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Britain Approves Human Cloning
albat0r writes: "The scientific community in Britain scored a huge victory on February 27th. A very influential and powerful committee in the House of Lords ruled that embryo cloning should be allowed to proceed-but only under strict conditions. The United States currently has ban on all forms of human cloning."
I gladly take this to the logical extremes.
Like this: Social animals like Humans constantly compromise on physical matters in order to get along with others. We stop at stop signs, make room on the side walk, lift our feet out of the way of running children.
When someone violates the social standard, deliberately or ignorantly annoying people around them, they are shunned by that society.
If someone goes further and deliberately or neglegently causes harm, they are prosecuted for that harm according to the standards of the society. This is codified in the "common law" countries as "trial by jury."
The "common law" requires that in order for someone to be punished, there must be a demonstration of harm caused, of damage done.
However, "regulation" and laws of morality require no such thing. One is guilty for the "crime" for simple posession of an object or substance. One is guilty of a "crime" for investigation or disemination of certain kinds of information, the definition of which is based solely on the whim of the political masters.
History is riddled by attempts to get Eve to put the apple back by prosecuting consensual acts. Replace by the apropriate myth for your cultural background.
It would please me very much to be completely un-careful in this matter and completely remove all morality based criminal statutes. All of them.
Yes, anarchy. The same anarchy that shows when people are polite to each other and share the sidewalk.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
If you're born in the middle of Africa, chances are you'll die before 30 no matter how smart or strong or good-looking you are. If you're born in Europe or the USA, chances are you'll live to be 80, have children and grandchildren, no matter how stupid or weak or ugly you are.
Make-up, plastic surgery, lobbying, family fortunes, social trends, etc., all interfere with evolution through natural selection to the point of making it irrelevant. Intelligent people actually tend to have less children than average, and less partners than average.
The only things still evolving are ideas; genetically speaking, mankind has been standing still for a few thousand years (we live longer because of less disease and better drugs - not because we are genetically "superior" to, say, the ancient egyptians).
Most genetic diseases only manifest themselves late in life (after we've had children), so they keep passing from generation to generation. The only way to eliminate them is to use genetic engineering / therapy (or kill everyone born with those diseases - but I don't think that would be very popular).
Saying genetic engineering is "wrong" and that we should rely only on natural evolution is like saying antibiotics are wrong and we should wait for the body's natural defences to kill the infections.
Ultimately, genetic engineering is a product of our own evolution, so it's as "natural" as learning to throw rocks at enemies or using language.
RMN
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