the process. I also have a problem because the person taking all of the risks has no choice in the matter. I do however realize that other poeple may not have the same beliefs and may not feel the same way.
Naeser's Law:
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It was founded by an Italian physician, Dr Severino Antinori, whose work includes trying to help post-menopausal women to become pregnant.
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why didn't I think of that one :)
rr
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.
Two for one deal on clones in isle 6.
I guess that adds a new twist to shopping at the local safeway.
"They claim they will develop ethical guidelines to determine when to clone and not to clone."
I imagine something like this in small black print:
*note- ethical guidlines may be waived for a $50,000 fee
-gerbik
I think that the moment we try cloning humans something very horrendous is going to happen. We're going to create beasts that are too different from us, and will live with them. Perhaps we are creating our own extintion means ? No berzerk asteroid needed anymore. AIDS was a good attempt at a biological weapon!!!! AIDS is being controlled. How many times will we try to commit humanity's suicide? And to the other post regarding only one sexed future - who's fault is it that you don't have a sex life? You could only propose such stupidity if you don't love someone, and if you don't want to see your child grow without the problems and bad traits you had. You are condemned to extintion, thank God, for not desiring the propagation of your own genes. Just imagine the reasoning of idiots, and worse, powerful idiots such as GWBush regarding this???? Dinosaurs we are.
Broken Hearts are for Assholes. - Frank Zappa
The price on human life has just been set at 50k. And all those people used to say: "You can't put a price on someone's life." Oh yeah?
I think I'll save up. I wanna buy someone's life.
Ciao.
nahtanoj
I don't think scientists are the ones that should be making the choice. They have in the past, after all, creating things that do no good to anyone (mustard gas comes to mind). This probably isn't something we should be messing with...it has a very bad feeling to it.
Besides, isn't cloning humans outlawed by the world court or something?
You, sir, do not make any sense. Come again?
Ferrari and other exotic car rentals in New York
An ant that we step on and kill: usually we have no thought at all about it.
A human person that we create through engineering: fierce, violent debate.
These things fall into the abortion debate. Is this future person going to be allowed a life? This person is going to be the product of human ingenuity, but creating a person soley for research seems rather selfish to me. All of us value our lives more than virtually every other material thing. What gives the researchers the right to create a human life and to govern it, even before it is created?
First of all, throw out the sci-fi, a clone is NOT the same person, more like a twin. Thus the biggest problem is not in onesey's and twosey's it's in mass cloning which would lead to a dramatic reduction in genetit diversity. It also would enhance genetic weaknesses (when the clones breed) similar to massive inbreeding. What I really don't understand is what it's USEFUL for?
Take a look at the scientists in Half-Life (the single-player episode). Would you like to put the lives of everyone in the world in their hands?
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
If we let all of the rich people clone themselves, then rich business owners, who are some of the only people with access to this technology, have the power to clone themselves endlessly. That way Bill Gates and Steve Baumer don't have to give up Microsoft to the next generation, they can just keep cloning themselves. Is it possible that Microsoft will be owned by Bill Gates XXI some hundreds of years in the future (assuming the company lasts that long). Why would we want to clone the rich people more than the poor? It keeps the man going.
1 - Start a business. Charge an arm and a leg (figuratively) to create and maintain a brain-dead clone for your client. Now he has his own personal organ bank.
2 - Pay Natalie Portman an exhorbitant sum of money for a DNA sample so you can have a daughter that looks like Natalie Portman. (I could have said Salma Hayek, but I have never made a Natalie Portman post before.)
2a - When your Natalie-clone daughter is born, sell her DNA. Undercut the original Natalie's prices.
~ I haven't lost my mind. It's backed up on tape somewhere.
"Do me a favor and run up to the fridge and get Gramps a new spleen, grandson"
;).
What they should do FIRST is clone body parts. Or better, yet, functioning bodies without heads.
I smoke. It's stupid, I know. I hope to stop before I get cancer. If I do get cancer, how cool would it be to say 'just slice open Kool Moe 2 and transplant his lungs into me' (or to that effect, don't get particular
The whole soul question is still around, but without a head, at least there's no consciousness.
So then we get backup body parts, with less of a moral delimma. Once we get that right, THEN take to the streets demanding an end to genetically perfect humans.
Kinda like Moe, but just a little more Kool
I find myself very concerned about a large number of posts on this subject. Many /. posters seem to feel that there is an inevitability to human cloning or indeed most any new technological capability. This feeling of inevitability is a dangerous belief. Just because we have the capability of doing something, does not mean it will be done. Inevitability allows one to overlook the serious ethical and moral dilemnas a situation may pose. To say that it is inevitable that a human will be cloned, so why not just do it does not answer these questions. Morality and ethics are situational. When a human life is at stake, the situation should be carefully studied.
This case does not IMO meet moral and ethical standards. I believe that human cloning in the future, in certain situations, could hold great promise. However, this group of scientists are willing to perform human experientation with unproven technology. Here in the U.S. we hold strict standards for human experientation just so as not to cause unwarranted harm. In the case of terminally ill patients, these standards might morally and ethically (though I'm not sure legally) be eased with the knowledge of the patient. But to create a human life, who obviously has no say in this process, as an experiment, with technology which has so many unanswered questions, is monstrous.
While I am no biologist, I do know that there are questions as to inserting adult cells into embryonic tissue as a cloning technology. One major issue is that Tolemeres (sp) are significantly shorter in the cloned animal. Remember, Tolemeres are the stopwatch of a cell's aging process. Shorter Tolemeres mean shorter life. This is just one problem known by a layman. Reading through previous posts details many other problems which I will not delve into.
Knowing that these problems exist, a responsible scientist would refrain from leaping into this line of experimentation. I call on this group to reconsider their course of action and consider the ramifications of their actions on the human life they propose to create.
Just because something can be done, does not mean it should be done!
This is not the sig you are looking for...
No, I don't have a link, but I saw an article in Discover magazine recently that showed that the 'Dolly effect' seems to not be universal. Someone actually cloned mice with telomeres longer than the parent, which would imply they'll actually live longer. I'm sure someone can Google up a link.
No one really even agrees on when LIFE is appropriate, and we're already moving on to cloning? Until the first issue is solved, the second will always have problems. How about mass cloning / abortions in early stage pregnancies to harvest some useful substance? Perfectly legal I guess?
Seriously, can you see people selling their DNA for a price?
Scarey stuff!
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It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
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Just want to throw in my 2 cents..
:P
1) The whole "lack of genetic diversity" issue is one of the more ridiculous things i've heard about cloning. I mean, i REALLY doubt that cloning will be the next fad and suddenly no more natural reproduction will occur.
2) "unethical"? why?! you don't modify the dna, you don't even really get a look at the dna. you just reproduce a person. it's not like you grow the fetus in a test tube, the only difference with cloning is that there's none of that "getting too drunk then waking up pregnant with your own clone the next day" thing (i should hope).
3) And as for only certain people "qualifying" to have themselves cloned, that's pretty crazy. someone already mentioned, sex isn't regulated, why should cloning be?
4) bacteria reproduce asexually, why is it so bad if humans do too?
To examine the ethics of cloning, we need to understand the basis that people look at cloning. First let's set the foundation, by looking at origans. We either believe one of two things. We believe that God created us in his own image. We believe in evolutionary development. I am not arguing either point, however, if we believe that God created us in his own image, it would truly be the devil's work in "playing God". Things of this nature are to be left to a higher power. If we believe in evolution, we find that in cloning the exact structure of an existing organism, we are in essence taking a snapshot of the evolutionary picture. Instead of allowing advances in development, we, by cloning, are freezing the scale. This goes in direct conflict with what is natural... thus it should also be discouraged. Or something like that.
Not to sound like a Luddite, but I can see a few problems with cloning. What if someone makes a secret clone of themselves and then uses it as a slave? Will clones have the same rights as "normal" humans?
Once your standard garage biologist can shoot his seed into a cloning device and out pops Mini-Me, what's to stop him from abusing his clone? There are no hospital records of its "birth", so how would people find out he had a slave hidden away in his house?
For the most part, adapatations of child-protection laws should cover situations like this, but it will just be a little more difficult to enforce with in-home laboratories poppin' out the little tykes.
I find the thought of cloning people unnerving. Just becuase you can do something does not make is correct. I am not even talking about the ethics of it. Once we start cloning, then we are going to start genically modifying are children - are we going to start growing our children vats? It just does not seem natural. I don't think any of us can stop it, as human are by nature - explorers. But, I do caution recklessness with such a powerful tool.
Obviousily, I agree we should pursue Science....but cloning just seems wrong.
-Angreal
ahhhhh science fiction....we're atleast 50 years away from this!
I smoeone wants to clone, it's that particular someone's problem. The "society ethics" bullshit has absolutely nothing to do with it. Society is here only to force people to pay taxes. and should never interfere with private life.
-- javaDragon is an instance of JavaDragon.
Essentially two females (this was aimed at lesbians (just a fact, no flamebait here), go to a lab and have a.... child /CLONE of themselves, WITH NO MALE DONOR!
Only difference is that we now place the fertilized egg into a human body instead of a test tube.
"As with animal cloning, he said, the technology would involve injecting genetic material from the father into the mother's egg, which would then be implanted in her womb. "
Really, it's not really a clone, its freakin' IVF. IT HAS BEEN DONE!!!!, this is only a slight modification of the process. Kids have been born through IVF, and I see this as no different (I believe the oldest IVF baby is 17)
Oh... btw, I belive clone is an identical copy of ONE parent, not two, so no natalie portman's here (unless you mix her with some guy's DNA, or if you somehow get dna from both of 'em (hair, skin samples) and do it that way. The kid is guaranteed to be female in the latter way so there won't be any suprises :)
What everybody should be pissed about is not the ethics etc... of cloning, but the fact that so little is heard about it in the media, especially about the fact that americans won't hear shit about this for quite some time and the fact that the British (no offense intended), a historically news tight society, have shown this first, not the "free americans".
In any case, this really isn't "new" news. Nothing here is really a breakthrough, but IMHO, this doesn't let the useless american media off the hook
Shouts.
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The following was an actual post / response on slashdot... enjoy.
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Well it is cheaper then the 200 000$ Clonaid is asking for to clone you. Personally I would not mind getting cloned into a new younger me when i'll nbe old enough to use viagra.
Just for the record, Clonaid is owned by Rael the guy who say aliens created us all. They even have a replica at UFO Land of the spacecraft that took this local guru to the Alien planet.
Hehe, their funny but Clonaid seems real though.
wiZd0m
Better scientists making these decisions than politicians. At least you have to have some smarts to be a scientist. You can be a stupid Texan and become President of the US.
Ruthenium44
Sharon Stone, Demi Moore, ... The list goes on!
Are you trying to be sarcastic or just disturbing? "Po folks?" Being poor isn't a crime. Human rights aren't doled out based on how much money we have. Most poor people are working and trying as hard as they can to make ends meet. Very, very few are living off welfare and having as many kids as they can to get more money from the state. There are people like that but to use them as some kind of stereotype is terribly inaccurate. This kind of perception is created by politicians for their own gain, not because its true.
As for selective breeding my whole point is that genetic engineering makes that irrelevant. Take cystic fibrosis for example. The gene responsible for it has been known for some time now. There are genetic tests for the defective gene. I would recommend genetic tests for people who want to have children, but I would not agree with the idea that these tests should be used to prohibit anyone from having children, or that they be viewable by employers/insurance companies. It won't be too much longer before gene therapy will be used on conditions such as cystic fibrosis, hemophilia, etc. The step after that is detecting and correcting these genetic problems in unborn children.
I still think human stupidity should be eliminated because stupid people vote if for no other reason. Politicians do stupid things because they're trying to keep stupid people happy. But imagine if the people they had to keep happy were brighter and more aware of the implications of the issues at hand. Wouldn't that be better? Your comment about someone working at 7-11 is valid though. I don't know what to do about that. Actually come to think of it that problem doesn't really exist? Why? because the number of jobs which a person who isn't too bright can do are dwindling. Once upon a time manual labor was the backbone of the US economy whether you were talking about manufacturing or agriculture or mining or what have you. That isn't true today. Now we've got huge tractors and combines and robotic assembly lines and continuous miners. Jobs at which someone can earn a good living are becoming more and more technical and skilled all the time. For the most part our society has been able to keep up with this because of improvements in education, but that won't go on forever. How many people understand how modern technology works? For most people a computer is a genie, a magic box that is as mysterious as it is powerful. They're smart enough to use for word processing and web browsing, but few of us are smart enough to understand them well enough to program and design them.
If we don't do something to improve the average IQ of humanity then you'll simply have an aristocracy based upon intelligence. The beginnings of that are already appearent in our culture right now. Once upon a time ability was more or less evenly distributed. If you were poor and living on a farm someplace then how smart or determined you were usually didn't matter that much because your situation didn't provide you with any opportunities to utilize that intelligence or ability. This began to change after WW-II with the GI bill. Men who would otherwise never see the inside of a college classroom were going to college. It's continued from there with programs and grants and you name it to the point that just about anyone with the desire and ability to make something of themselves can do so. The end result of this is that our society is becoming something of a meritocracy. Not completely of course but close enough that it has an effect upon the types of people you're likely to find at different socio-economic strata. Throw in women's lib and you've got a pretty good formula for smart/able people meeting, marrying, and having smart/able children.
Jump forward a few generations and what do you have? A society where those born into high income families are also almost always born into high ability/intelligence families. The problem with this is that this class of people would have rights and freedoms that would be denied to others. They would control everything and the rest of the people would essentially be serfs.
I hate to think we've come all this way only to return to a world reminiscent of a dickens tale. I'd like to think that our future is a bright one.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Endlessly debating about the details of such a process ignores a bigger, more important question: Should we clone, just because we are able to?
Humankind cannot solve any of its major problems, such as crime, greed, dishonesty, etc. While individuals can be competent and intelligent, society as a whole has demonstrated that it is not. We are not capable of making sound judgments as to when/who to clone. Man was created by God, not by man, and the Bible states: "It does not belong to man even to direct his step."
If we can't even direct our own step (the smallest measure of forward progress), why do we think cloning will be an advancement, and not a complete disaster?
Whaddayathink? Two choices: -wait for 'glass wombs'. Grow spare parts for yourself. I'm c. 30, in 20 my clone body will be a young virile adult. Borrow organs or just have my brain transplanted. -today, hire lotsa surrogate mothers. Pick them so they will likely decide to keep it. Pay up front to encourage them! In Canada at least, there is no legal way to enforce custody. Harvest when adults as per first choice above. Cheers!
If we all post e-mail with the subject of 'plan to kill the US President', then Predator will be bogged down 'n useless!
We are messing with something we should have no part in. This with gene splicing (human genome) we will soon be cloning with a few improvements here or there. What is going to make us any different than the NAZI's? Trying to make the perfect human race... We have gotten to where we are by mutation, the natural order of life. This will lead to us not evolving any more. Is that what we want? Do we think we are better than GOD?
-- Don't take risks to escape life, but to experience life before it escapes you.
I don't think you understand what cloning is, it's not "instant humans". Clones are born from wombs and raised like anybody else. If the military wanted "disposable people" they could have baby farms and send the slaves out to their death, all with current technology, cloning gives them no advantage.
My question is: does it make any sort of biological sense to clone genetically infertile people? Then again, taking this standpoint leads easily to eugenics and such...
--hongpong.com
It's far from clear that a cloned Einstein would also be a genius. It's also far from clear that the military has the legal and physical capability to raise children and brainwash them into slaves, I don't know of any case of this since the Mamalukes.
The hard part is developing a system that updates your memory on a daily basis to the sleeping clone so when you decide to Protest something by stepping in front of jeff gordans car on live TV, you can still enjoy the 11:00 news with your friends.
My question is: does it make any sort of biological sense to clone genetically infertile people? Then again, taking this standpoint leads easily to eugenics and such...
--hongpong.com
Imagine a country at war where the leaders have the technology to clone humans. War and battle would be nothing more than a game of Risk. If people die, they simply clone more humans and send them out to fight. And precisely because cloning is and will be too expensive for the average citizen, they have no say in the direction and development of the technology. And if you think countries will never fight one another anymore after World War II, you are really living in a dream world.
Mystx
No, the real danger is that those with lots of money and power will never die.
I do not believe this will ever be the case. There is still the issue of telemere degeneration. Cells in the body are just going to kick the bucket in accordance with a bell-shaped distribution curve over time.
Beyond that, How do you reconsile the transplanting of one's defunct brain? Do it sectionally???
The biggest issue, however is that our general unhealthy lifestyle will catch up with us no matter how many transplants we utilitize? Are we to do a full-body capillary root-canal?
I see this as a sort of "second chance" on life.. A person in their 20's won't necessarily live a healthy life, and they, of course, pay for it in the 40's and beyond.. It might be possible to correct "some" of their geneticial defects and unspectacular life-style.
Beyond this, the growth of blood could be an enormous life-saver at hospitals.. Just think.. I'm not donating blood, but the DNA for the synthesis of blood (since the telemere's wouldn't allow an unlimited supply of blood to be synthesized from the same sample indefinately).
-Michael
-Michael
Should we trust scientists to decide when to implement a technology? Philosophers, who spend time thinking about thinking? The clergy, who attempt to "think as God would have us think"?
Why not say it and be done? In all matters, it's the lawyers who will have the final say. Isn't that a comforting thought?
"He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom."
I'll bet the first customer will be the US Government, if they haven't already started their own projects.
Cloning the great minds, and then conditioning them to do the government's bidding (and research). Einstein, Tesla, etc.
Maybe not so far off from The Pretender.
I wonder who will get to be the first person cloned?
And how do you name clones? Alpha, beta, etc? I always thought that the book Voice Of The Whirlwind was very cool. It's the story of a beta who is revived (eg, turned on) and wants to find out who his alpha was and what he did.
Of course, in that case, he knew he was a beta. My guess is that the first person cloned by scientists today might not be told that they were, in fact, a copy of another human.
And on a slightly unrelated note... what if it goes horribly wrong and we end up with a Mini-Dubya?
First of all, I don't really think the troll moderation was warranted. I was expressing my opinion, certainly not trolling.
Secondly, responding to esobofh's well thought out and articulated argument: Cloning doesn't really help people. I really don't see how it's going to "advance civilization." Advancing civilization would mean making everyone's life better, not making it so that everyone looks like a supermodel and has Einstein's IQ.
As for Mr. Borkowski, there's a big difference between taking an aspirin to help you feel better and creating/destroying human lives. I'm not trying to say that we shouldn't use medicines, perform surgery or anything like that. It's when you mess with life itself that's the problem. Whether you're taking innocent lives or creating life on a whim, it's just plain wrong. God is the giver of life and the taker of life. It's not man's job to interfere.
As for the rest of you trying to disprove God's existence, you better be careful. A lot of people have tried to disprove God's existence only to believe in Him when they realize it can't be done.
Sheepdot: Open Source good, Closed Source baaaaaaad!
Would it be possible to clone the fingers of unidentified bodies for the purpose of crime investigation?
I doubt that there will be much of a population problem really, all things being equal these clone babies would get reaal old reeal fast. The problem is, is that the Dolly experiment indicated that telemeres (little junky bits of DNA at the end of genomes) play a strong role in ageing. Basically, each cell generation munts a bit of telemere at the end of the genome, and at a certain point, theres no more telemere and the cells get all sorts of copying errors, producing injured and messed up cells (poor "aged" cells, and cancers and shiet). :( :( (Or something to that effect)
I am not a genetic scientist (IANAGS!!!), so maybe some gene geek could fill us in here, but my understanding is that the whole sperm/egg creation process basically pre-fabs new dna with new telemeres, but straight out grafting of adult dna into cells leaves infant cells with grand-dad telemeres.
So we'd basically have 70 year old 10 year olds, getting all conservative about pokemon and whistfully remembering the good-old days in pre-school.... then dying at a ripe old age of 11
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
You want genetic engineering... they can't engineer a good tomato. And they end up pulpy and taste like crap. Think about this one to yourself. You might be one of the last generations not coming out "altered." There are some benefits to this for indivduals... but honestly, could you imagine the population pressures this will make in a few gens. And even nature doesn't get it right all the time, remember that one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage. So if you think that we can just "grow" a little you without a cerebrum for parts, think again, it ain't easy even in a great host body. You should thank millions of years of evolution and not try to screw with it at the bottom of the ninth. Besides, do any of you want to die like a normal human being? "Do me a favor and run up to the fridge and get Gramps a new spleen, grandson."
An impartial judicial body is needed in this case.
Clearly, any group of scientists that stand to PROFIT from this endeavor (in terms of both money and fame) should not make the decision to go ahead with this technology.
Unfortunately, technology is advancing much more rapidly than the applicable ethical bodies. More resources need to be devoted to those efforts, before things get out of hand.
www.niceFire.com
www.niceFire.com
Funnier than a speeding bullet
How long until the Gap starts offering cloning? They clone and clone and clone. Then they'll kill off all the non-beautiful people. Then they'll start killing off all the new "non-beautiful" people. CarsonDalyLand will go to war with NSyncBurg! SpearsTowne will get into a sissy slap fight with the the Isle of the Agularas! IT'S IN REVALATIONS, PEOPLE!!!
(This post was brought to you by Kid A and severe sleep deprevation)
end communication
If it were REALLY successfull then it creates yet another basis of discrimination- and we humans are really good at picking arbitrary things to discriminate on (colour, eye shape etc etc)
Sure we should all grow up and get over it but if your on the other end of a violent individual who has chosen not to like the way you are then telling that person to stop being so shallow probably wont help matters.
Maybe the maturity of society needs to be investigated first...
Human cloning is the start of "Brave New World" era. Biological selection of presumably superior beings is nothing new: the German nazis worked on that too during WW II. Cloning should simply be forbidden by the human rights charter as a crime against humanity because it not not a crime against the being that is cloned but something that affects humanity as a whole. My 2p...
Jurassic Park had a great line. In one of Malcolm's rants, he says something about "scients are so busy trying to see if they can, that they never stop to think if they should".
The same is true here. With the exception of cloning ORGANS (and by organs i mean individual pieces, not a fully working human for harvest), what possible reason could there be for cloning a person? There isn't one...
-MR
-Michael Roy Some people are like Slinkies. Not really useful, but you can't help smiling when you see one tumble down
it's a rather discomforting thought: those that claim to be interested in knowledge only for the sake of knowledge will also make the determination of when and how that knowledge should be used. isn't that the best left to society (via religion, government, culture, etc.)?
to put it another way: would science have been the best guide for our use of atomic weapons? i seem to recall the common view of scientists at the time was that atomic weapons were a Bad Thing and should not be used (forgive me for generalizing...). and yet, the US government choose to use the weapons, thereby saving more lives in the long run.
granted, i respect the input of scientists and the data that they generate, but certainly not the opinions that accompany it.
my $0.02
Ignoring the religious side of things, cloning human beings is still unnatural. Now if we were to create bodies and use Albert Einstein's brain to see how he reacts to things in today's environment (and a new body, for that matter), then I might be a little more intrigued.
As for simple cloning of humans, I think it's the most pointless operation ever to grace scientific theory and thought. Worse than the atom bomb. No offense, Al.
--
Given the right "equipment", I could make something that is a 50% clone of myself for much less than $50,000.
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
DNA mapping+Zavos=Designer Cloning.
Imagine a genetically engineered football team! (The Ravens' defense may actually be the secret prototype).
Visualize Judy Collins as an NFL coach! Send in the clones!
All your belongings are base to us.
Its always refreshing to know that the rich arabs will undoubtedly obey future UN restrictions on usage of clones. They will wont they? Planet chaos?
Sometimes humanity must suffer in the name of science, but most of the time, science suffers in the name of humanity. An issue, such as cloning, and genetic experimentation in general, is well worth the sacrifice that humanity must make. The potential side effects of such experiments are good and bad, but the good can and does outweigh the bad.
Human cloning should not be done to benefit the parents or the children, but should be done to benefit humanity. I hate to say it, but I'd rather see 10000 clones die of a diesease to find a cure, than 1000000 non-clones die with no cure found. And I'll be the first to donate genetic material to the cause.
Some of those children are going to be born with birth defects. Just like all surgeries can have complications and all drugs can have side effects, there will be the occasonal problem with this too.
And then what happens? Will they dispose of the unwanted children? Will the poor things grow up unloved because the parents had expected a better result?
Imagine how many genetically mutated mice and sheep must have been produced and disposed of before science finally succeeded in producing Dolly.
We really need to think long and hard before we allow these sorts of experiments to be conducted on human beings.
I guess you would need a head, but the brain just ought not to have the capacity for higher functions that would be construed as conciousness.
Sanity.html - Error 404 not found
But now you seem to be asserting that there is an instinct toward social arrangements which allow women control over their sexual and reproductive habits; a proposition with no empirical evidence whatever for it. Furthermore, the distinction between such a rarified, state-dependent and complex instinct and a "social factor" would be completely uninteresting; certainly it is only pure religious attachment which would make anyone assert that sequences programming for any such characteristic could be found in chromosomes. Your position is not too terribly far from asserting that early drafts of the both the Communist Manifesto, Veritatis Splendor and the United States Constitution can be found in DNA sequences.
At this point it's pretty clear that your attachment to defining social reality as "biological" is based in something more than mere rationality.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
Somebody get the CIA on this right away!
We need Elizabeth "liberated" from England, brought here, Nationalized into public property, and then EVERYBODY can get a copy! Woohoo!
Who's your daddy, who's your daddy....
Look at this article in the newest issue of wired: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.02/projectx.h tml
I think this guy won't win the race to clone humans. As this article says, a human may have already been cloned but just not come forward to tell anyone that.
Who needs the Borg when we have scientists cloning around? ~axzaetus
while overall I believe I agree with your sentiments, I must point out that currently the majority of humans are of low intelligence (my opinion) and we cannot simply cast off the lives of the stupid for that reason alone. I also don't believe there is anything wrong with being less intelligent. As long as the world in general has enough geniuses to keep us moving forward, why would we need everyone to be a genius? It doesn't make sense to have everyone with triple digit IQ's then force some to work at 7-11 because we want our latte's and bear claws on the way to work... I would support stricter breeding laws though. Yeah, breeding laws. Scoff if you like, but I think a standard needs to be developed, and this is two tier. Tier One: don't let the po folk breed. (send hatemail to jack@ass.com). They'll be up in arms, but why should they be allowed to generate more population that will be forced to endure poverty and poor health, etc. etc.... does that not violate the constitutional rights of their potential offspring? It would also be nice if democrats quit taking more of my paycheck so the poor could stay at home and have more kids, but that's another story. Tier Two: Selective Breeding. Also touchy, moreso probably than preventing breeding in substandard conditions. Say I have a genetic disorder that causes expensive healthcare, pain, suffering, etc... I actually do have one, but it's not all that bad most days. Now I do wish I didn't have it, but I don't wish I was dead because of it. Of course, if I had been selectively bred, so that the genes that cause it (and it is genes) never perpetuated, then I wouldn't have to worry about it. You can say I wouldn't be me, etc... but you can also STFU. The basic playout would be that people who could provide properly for a child could have one, if their genetic materials were of high enough quality, it could be made from theirs. If their genes were not high enough quality, or they had problems like sickle-cell, etc. then they would recieve implantation from a properly arranged combination of sperm and egg, or possibly from donor DNA in the form of cloning. Now people who can care for children have them, and at the same time the human race improves. I know I'd be willing to sacrifice having a kid that looked like me for a healthier, happier one that was still raised by me. Of course the general nature of Americans to be selfish goes directly against this sort of well thought out improvement for all. thank you for your time.
-- there is no point in pulling the pud... if you do it right.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
What's to get upset about? It's just a twist on in vitro fertilization, which people have been doing for a long time. I can see lots of reasons why people might want to do this (aside from the occasional case of narcissism).
I lost my wife before we had a chance to have children. It would be wonderful to have a daughter like her. She was a delightful person--the world could use another one like her (of course, that's assuming I could do as good a job of child-raising as her equally delightful parents). I am sure that there are parents who have lost children to accident or disease who feel the same way. Why roll the genetic dice again when you already had a winning throw?
The "unique identity" thing is a non-issue. After all, identical twins happen once in awhile, and they manage just fine. The fact that they are not genetically unique doesn't stop them from developing their own unique identities.
From a biological point of view, I suppose that we could get concerned about some kind of genetic monoculture. What if there is a fad for clones of some famous person, and everybody wants to have one? But clones are going to be a bit too costly for that to be an issue for quite a while. And face it, the one thing that we are *not* lacking on this globe is human genetic diversity. We can tolerate a lot of cloning while still having more genotypes in circulation than have ever before existed at one time.
I suppose there is the problem of the clone of the famous person growing up under the pressure of inflated expectations. Probably that clone of Einstein will decide to become a performance artist just to defy everybody's assumptions. But again, this isn't really any different from the problems faced every day by the sons and daughters of celebrities. It isn't easy, but they get by--occasionally, they even surpass their illustrious parents.
I think people are afraid of cloning, not because of any real threat of cloning itself, but because they perceive it as the leading edge of genetic modification, and that is indeed scary. At some point in the future, we are going to start changing our own genes. And the technology will soon be moving faster than our own generation time, which means that we will sooner or later introduce some sort of disastrous genetic "bug" that causes cancer, dementia, or worse, later in life. And it will be in a whole bunch of people before anybody realizes the problem. There will doubtless be tragedies to make thalidomide and diethylstilbesterol look like small potatoes. But it's not really cloning that is the leading edge--it is gene therapy. And that can't be stopped. Who is going to tell somebody that they aren't *allowed* to cure sickle cell? Or Huntington's Disease? But the concept of a genetic "disease" is unavoidably slippery. Once something becomes fixable, it automatically becomes a disease. Find a gene for perfect pitch? You've defined a "poor pitch perception" disease! Let's cure everybody!
I don't think it can be stopped. I don't even think it necessarily should be. Sometimes, you just have to weather the storm....
Indentical twins silly.
These clones will be less than identical,
because the clone will not grow up in the
same environment.
The current success rate is just 2% for mammals.
Work it out on Fido and Fluffy first.
Perhaps this new group needs to get a licensing agreement for one-cell ordering, errr.. I mean one-cell cloning.
=-=-=-=-=
"Do you hear the Slashdotters sing,
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Oh bother.
Well, for starters, the term "cloning" was an extremely bad PR move, as it conjures visions of armies of identical soldiers wreaking havoc on the less scientifically advanced populaces of bad sci-fi movies. If one takes the time to read up on what is actually being done, it becomes obvious that "cloning" is really not as open to the insane abuse a lot of people assume.
More important, however, is the other question brought up in this post (namely whether or not scientists can limit the use of a technology they have developed). Seems to me that would be a resounding "no." Science is not advanced through geniuses re-inventing the wheel. Instead, people build on the work of others before them, often taking it in entirely new directions. Once a techonlogy has been developed it is only a matter of time before it is built upon in a way that the original inventors have no means of controlling. I highly doubt that every discoverer in history that contributed to the knowledge used in nuclear weapons would be happy with how their work is being applied.
Don't wrestle with pigs; you'll both get muddy, but the pig likes it.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. There is a steep price to be paid. Almost none of you give it the slightest creedance.
History has taken us here before. Dr. Gatling invented the machine gun intent on ridding the world of warfare. Dr. Guillotin invented his blade intent on merciful execution. Heroin was invented to eliminate suffering. There is nothing new under the sun.
Human nature is the problem rather than technology. This is typical irresponsible use of intellectual accomplishment: no recognition that history consistently demonstrates a tendency toward self-annihilation. New technologies only amplify our depraved abilities. Somewhere soon, someone will do so with this. They will do it in a novel, nightmarish way. They will do it sooner than you think.
Blithely ignorant remarks in favor of this new Orwellian power are reminiscent of fools in every age who went down on the Titanics or exploded aboard the Challengers of their own times. They are inevitably hailed as heroes of progress, whose lives were sacrificed on the altar of technology to advance us to the next stage.
You are those idiots in "Independance Day" standing on top of the Interstate Bank Building in Los Angeles waving greeting placards in the face of your own destruction. You are the jackasses of every age who think just because it's never been done before is the perfect unassailable reason to go ahead and do it, consequences be damned.
Your moral sensibilities preclude any possibility of evil. For yours is the generation that thinks intellect equals virtue. As in "Jurassic Park" when the mathemetician warns, "You were so busy on whether you could, no one asked whether you should." You are a morally stunted generation comprehending nothing outside your science fiction-intoxicated imaginations. Bad just isn't possible, someone will make sure of that; just go for it.
You are those who will forge the Brave New World to come. You will be consumed by a monstrosity of your own making. And as it overtakes you, you will be those shaking their fists and cursing God for not stepping in to save you from yourselves. Your damnation is just.
Being opposed to cloning stems from the same feeling as an Amish being opposed to medical technology. As with al technology, it can be used positively or negatively, but being opposed to it altogether is absurd. This is a young science with huge potential.
A clone would not be a copy of you, just another person based on your genetic material. A distinct being. It's just artificial reproduction. A show originaly on Fox called Space:Above and Beyond, set in 2062 I think, explored clones. The Invirtros or "tanks" as they were called were produced to be soliders against another human fuck up, androids that went nuts after a scientist gave them rouge instructions. Check it out http://www.scifi.com/spaceaab/
The latest Wired has a good article about cloning. Most of the stuff people have posted here has been very very wrong. e.g. Cloning is like IVF, not science fiction. Success rates are likely to be very low initially. You can't clone from a hair or fingernail, and cloning a person long dead would be almost impossible. You need fresh blastocyte cells. A clone would not be identical like a twin - 80% maybe but not identical due to the genetic and other influences of the mother. Add to that the environment and a clone is just a special type of child. He/she has the same legal rights as any child, so all the talk about organ harvesting is just pure FUD. You could 'harvest organs' today with any matched organ donor (and without having to wait years for a cloned child to grow up). Most of the reaction to cloning is uninformed Luddite backlash. Sorry to see /. didn't know any better either.
'To manipulate what we know about the workings of life to our own ends. This is just plain wrong.' ?
Ever taken an aspirin for a headache? Ever had a broken bone set? Ever had a pet? Rode a horse? Ate cultivated plants? Drank milk? Eat meat?
Manipulating is what people are good at. If that's wrong, then everyone's wrong.
Let someone who doesn't manipulate the workings of life cast the first stone.
This
I think that if these guys expect to do it in the next two years, some government has already done it in secret, and another team of private researchers is going to do it this year and go public when they finish, at which point the media will leave the loudmouths out in the cold.
They will, of course, be happy with this, as they will all be living off of the money they bilk out of investors beforehand.
In other words within (most of) our lifetimes?
I don't know about you, but the very thought that it could happen at all is scary enough to give it a very thorough examination before it becomes reality. The idea that it could happen before my death, maybe by the time I am a gandparent, is enough to make me want to do some serious damage to somebody.
The people that think it isn't that serious of a deal when something is "fifty years away" and just shrug without really thinking abou it just don't seem to have a firm grip on reality. Unless you are in the extreme minority on Slashdot and happen to be over fifty yourself, you should care.
Maybe it will seem I'm too serious to you. But how can you not take something like this seriously. It's a scary idea. Perhaps it could be used in good ways (if such ways exist), but the question that should be asked is will it get used in good ways? Or will some moron use it to create their "perfect" army of genetic clones (made from Ah-nold DNA) to take over the world.
Speaking of which, how many people are scared to death that there could be hundreds of Ah-nolds making bad movies at a rate previously un-heard of? *SHUDDER* Sorry, I just disgusted myself.
Don't get me wrong, I like blood and guts movies every once in a while. But I would hate to think that they could be made that quickly. Yuck!
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(nt)
...does this mean that if the M$ breakup goes through that both halves would still end up being run by Bill Gates?
That green slime had it coming.
three years ago my physics teacher in high school read an article to the class explaining that some guy "going against ethics" was going to have someone cloned in "two years"...like i said that was two three years ago. I always wondered what happened to him. Looks like someone is trying again. :P
The twins were astonishingly similar in habits
I herard about studies claiming that twins living together are more different that those separated early. They want to be different.
He or she will know exactly what they will look like later in life,
We will have cosmetic surgery as an everyday thing (I read it form William Gibson.)
what kinds of grades they're capable of in school, what kinds of jobs they'll be predisposed towards.
Jobs will be different, schools will be different.
They will be constantly compared to, well, themselves (about 20-30 years down the road). What if they don't live up to the standards already set by their parents,
The same thing for sexual reproduction.
Additionally, this kid will know what diseases or habits he/she will probably contract later in life,
And by then they will be curable.
Basically, this kid's whole future will already be known. Where's the excitement in that kind of life?
No, the environment will be quite different.
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Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
IMHO, the real question is not if the scientists are competent to be the judge of society's maturity about a technology such as this, but if SOCIETY is competent to judge its own maturity to handle something like this... Personally I don't even think we are READY to judge our own maturity about this subject, much less make judgements about who we should be cloning or not cloning... isn't life support bad enough?!?!
mov ax, 13h
int 10h
mov ax, 13h
int 10h
so, the people are, like, "Hey, stop talking and get out of our garage! We're trying to do it!"
hee hee!
You want corn? I give you corn.
I may be wrong, but I'm never uncertain.
OK so i am not at an expert on the field (if you are comments would be good). But here is what i am thinking, what happens when ppl. get to decide who to clone and how much to clone ? The idea would be (from what i recall about a discussion of this in Internation Times) that you have a kid, and you can at a later date get a clone of it... Now this in itself does not sound that bad right, but it does lead to the question that what happens when someone has a damn smart kid/a great soccer player/or ms. portman ? ? I mean if you think about it seriously you are going to be able to get rid of a lot of genetic fuck ups! This can then go along with the idea of being able to stop a birth of someone who might be born with a desease, hell just use a clone of a GOOD baby! This gets rid of the fact that you might have a kid thats not PERFECT! Damn, is it not natural for there to be differences/weaknesses in ppl... and is this mutation not essential ? ?
Then of course the artile mentions that ----"The effort will be to assist couples that have no other alternatives to reproduce and want to have their own biological child, not somebody else's eggs or sperm", Well sadly thats life and you ahve to live with it... i know a lot of couples that could not have kids and went with the idea of adoptions, and are doing fine.
Non-Deterministic Finite Automata
In my not so humble opinion, it's not so much a matter of fear of cloning itself as it is a fear of a change in values. Clones aren't going to up and take over the world.
However, what will happen to human rights? If we can produce humans in factories, what happens to the perceptual value of people we currently have?
life would be so boring without females, and their strange ways...
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Clone the body, but not the mind... Find the genome responsible for producing brain matter, and remove it... Let everything else form, but keep the body on life support until it reaches sufficient maturity for organ harvesting...
Without a brain to offer a sentience, without a mind to protest, there is no ethical debate... Period...
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
But seriously, over here (Argentina) cloning human beings is illegal. The law was created at the beggining of 1998 I think, when the whole clonning hype started (with the sheeps and everything).
I'm not sure why, but everybody seemed to think that this was an 'important' law. I think it's sad.
Now, back to the sci-fi, how about a 'ball', with a heart, and a respiratory system, a small nervious system (to control basic functions), a simple digestive system, and a reproductory system. The idea is to inseminate this ball (anyway you want), and it gets pregnant. And you have a daughter. You can build it with your wife's DNA, or maybe for a gay couple or something.
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Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
If they want a child, they should adopt. Yes, it sucks that they can't have their own, but there is likely a reason for it, and if their only option is to copy their current genetic makeup, they aren't really doing their offspring a favour. Much as we hate to think it, we are animals and the same sorts of rules of survival apply. Cloning is just asking for trouble and propogating the problem. It seems like there would be a much higher probability that this cloned child would not be able to have children of their own. And most importantly, as the article pointed out, the success rate is miniscule to the point of futility.
(This is not to mention the ethical considerations which are certainly pretty murky. I think it's pretty dumb to trust that all future scientists would use this ability in a humane/ethical manner.)
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I hope you're not pretending to be evil while secretly being good. That would be dishonest.
While it is true that genetic anomalies can produce the combination that will stop the next "Ultimate Life Ending Plaque Of Doom" it can just as easily create combinations that are worse off and more frequently does. This explanation is similar in logic to running around in a field to avoid getting hit by falling rain. Regardless of where you run you still have equal chance but by some odd logic people see a moving target as less likely to be hit. Additionally your last point about viruses points out that our evolution is not going to be able to naturally keep up with the new ULEPD.
I really don't understand why people think this is a big deal. It isn't like you can instantly have a full grown clone of yourself in a day. The clone has to be born of human, raised like any human, and set out into the world. It would be no different than having a twin (a much younger twin). I think people are confusing science fiction with science fact. The reality is that you would only share genetic material with your clone. Your clone would have a different parents, education, and childhood than you. It would be a different person who happens to look like you. Like a twin (separated at birth).
How come nobody is trying to outlaw having twins?
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
Human cloning has already been done! There was a story in reuters about two weeks ago on cloning Gaurs. It also said that the scientist who had clone the gaurs, cloned themself as well.
"In 1998 a researcher at the company used cloning technology to join one of his own cells to a cow's egg, effectively cloning himself, although the embryo that resulted was stopped at a very early stage."
> I wonder who owns the rights to cloning the famous, or even the anonymous?
How can someone justify "owning the rights" to clone another person?
Clone yourself. Fine. It is YOUR body. (Allthough you can't legeally sell parts, as disgusting as it is. Go figure. If you can clone yourself, would it now become "ethically accepted" to sell your [spare] body parts? )
But you do NOT own someone's else body - alive or dead. If you do, it's called slavery.
Sure, I would love to see a clone of Einstien (we have his brain in a jar someplace, right?), but we are cheaping human life the instant "property rights" extend to humans - clones or not.
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like anyone wouldn't want a spare porn actress around.
$50,000 isn't so bad when you consider that you sell the kidneys and make that back almost immediatly... and then everything else that you chop off and put on ebay is strictly profit!
ofcourse if cloning is too upsetting for you, then you can always stick to the old fashioned way of making money:
step 1: steal underpants
step 2: ????
step 3: profit!
In 15 years, you can have your own underage Cindy Crawford locked in your basement as your love slave.
Such is the infinite Grace of Popeye.
Does little Johnny or Susie not have any "real" friends?
No problem!
They can clone themselves a new best friend in the
garage over the weekend with the Home Cloning Kit!
Now on sale at K-Mart for only $49,999.99!
- tokengeekgrrl
"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions
'nuff said