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What Will Human Cloning Mean For Humanity?
Purdyman asks:
"Paul Tatara (who also happens to be a kick-ass movie reviewer) has an interesting piece on human cloning at goodauthority. He thinks we need start asking ourselves right now just what human cloning would actually mean, both to humanity ("The dangers of pushing this particular button simply aren't as obvious as they are with the destructive energy of a nuclear bomb.") and for the clones ("Will clones themselves ache from the sense that they may not be 'complete,' that they're inexorably removed from their so-called peers?"). This is certainly the time to figure out what we're in for, because once that particular genie, so to speak, is out of the bottle, it may never go back in. So, leaving aside the technological questions, what does human cloning really mean? Will this be mankind's greatest boon or a horrible bane?"
Will clones themselves ache from the sense that they may not be 'complete,' that they're inexorably removed from their so-called peers?
They'll do exactly what they're socially programmed to do, just like all of us non-clones.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
There are other viewpoints too.
We can sorta do an extrapolation. Imagine cloning technology exists. What does that mean?
It means you can take a cell out of a living creature and grow a new creature out of it. Independent of this process, there's the mother to be taken into account, and until we can develop artificial wombs, we'll have to do it the old fashioned way and implant these embyoes in females.
In this respect, cloning is no more or less hard or difficult than having a child. Ethical issues aside about individuality and morals, sex just seems to be more fun and more exciting, so I don't think this is a terribly big issue.
On the other hand, cloning as a process gives us another tool in our genetic toolbox. I've said this in another post, but I think it's important enough to bear repeating.
If we can clone a mouse 500 times, but in each case change, remove, replace, or add to the gene sequence, we can do much more precise genetic research. We can figure out evolutionary biology, developmental biology, structural biology, and a whole host of other things.
Just being able to produce clones at this level means we can create drugs and viruses that attack specific cells, like cancers, because we know enough about genetics that we can actually have tailor made viruses that target cancer cells, reproduce in cancer cells, and destroy cancer cells.
We can fix near sightedness or far sightedness. We can deal with male pattern baldness. We can fix glaucoma. We can wear tiger skin patterns or stripes in our hair. We can grow extra teeth, fangs, or tusks. We can grow wings, or gills, or extra tough skin, extra tough bones, extra strong muscles. We can create humans that can survive the radiation of space, the atrophying debilitation of zero g, or the stresses of a recycled and constrained environment.
Cloning a person is a separate issue than the process of cloning as a technology.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
And a lot of the people saying "only god can reproduce the spirit" will use that as an excuse for treating clones as subhuman... Just like various "christian" factions (acting in a not-very-christian manner) have in the past for the status of "test-tube" babies.
Personally, as an atheist, and not subscribing to odd notions about "souls" or "spirits" or anything else that's not a falsifiable explanation of our perceived reality, I'll regard clones as human - except of course, that clones may have shorter lifespans if the telomere problem isn't sorted out...
Choice of masters is not freedom.
The problem with god is that she's not needed and very arbitary (you can adequatly explain most everything without introducing a god. See Occams razor) Introducing the existance of god and an afterlife just because we're afraid of death makes a lot of things a lot more complex. Cloning is one of them. I belive that humanity is completly alone and doomed to freedom (ah, thank you Sartre). Life is a lot harder without a benevolent father taking responsibility and protecting you. But as long as we're doomed to complete freedom, we should do everything we can to advance ourselves (which is mostly done with technology).
Cloning and genetic modification is something we *should* do - to improve the lives of humans. Denouncing afterlife comes with a few consequences.. one is that (human) life is absolutly the most valuble thing there is. There can never be a justification to kill someone else in cold blood. Another one is the realization that we need to have genetic engineering to (in the very long run) make humans immortal. If dying is the end of existance, every effort should be made to abolish death from the world. (i'm obvoiusly not talking about something that'll happen in the next few hundred years. my regret is that i was born too early (but then again, it wouldnt be me.. anyway, that's another discussion :))
-henrik
Of course, you make the mistake of thinking that genetic makeup form very much of the personality. If I remember correctly, genetically identical twins that are separated at birth (adoption, etc) are less similar in personality than genetically different twins who are raised in the same family.
That means, loads of surprises. Different health issues, probably similar physical characteristics to an extent, but food and environment affects that a lot too, as well as new diseases, etc. Sexual predisposition might be entirely different, since what forms that is largely unknown, and probably to a large extent formed by environment.
Many parents seem to dream about being a perfect parent. Give it up. Start up a therapy fund that the kids can use when they turn 18, because if the parents themselves dont screw the kids over (and you will _never_ know how a kid will react to the most innocent correction, unfairness, too much fairness, pampering until its far far too late) then the rest of the world will.
If you look back at Genisis, you'll see that God completed the creation at a specific point. Wouldn't his "handing out" souls be contradictory to this?
He doesn't create new souls. It was quite a breakthrough for me personally (on the issue of cloning) when I realized that the creation of a new soul is built into humanity, and happens at conception. So when a sperm fertilizes an egg - boom - new soul.
Ergo, I believe that clones will be distinct individuals. A soul is created at the moment of conception, and so, until we can 'manufacture' sperm or egg, we won't have a problem.
Granted, it will be disconcerting to have people walking around with the same looks, personality type, and mannerisms, but he/she will still be born of a mother and a father, and therefore human, with all the "rights and responsibilities" that go with that.
Oh please. athiest != psychopath.
:). I think we could all use with more tolerence in the world. Simply because people don't believe the same as we do does not make them evil or sub-human. This goes for clones (although I cannot see how they would be treated any differently then an identical twin would be, as that is exactly what they are), operating systems, slashdot editors, linux distributions, and even John Katz :).
On the off chance that you're not a troll, and for anyone else who might be tempted to buy into your argument:
Just because you don't believe that if you step out of line you'll burn forever does not imply that you have no morals. People confuse athiests (and agnostics) with psychopaths (having no ethical/moral qualms). It's simply not true. Athiests simply do not believe in God. (For that matter they don't believe in the devil ethier. So maybe you can just cancel them both out and call it a wash if you perfer).
For the record, I'm not an athiest, but some of my friends are, and none of them have killed me off yet
Minupla, "OK, now go to your corners and come out tolerent!"
--
Remove the rocks to send email
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
could anyone give me a nice plausible step by step theory where step 1 is "a human is cloned" and step n is "our ultimate doom"?
I think it's a very cute notion that most people have when arguing about preventing the cloning of humans. Why do you assume that anyone who is in favor of holding off on this for a bit longer believes that clones will, in fact, spell out the demise of all life on earth?
I, for one, am an opponent of cloning humans (at least right now) for several very simple reasons. A) I believe that we (as humans) cannot take very good care of ourselves or our home (read:earth) right now. 30 years ago we came exceedingly close to ridding this planet of all life, except possibly that of insects. That does not bode well for any other life we bring into the picture. I trust this society to not fuck this up about as much as i trust a recovering crack addict locked in a police evidence room.
B)This is a pandora's box. The arguments i've seen on this matter come down to the same thing. Two groups arguing over which is right, caution, or innovation. This argument starts out in a relatively intelligent tone, and soon disintegrates into a "Yes you are," "No i'm not" debate about who's a prude and who's a moron. So i will say this once, and all i ask is that people seriously reflect on this: Cloning is a one way function. we now have the power to clone a human. And, i agree that this, in and of itself, is a signifigant achievement. But, what we ALL need to ask ourselves is what are all of the consequences of this action. Good and bad. If you think that no good can come from this, then you are naieve. If you think that no bad will come from this, then you are as equally naieve. But, in all honesty, i haven't seen a perfectly intelligent argument as to where this will put us in 50 years from either side. And that, to me, is not a reason to give the go ahead to something that has the serious potential to alter all of our societal views as this does.
Fundamentally this argument is between the misanthrops and those who have faith in humanity. Me? I take the misanthropic view: we, as a human society, can't even raise our own children to be good people, why bring clones in to the picture now? we're just going to fuck that up too.
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
You know, the article brings up some good points. I'm a religious person, and I happen to believe that only God can reproduce the spirit. I don't know what will happen here though. Technically nothing can happen without God (who is all powerful) permitting it to happen. If God didn't want it, then...? But, also God has given humanity the freedom of choice, and where does that lead?
I agree that this is an issue not being given enough focus in the mainstream media/philosophical circles. This is an issue that will be at the centerpiece of human society in the next 10 yrs. Will clones be treated as humans? Or will they be treated as some kind of subhuman slaves? This kind of reminds me of the X-Men and the country of Genoshia. There are certain elements in humanity that will never permit clones to be regarded as humans, and in this case we have to wonder, should we regard them as humans?
-"Those who fought today will die tommorow."-
Too many people get the order of that reversed. Case in point, from Tatara's article:
However, before we give a sentient being life, we had better recognize that we may be incapable of properly bestowing life...
I suppose it's arguable that many of the lives on this planet already were "improperly bestowed", but I doubt that the recipient of an expensive cloned birth will be subject to the same substandard education and lousy family situation that our less fortunate sentient beings are stuck with today. Of course, he/she will have been bestowed with the genes of an existing, happy human being, and will have to suffer the consequences. Darn.
But what will happen to these clones if we discover that science can't regenerate a soul?
Someone's been watching too many movies. Repeat after me: "A clone is an organism whose genetic code is copied from another organism". A clone is not a vat-baby, or a teleported copy of yourself from the Evil Star Trek Universe Where Everybody Has Moustaches. In fact, in the special case where that copying occurs at conception, we call the clone an "identical twin", and most of them claim to have souls.
Will people dare to fall in love with, and mate with, a clone?
Stupid people won't. That's okay; more potential partners for the rest of us.
Again, I feel myself wanting to apologize for what seems like crackpot issues.
You know how if you're unsure on multiple choice tests, they advise you to go with your first instinct?
The dangers of pushing this particular button simply aren't as obvious as they are with the destructive energy of a nuclear bomb.
The dangers of polka music are equally subtle, and for much the same reason.
If it gets out of hand?and I think cloning a human being will undoubtedly be the go-ahead for taking things too far?our ultimate doom could slowly arise over a matter of time.
Aside from "it's neeewwww, and scaaarrryyy!" could anyone give me a nice plausible step by step theory where step 1 is "a human is cloned" and step n is "our ultimate doom"? Perhaps I just lack imagination, but I'm having trouble filling in steps 2 through n-1, myself.
I'd insert the requisite "I can't believe this made it to Slashdot" bitching here, but it's been such a slow weekend that I'm almost happy to waste my time ranting at the clue-deprived.
How does this effect cloning. If we make "perfect" clones then there is no modification. If there is no modification then we aren't running fast enough and we will lose the Red Queen races. The survival of any species over time requires mutation and genetic variance. So if people decide to just clone themselves and transfer their brains to new bodies they are contributing to the downfall of humanity by not allowing for genetic variance. Ergo, "perfect" clones are a bad idea in general from a scientific/evolutionary stand point.
This leaves us with "imperfect" clones. So we can let the process be somewhat sloppy so as to allow for genetic drift and mutation or we purposefully modify the clones genes to add variance. Scientifically speaking, the sloppy process is foolish, whereas the purposeful modification is not. Why, might you ask. Well, a purposeful modification, even if done to a large portion of the populous that can afford it, would not be wide spread enough to cause significant to the overall genetic variance within the human species while at the same time it would not damage it like a "perfect" clone would, if you want a good arguement and numbers read the book mentioned above called Children of Prometheus.
There are a couple problems with purposeful modification though:
I agree that we need to start thinking about the cloning of humans. Within the next two years a human will be cloned. Science will not stop just because a large majority of people are unable to handle to concequences, or fundamentally disagree with the process. People will be modified within the next 50. Cosmetic genetics will arrive even through heavy protest. The best thing that we can do now is understand it, and human evolution. I mentioned two good books up above on the topic, there are many more on the subject and believe that our society should start reading them NOW so we do not make blind decessions for or against it.
Disclamer - Opinion of Person
Identical twins are geneitically MORE simmilar than current cloning methods will allow (because, in the case of twins, they share their mother's Midocondrial DNA).
Which is the "real" child and which is the "twin?" Which the "original" and which the "clone?"
"Clones" will be regular people, like twins, like bastards, like test-tube babies, like adopted children, like suragate-mothered children...
The major issue that concerns me regarding cloning is not whether it is possible, or whether clones would be soulless robots, or whether we would create an army of clones that think and act exactly alike. localroger's post is a typical counterexample that effectively dispels these concerns, at least for me. The major concern that I have is why would we want to create a clone?
I have followed the issue of cloning for a while, and I have seen several major reasons advocated for cloning, all of which deeply concern me.
The most common reason I have seen for advocating cloning is to create a genetic duplicate of someone who has a dehabilitating injury to provide tissue for transplantation. Let us say for example that an illness (not a genetic condition) has resulted in the failure of a patient's kidneys. Biologically, there is no problem with causing a genetic duplicate of the individual to be made, and transplanting one of their kidneys. Psychologically, however, there are some serious implications. The clone to be created will be an individual, a person, and his future feelings need to be considered in the equation. This individual will grow up knowing that he was born with one single purpose in the world, to save his duplicate's life. He will have the feeling that he was not actually wanted by his parents. Even if his parents actually did want another child at the time, he will know that they chose to have him with an ulterior purpose. Look at the emotional trauma suffered by many individuals who were placed up for adoption, thinking that their biological parents did not want them. I imagine that clones created for the purpose of saving another's life will suffer from similar agony.
Another reason that I forsee clones being created would be in cases where a child died tragically early, say in a car accident. The distraught parents decide that they want to have another child, a copy of their dead child. Currently, this already goes on, with parents who have lost children sometimes trying to replace them. They have another child, and they ignore that this child is a distinct individual, that this child is not their dead child. These children grow up continuously having to struggle under the burden of their parents expectations of them, expecting them to like the same things that their deceased sibling did, trying to force them in directions that they would not have chosen for themselves. How much worse would the burden be if they were physically identical to their sibling, especially if their parents were unaware enough to believe that clones are also mentally identical?
Likely, some people would also create clones of themselves. The reasons behind this could be many, including a desire to live vicariously through a child. How many times do children today have trouble with conflicts between themselves and their parents about the path their life should take? How many children are told by their parents that they have to be a doctor or a lawyer? How many times are children told by their parents that their parents know what is in their best interests, or that their parents understand exactly what they are going through and what they are thinking. How much harder would it be for a child to argue with the lawyer parent he was cloned from and convince his parent that being a lawyer is not the path for him? How much harder would it be for a child to convince his parent that the parent does not automatically understand the thoughts and feelings going on in the child's head because he is older, and has gone through more, if they are genetically identical and the parent has a basis for arguing that they should have similar thought processes? (Note, I said a basis. I am not saying it is valid, only that the argument would be used to the child's detriment.) What about the difficulties of convincing a parent who had a 4.0 in school that even though you have the same genetic coding, the "same brain", you were trying your hardest when you got only a 3.7?
My concerns about cloning have nothing to do with the concerns that we often see put forward and the concerns most commonly debunked, the concerns of superstition and misunderstanding of what cloning means. I recognize that a clone would be a distinct individual. I have enough understanding of biology and medicine to recognize that cloning could have many beneficial applications. However, my concern is that because the clone is a distinct individual, the needs and rights of that individual cannot be ignored. I am greatly concerned that those rights will be ignored because the decisions that would infringe upon those needs and rights would be made in the act of cloning, long before that individual is recognized as an entity by the law, and even longer before that individual has the ability to defend his rights. As shown in my examples above, several of the most common reasons given for why someone should be cloned could result in serious psychological harm to the clone. Before I could ever advocate cloning, I would have to have some explanation of how these problems could be prevented.
A better question would be, what makes you think humans are fit to guess as to what that policy is? I mean, I doubt the bible says anything about cloning. God is supposed to be unknowable, so quit trying to guess his intentions.
Furthermore, you don't even know what a soul is. Maybe it is encoded in the DNA. Maybe the clone and the original can make nice and share. Point is, you don't know, but you're perfectly willing to make judgements about it. I checked the dictionary, and there were a number of interesting definitions. Obviously this is not the end-all list, but it's a good start.
the immaterial essence, animating principle, or actuating cause of an individual life: So, since those cloned animals don't get a soul (or the animal equivalent), they are really just undead zombies? ... what? That certainly clears things up for me.
the spiritual principle embodied in human beings, all rational and spiritual beings, or the universe: So it's this intangible, invisible, immaterial thing that does
a person's total self: So, the whole flesh and blood part doesn't count?
the moral and emotional nature of human beings; the quality that arouses emotion and sentiment: So any human clones will be mindless, immoral, unemotional borg drones incapable of feeling anything at all? Somehow, I just don't think so.
That last is a good question. What does a person without a soul act like? Nobody I know of can answer that for one simple reason: nobody can identify anyone with or without a soul since no one can show any concrete proof whatsoever that there is such a thing. For all we know, only one person in a million gets a soul and the rest of us bumble through life without one.
If you are religious and don't like cloning, fine; don't make one, in whole or in part. But you do not get to tell me that I cannot, ok? Your faith is your own thing, and I do not have to subscribe to it's tenets.
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Dyolf Knip
Really, the implications of cloning are being waaaaaay overblown. Is an identical twin somehow "less" of an individual because he is a twin? Of course not. We would have a better perspective on this if we weren't so quick to attribute every little personality quirk to genetic causes (so convenient for those who believe in eugenics).
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We have gotten so good at correcting problems which would once have been crippling or deadly that these traits are propagating rather than being culled. Probably the most interesting of these is infertility.
In the past if you were blind, prone to disease, or infertile, you tended not to reproduce. Now you can get Lasik, take antibiotics, and launch the entire might of modern medical science against your low sperm count and leave plenty of offspring with your exact same problems.
I'm not saying this is bad, just that cloning adds nothing new to the mix. Within another hundred years humans probably won't be able to reproduce without massive technological intervention. Cloning will be just one set of pliers in the toolset that makes it possible.
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