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First Human Clone Eight Weeks Along

Vegeta99 writes "An Italian researcher is claiming ground-breaking progress, and has successfully cloned a human, and the mother is now 8 weeks pregnant, according to this article. Now how long until I can buy my own clone?" It's worth noting that the Roman medical associations bioethicists denied Dr. Antinori permission to proceed with these experiments last month. So doing the math, Rome was a little late... If the pregnancy continues without miscarriage, the tyke may share a birthday with Marie Curie

540 comments

  1. KDE 3.0 reveals the Last Remaining Linux Problem ( by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    Now that KDE 3.0 has united the Linux desktop under KDE, Linux has one - and only one - critical problem remaining.

    The fonts.

    The X11 fonts are so terribly, terribly, awful that I just cannot stand to use any web browser or word processor under Linux. It is back to Win XP for me every time that I try it.

    You coders are getting close, but you are still so far - the fonts are TERRIBLE. The fonts are so bad, I just cant stand it.

    The X11 fonts are so bad for web browing or word processing that I have to turn away when I see it. In fact, I never see it, because the fonts are so bad I won't even run it in the first place.

    What is so hard about making an italics font? You would think it was fucking rocket science, cause you dirty GNU hippies just can't seem to figure it out. Yeah, go ahead and mod me -1 Troll now, but I speak the truth and you know it.

    The truth that I speak and that you know is that Linux will never approach more than .5% desktop market share until it has fonts that are somewhat readable.

    Even reading Slashdot is painful with the default Linux fonts under Konqueror. What do they call it? Micro 11 or something? More like micro shit. Here is a ticket for the clue bus, please catch a ride.

    You will NEVER approach the desktop market until you create some readable fonts.

    That is all.

  2. Let me sum this all up by DanCracker · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is not going to end well...

    --
    "I hope they legalize drugs so you hurry up and fucking die." Charles Bronson (the band, not the man)
    1. Re:Let me sum this all up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Umm, to whoever modded this as 'troll', you *do* realize that any child born via this process can expect to live with severe deformities, right?

      I just don't see it ending well; sorry.

  3. That'll be nice for the kid then by flipflapflopflup · · Score: 4, Funny
    Worse than growing up and finding out you were an accident, this kid grows up, and finds out he is illegal!

    Nice.

    1. Re:That'll be nice for the kid then by DataSquid · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Isn't having a bastard child still illegal in some places? It's only a matter of time before people relax/let slip their moral views on the whole thing like they did with kids bon out of wedlock. Lucky for me I was born in such a lax time.

      --

      DataSquid.net, a little about me.
    2. Re:That'll be nice for the kid then by esper_child · · Score: 1

      you mean like we will all be illegal once this and the next round of RIAA/MPAA bills get passed

    3. Re:That'll be nice for the kid then by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I feel sorry for you. There's nothing in the world better than having a strong two-parent family. Being raised by one parent is a tragedy and is only acceptable in the case of one of the parents dying prematurely.

    4. Re:That'll be nice for the kid then by DataSquid · · Score: 1

      I wasn't raised by one parent, I was raised by two Grandparents and one parent. There's more to a family than a mother and father. We should compare notes on childhood and see who comes out on top.

      --

      DataSquid.net, a little about me.
    5. Re:That'll be nice for the kid then by GeekBoy · · Score: 1

      Worse is growing up and finding out that you are an experiment, and that all your health problems and screw ups are a result of you being a guinea pig.

    6. Re:That'll be nice for the kid then by stinky+wizzleteats · · Score: 2

      Worse than growing up and finding out you were an accident, this kid grows up, and finds out he is illegal!

      Come now, we can't let anything like human dignity and compassion get in the way of genetic science!

    7. Re:That'll be nice for the kid then by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Worse than growing up and finding out you were an accident, this kid grows up, and finds out he is illegal!"

      Should be: Worse than growing up and finding out you were an accident, this kid grows up, and finds out he was intentional!"

    8. Re:That'll be nice for the kid then by 037 · · Score: 1
      Even better, since this is such a lie, what would it be like to grow up and find out that you're vapourware?

      It will take a lot of experimentation and research before this is a reliable and feasible strategy; this article had no photos. I am pretty sure we're looking at a lie, here. Remember that the shameless self-promoters at ACT (and they have a huge research budget) didn't even get to blastocyst stage.

      Still, the moral implications of human vapourware are something that we may want to discuss.

      --
      Everything above may well be poorly-thought out / spelled. Blame the beer, not me.
    9. Re:That'll be nice for the kid then by ArsonSmith · · Score: 2

      Finally some one here that is talking sense. I really hate how News for Nerds seems to be more like news for the tree hugging anti nuke no space traval hippies. If it furthers the human race's knowledge base than it needs to be persued. The only exception of this is at the loss of previous information.

      Clonning a human is not going to end the world. People seem to watch too many movies that try to scare people into beliveing that all scientists are evil little men in caves surroneded by chemicals test tubes and dead bodys.

      I am glad you see eye to eye with me though.

      --
      Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
    10. Re:That'll be nice for the kid then by ArsonSmith · · Score: 2

      It's time you take responsibility for your own screw ups and problems. There is no one to blame but yourself.

      --
      Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
    11. Re:That'll be nice for the kid then by GeekBoy · · Score: 1

      Hey dufus, I'm talking about the kid who get's cloned. As someone who has had more than his fair share of health problems I know what it's like to live w/ poor health as a result of someone's poor choices. THAT'S what I'm talking about, physical screw ups, for the kid who's a result of this "experiment." Maybe you should *read* posts before you reply.

    12. Re:That'll be nice for the kid then by 0x0d0a · · Score: 1

      I really hate how News for Nerds seems to be more like news for the tree hugging anti nuke no space traval[sic] hippies

      No, that would be kuro5hin.

    13. Re:That'll be nice for the kid then by ArsonSmith · · Score: 2

      yer right. Never mind.

      --
      Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
    14. Re:That'll be nice for the kid then by stinky+wizzleteats · · Score: 1

      I am glad you see eye to eye with me though.

      I'm confused. Either your troll ate my sarcasm, or my sarcasm trolled you. If the former, then I bow before your l33t hairy trollness. If the latter, then I am guilty of involuntary trollness and throw myself at the mercy of the mods.

    15. Re:That'll be nice for the kid then by Mr.Sharpy · · Score: 1

      That's terribly ethnocentric. The nuclear family is actually an anthropogical aberration.

  4. As Johnso14, I have to agree by Johnso · · Score: 4, Funny
    Most couples they had interviewed, he said, wanted to have a biological child of their own. In fact, cloning creates ordinary children who grow up to be unique individuals, he claimed.
    Unique individuals, like my brother Johnso1, Johnso2, Johnso3...
    --
    I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
    1. Re:As Johnso14, I have to agree by selderrr · · Score: 5, Funny

      let's hope cloning devices are not MS based, or that would be Johnso~1, Johnso~2, Johnso~3, ...

    2. Re:As Johnso14, I have to agree by gewalker · · Score: 1

      Believe it or not, I knew of a case where this occured. The man had 34 kids, and began naming them John-17 and such-like.

    3. Re:As Johnso14, I have to agree by mskfisher · · Score: 2

      A perhaps more recognizable case is that of George Foreman, who named his 9 children George, Jr., George III, George IV, George V, Michi, Freeda George, Georgetta, Natalie, Leola, and George VI.

      I wonder if they just start calling them 3, 4, 6...

      --
      0x0D 0x0A
    4. Re:As Johnso14, I have to agree by GTRacer · · Score: 2
      I heard something similar - Couple "Smith" has several children and at some point, a boy is named Justin Other...

      GTRacer
      - Glad to be one-of-a-kind

      --
      Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
    5. Re:As Johnso14, I have to agree by Afrosheen · · Score: 2

      Why did this get modded as funny? Johnso1 fits perfectly into the 8.3 scheme that microsoft is bound to uphold for all eternity. Now if his name was Fujikawa1, you'd get a Fujika~1 right?

    6. Re:As Johnso14, I have to agree by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      jeez you bozos have been linux losers for to [SIC] long

      For to long for what? I am supposed to long for something? Why can't I pine for it?

      Sometimes, it's just too difficult to read /.

    7. Re:As Johnso14, I have to agree by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Let's hope George Foreman doesn't catch onto this...George, this is your brother George, and your sister George...

  5. Birthday by DataSquid · · Score: 2, Funny
    If the pregnancy continues without miscarriage, the tyke may share a birthday with Marie Curie
    Yeah, but it'd be a little late for the new Star Wars movie ;)
    --

    DataSquid.net, a little about me.
    1. Re:Birthday by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yes but if duke nukem forever is an M15+ type game he may be just in time!!!

  6. what's wrong with clones anyways? by ferrocene · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They're simply time-shifted identical twins!

    -e

    --
    Most folk'll never lose a toe, and then again some folk'll...
    1. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by selderrr · · Score: 2, Funny

      yup. Nothing a little voyage at near-lightspeed can't fix.

      Offcourse if, one day, the kid finds out he's got exactly the same little wiener as his dad, lorena bobbit might actually start a proffitable bussines

    2. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by InfraRED · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The problem is that most of the cloned animals already died or suffer from genetical diseases..

      Until the chance of creating a kid who will die in (say) 5 years has not been minimised, i think this is very unethical..

      How will they explain him, that he was born to die in 5 years? That they knew hi will die, and still made him?

      --
      metamoderate!
    3. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by HiQ · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think that there is a little more to it than that. As an other poster already pointed out, the close receives the same DNA as the parent. But DNA changes during the course of your life, due to copying errors (amongst others). One of the current theories is that ageing has got something to do with the 'wear and tear' of certain parts within the DNA (repeating 'nonsense' groups). So your clone will have all this at the moment of birth, and AFAIK that's not a good start.

    4. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      At least the time-shifted identical twins will be re-synched at a certain point then - their death from old age.

    5. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by popeyethesailor · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's a lil more involved than that.. This Old BBC interview gives a layman's explanation of what's involved.

    6. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by javilon · · Score: 4, Funny

      " They're simply time-shifted identical twins!"

      Well, then maybe the RIAA has something to say about it!

      --


      When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
    7. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by AVee · · Score: 2, Insightful

      They're simply time-shifted identical twins!

      Whould you want to be one?

      But apart from that, this 'researcher' is playing with the live of this kid. As said by previous posters, the risks are very big. Would you like to test a 'bullet proof vest' that had bad results when tested on animals? That like the thing that is happening to this child, he might be born, will be subject to all kinds of research for the rest of his life and risks all kind of very serious health problems. I woudn't want to explain that to my child!

      Besides, what's the use of it? We'll might some day have 'time-shifted identical twins', so what? The only use there I see are things like a spare president, are a new Bin Laden every year, just in case somebody catches him. And ofcourse it's good for the huge ego of Dr. Antinori.
      It's not worth it...

    8. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by Linux+Freak · · Score: 1

      If they clone someone, and the clone lives only 10 years, that is 10 years of life that the person would never have been given had he NOT been cloned.

      I would have no problem being cloned ... and if my progeny dies an early death (hmmm "Debian Progeny" springs to mind), at least he would have helped advanced medical science in the meantime.

    9. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by Cranial+Dome · · Score: 1

      So....to get a clone that might have a decent chance of getting the same fresh start as the original -- a "time-shifted identical twin" -- perhaps taking the DNA from the individual to be cloned _at_ _birth_ and using that "young" DNA might work.

    10. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by BlueUnderwear · · Score: 5, Funny
      Well, then maybe the RIAA has something to say about it!

      First we clone just the music, then we clone the performers themselves! If a musician has a contract with the RIAA, is that contract also binding for all his clones?

      --
      Say no to software patents.
    11. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wouldn't it be easier to just create children the natural way then? If you're not going to copy specific individuals anyway...

    12. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by HiQ · · Score: 2

      Ethics is such a slippery slope. You could also be looking at ten years of immense suffering. Wat is it worth then?

    13. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      IANAGS, but wouldn't your kids show the same wear-and-tear, since the genes in your balls have been there for ~25 years already?

      I always thought they used some sort of testicular graft to get the genes out in order to avoid this problem.. anyone care to comment?

    14. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by CH-BuG · · Score: 1

      Well, the DNA in the gamets also suffers from the same aging, but still produces a correct genetic material. There is maybe a problem using older cells, but it's probably more complicated than that...

    15. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      That they knew hi will die, and still made him?

      hey buddy, you're gonna die sometime too. your parents *probably* knew this when you were born, but let you live.

    16. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      How will they explain him ... [t]hat they knew hi will die, and still made him?


      They can always do what my parents did, and make up clever stories about Jesus and an immortal soul.

    17. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by Omnifarious · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Actually, this is a good argument against the SSSCA. If the SSSCA were passed, every living organism on the planet would be an unlicensed copying device.

    18. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by Captain+Pooh · · Score: 1

      Dr. Antinori stated that there are different results in different species, and has reduced the risk of deformation in cloning before putting the embryo into the womb

    19. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by HiQ · · Score: 2


      Apparantly this doctor wants everybody to think that he knows a lot more than anyone else in the world about cloning. And given his alreay *very* doubtful reputation, this statement must be considered a little besides the truth.

    20. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Assuming that the technology is fool-proof (see other comments about the difficulties with aging of the DNA) there is a core ethical question.

      Think what it would be like being a time-shifted twin.

      You would have unprecedented and I mean unprecedented information about how your life would pan out, your health, youir likelihood of getting married - if you are going to die young, get cancer, go bald.

      If some of the nore amazing twin studies are true then things like your taste in music, food, colour, the name of the person you marry (no, really) would also be predictable.

      What kind of life is this child going to have? What kind of insurance premiums.

      As I see it this is creation of a life with deliberately detrimental effects on the child. I don't like it.

    21. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by fehlschlag · · Score: 1

      ...and we men thought the idea of dating twins was the ultimate dream...

    22. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by xZAQx · · Score: 1

      "every living organism on the planet would be an unlicensed copying device"

      --except for me.

      Now I have a use for that barcode on my neck.

      --

      We dance to all the wrong songs.
      --Refused.
    23. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by 2names · · Score: 0, Informative

      When a human is created "the old fashioned way," the re is no DNA involved. RNA from the mother combines with RNA from the father to create DNA for the offspring. By this method, the sections of each RNA strand that have been affected by ageing are not likely to overlap, thereby reducing the chance that the offspring will get "bad genes."

      --
      "I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
    24. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by wurp · · Score: 2

      Right now, cloned animals suffer an incredibly high mortality rate before birth, and suffer a myriad of health problems throughout their (short) life.

      I have absolutely no problem with cloning once we get to the point where the mortality rate and health after the second trimester are comparable with that of normal pregnancy. However, given the state of current cloning technology, producing complete humans via cloning is incredibly irresponsible.

    25. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      how the hell is this a troll? somone mod this poor bastard up, please...

    26. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by conundrum11 · · Score: 1

      I wrote a research paper about cloning 8 years ago. Although the techniques since then have changed, the overlying themes and ethical issues have stayed the same. I don't understand the media attempt to skew the facts on this issue, but I also understand how movies like "Multiplicity" have confused the issue. Conciousness does not trasfer to your clone. Your clone is just a poor bastard that looks like and is genetically like you.



      Let's take Albert Einstein as an example. So, we take a piece of pickled DNA, and clone Mr. Einstein. What we get is some poor slob that looks just like Einstein, and PROBABLY does not have the intellectual capabilities of the original. Remember that life experiences cannot be duplicated, and we are all the sums of not only our genetic makeup, but also our life experiences.



      Yes, a clone is simply an identical twin. Now please stop for a moment and think about that. Imagine being born with a face that is not your own, without real parents, automatically outcast (a new minority group actually) from society, and your twin did so with selfish and cruel intentions in mind (like organ harvesting, racial genocide, super soldier-creation).



      What kills me about the scientists that undertake these kinds of "experiments" is that they have a complete and total lack of empathy for the poor souls that are going to have to live through life never having had a fair start. This my friends is the key feature of EVIL. In fact, the scientific evidence points to the fact that clones will be genitically inferior and probably have some kind of genetic mutations. Isn't this the same reason that incest is taboo?



      If you can even begin to imagine the living HELL that a clone will be born into, you would understand immediately why a morotorium on cloning MUST BE PASSED AND ENFORCED BY ALL NATIONS OF THE WORLD.



      SmR
    27. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by Afrosheen · · Score: 2

      If the clone has a problem with me cloning him, he's welcome to kill me and steal my identity.

    28. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by Farang · · Score: 1

      Recent news item: in vitro babies have double the number of major birth defects. A lot of selfish would-be parents are going to cause a lot of misery...everything known about cloning calls for slow, cautious research, not attempts to press the immature technology into service....yet this loony Italian is rushing into unknown territory. Consider carefully this from the article: "...they have reduced the risk of deformation in cloning...." To what level? (He does not say, because he does not know! After all, how many human clones are there?) And then the doctor says, "I concede the risk but you have to be careful." What, exactly, does THAT mean?? Nothing. It's just empty words. He's a salesman, not an ethical physician.

    29. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by Winged+Cat · · Score: 2

      Right. So they could arrest anyone, anytime, for the crime of being human, and possibly even destroy their reproduction equipment. Not just human reproduction, but cellular reproduction: every cell in the body, except the dead ones, is a violation of the law.

      "Murder? No, sir, just shutting down these unlicensed copying devices. Why, yes, he was my political opponent, always going on about 'free speech' and stuff; that's what tipped me off that he was one of those anti-copyright hippies. If you keep investigating, sir, I'm going to have to assume you're in favor of unlimited copying and shut your body down too."

    30. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by Winged+Cat · · Score: 2

      "You, my child, are special. Most of us have no higher purpose in life, but you were born with one. Know that all your suffering has not been in vain; you were made to give your life for the betterment of all mankind."

      If you raise someone that way, they tend to go along with it. Sticking one of us, who have been raised as our own individuals, into such a role would be problematic, but history has shown that the human spirit is more than capable of accepting martyrdom.

    31. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh that's just fucking sick you piece of pedophile shit. :)

    32. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      everyone is borne to die. duh.

    33. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by cpeterso · · Score: 2


      One of the current theories is that ageing has got something to do with the 'wear and tear' of certain parts within the DNA (repeating 'nonsense' groups). So your clone will have all this at the moment of birth

      Women are born with all of their ova, but men produce sperm throughout their lifetime. Why would a sperm's DNA not have the same "wear and tear" of its owner? Wouldn't the child of a 40 year old man have 40 years of wear and tear on its DNA??

    34. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Actually, this is a good argument against the SSSCA. If the SSSCA were passed, every living organism on the planet would be an unlicensed copying device


      So, if we combine this thought with the earlier story about a company seeking to copyright instead of patent gene sequences (20 years vs. indefinite renewal), then what exactly will be done to those people born with "enhanced" genes? Will sex become illegal for them?

    35. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Perhaps you haven't heard, the SSSCA has a new name. It is now referred to as the NOCNASCIASYDHWNOWNQONWQDNDKNALKNDAPMASNMCPWJDPDNMK NCA.


      HTH.

    36. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He was marked as a troll because he's fucking *wrong*, that's why. We get half our chromosomes from each parent. In your case, you probably got an extra chromosome or two

      What I want to know is who's the fucking imbecile who modded him "Informative"? He's either a troll or an idiot spouting on a topic he doesn't know a fucking thing about, since he slept through his junior high bio class like you did. Either way, the halfwit who modded him up Informative is the only guy around stupider than him or you (assuming, of course, you're not him.)

    37. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by poopybum · · Score: 1

      RNA -> DNA happens only in laboratories and retroviruses. Human reproduction relies on DNA->DNA

    38. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > He's a salesman, not an ethical physician.
      >
      Sounds like a mission for Sarah O'Connor is in order.

  7. Stopping because of ethics by oz1cz · · Score: 1
    I find cloning human being terrifying.

    But has there ever in the history of mankind been a case where scientific/technological research has been dropped because the goal was deemed unethical?

    1. Re:Stopping because of ethics by jdesbonnet · · Score: 1

      Ya, ...x-raying and freezing people to death
      (comon in 1940s Germany apperently) does not
      seem to happen much these days.

    2. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Just because you deem it unethical doesn't mean I do.

      What's so fucking terrifying about it? I'm not being facetious or trolling here. Seriously, what's so bad about it?

      I don't see it as any more unnatural than testtube babies which have been aroud for a long time and no one seems to have any problem with it.

      Clones WILL grow up to be their own individuals, just like identical twins do. It's not the freakshow the movies portray it as. So... why not?

    3. Re:Stopping because of ethics by oz1cz · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Seriously, what's so bad about it?

      The selection process, for one.

      Once the technique is perfected, we'll have a supermarket of acceptable clone sources. Which person do you wish to clone? The smart one or the dumb one? The beautiful one or the plain one? The white one or the black one?

      And, given the choice, would you rather have a child the natural way, or a clone of someone with admirable genes?

    4. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Psiren · · Score: 3, Funny

      And, given the choice, would you rather have a child the natural way, or a clone of someone with admirable genes?

      The natural way please. There's more jiggy jiggy ;-)

    5. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      But then again won't this just even things up a little, with poorer less educated people having tons of kids.

      apart from that rather obvoius troll, won't this be a good thing, natural selection isn't what it
      used to be is it?

      The ability to pass genes on is no longer limited to those that are best suited to survive (the fittest).

      So what is the modern day equivalent of survival of the fittest?

      Won't the race be improved?, especially if we could raise the average IQ a little, after all the traditional model would have had Steven Hawking eaten by a dinosour and his intellectual value would not have been realised.

      (yes I know we wern't around with the dinosours, please it's just a way of emphasising a point)

    6. Re:Stopping because of ethics by jilles · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Hey the world survived not being flat, not being the centre of the universe, revolving around the sun instead of the other way around, Darwin, nuclear science, space travel, television, the internet, the turn of the millenium etc. All this despite hords of hysterical people proclaiming it would be the end of the world as we know it. Just because large groups of people all believe the same doesn't make it true.

      Cloning is just another technology. What's hard to swallow for religious people is that it shouldn't be possible to do according to their beliefs and being proven wrong might have consequences for the validity of other things they belief (like having a soul, reincarnation, heaven, getting access to 70 virgins if you blow yourself up in a shopping centre, ..). Up until now they were able to hide behind the illusion that humans are somehow different from animals (which from a biological point of view is nonsense, it's just another mammal). Other mammals have been cloned succesfully so from a scientific point of view cloning a human being is not a significant step forward. Of course there are technological problems (most notably the large amount of cloning attempts needed to perform one successful clone) with the procedure but as scientists continue to do research these problems will be resolved eventually.

      Technology by itself is not bad. However certain applications of it can certainly be evil. A box of matches can be used to light a candle and it can be used to set fire to a house full of people. Does that make the box of matches evil technology? Of course not! Similarly cloning has a lot of applications where it's use would be beneficial. I, for instance, would love to have a clone of my heart available when my own one needs replacement in a couple of decades (not entirely unlikely given the number of heart deseases in my family). Of course I wouldn't want to kill a full grown living and breading clone of me to obtain that heart but that may very well be unnecessary.

      There are religious and ethical people who want to attach full human rights to arbitrarily small clusters of human cells (fertalized eggs, tiny embryo's, etc.). From a scientific point of view this is of course complete nonsense. Based on this they would consider it murder if such tiny clusters of cells are manipulated. However, often the same people eat meat (requires killing of much larger clusters of non human cells) and have no problems with getting rid of annoying insects, which is very inconsistent to say the least.

      --

      Jilles
    7. Re:Stopping because of ethics by oz1cz · · Score: 1
      Technology by itself is not bad. However certain applications of it can certainly be evil.

      This is an oversimplification at best. Certain technologies lend themselves more easily to evil uses than others. As an obvious example, consider research in instruments of torture.

    8. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Ookoshi · · Score: 1

      Once the technique is perfected, we'll have a supermarket of acceptable clone sources. Which person do you wish to clone? The smart one or the dumb one? The beautiful one or the plain one? The white one or the black one?

      We already have that with test tube babies and sperm banks. Potential moms can already go into these places and pick a portfolio of their "perfect dad" and use the sperm from that donor.

      That ability is already there. What cloning does is give infertile couples another way out. Up until now, if somehow the female was infertile, the couple either had to adopt, or she would be forced to carry the fertilized egg from a source outside of her and her husband. Cloning will allow those couples to create a unique child using only their DNA, without outside DNA factoring into the process.

    9. Re:Stopping because of ethics by jilles · · Score: 2

      Such research often borders on medical research which arguably is beneficial to a lot of people. A lot of drugs used to persuade people into confessing stuff is based on research that might very well be used to treat people with mental disorders for instance.

      The technique of an electric chair is obviously intended to kill human beings. But does that make electicity bad? You might argue that such a chair is specifically designed to kill but not destroy the body, however I counter that that knowledge has also been used to slaughter cattle in a less cruel way. Electric chairs are typically considered cruel instruments in most of the so-called civilized world (except for isolated parts of the world where state approved lynching is still being practiced).

      --

      Jilles
    10. Re:Stopping because of ethics by HiQ · · Score: 2

      I agree with you in that technology isn't inherently bad, but there are certain technologies that shouldn't be tested *too* soon. Lot's of peopleare afraid of genetic engineering, but mankind has been doing that since who knows how long. Only then it is called breeding (animals) and ??? (plants and crops). But cloning is a bit different in my opinion; not because they now do it on humans, but more because they still don't have a clue about *how* DNA works. I mean we know a few things, but there's a whole lot more than we don't know. SO it's far too early to start messing around!

    11. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Wire+Tap · · Score: 1

      However, often the same people eat meat (requires killing of much larger clusters of non human cells) and have no problems with getting rid of annoying insects, which is very inconsistent to say the least.

      Non Human. Therein lies the difference. Most of the people raving agsint these technologies are Christian, or, to be more specific, Catholic. Their belief system espouses that humans are in the right to take life from those other "non-humans" in order to survive. That's the difference. Scripture supports them.

      Of course, I don't agree.

      --

      Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.

    12. Re:Stopping because of ethics by PhotoGuy · · Score: 2

      The main ethical thing I've seen that worries me, is the damage done to the chromosomes (or whatever) during cloning, which could cause health problems. I thought I read that the cloned animals were having some problems. Introducing a human into the world that would be burdened by cloning-caused illnesses is just plain wrong.

      -me

      --
      Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
    13. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Won't the race be improved?, especially if we could raise the average IQ a little

      The IQ averages are, apparently, rising. Much faster than experts would expect, even. What was first suspected to be anomalies in testing is now believed to be a genuine rise in IQs over a very short period of time.

      Search for the Newsweek article "Are We Getting Smarter?" from April 23, 2001. (No longer available on the web, unfortunately). I know, it's pop science at its worst, but it's still interesting.

    14. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It must hurt to be that dumb....

    15. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Grab · · Score: 2

      Yes. Human cloning.

      This excuse for a doctor has gone against all laws to do this. He's just wanting to get something to experiment on and get his name in the papers. The man is another Mengele and should be treated as such.

      Grab.

    16. Re:Stopping because of ethics by cat_jesus · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Once the technique is perfected, we'll have a supermarket of acceptable clone sources. Which person do you wish to clone? The smart one or the dumb one? The beautiful one or the plain one? The white one or the black one? And, given the choice, would you rather have a child the natural way, or a clone of someone with admirable genes?
      I find it odd that roughly 99% of the population feels this way. Most people abhor the thought of cloning people yet somehow feel that if the technique is perfected, everyone will use it. Does this mean they secretly want to have clones for their own children?

      It reminds me of a survey once down about drug use. People were asked, "if drugs became legal tomorrow, would you use them?" 90% said no. Then when asked, "If drugs became legal tomorrow, would your neighbor use them?" 70% said yes.

      Why are people so eager to believe their fellow human is more likely to do somthing they wouldn't do? Why are people so afraid of the unknown?

      Cat
    17. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Grab · · Score: 2

      The main problem is that many clones are deformed or stillborn. In lab animals this is not a problem; there's always another rat/pig/sheep to try. But in humans this is a disaster. It is not considered ethical to kill a baby if it has a severe deformity, so the carrying of clones to term creates the prospect of another thalidomide-type case, with hundreds or thousands of handicapped children produced.

      Furthermore, most cloned embryos are miscarried on implantation, so this is a low-percentage gamble at best.

      Sure, when it's perfected then it'll be a great technique for childless couples - as you say, just bcos someone's got the same DNA as you, it doesn't mean they'll be anything like you in personality. But until they've got it right, it's just too damn risky.

      Grab.

    18. Re:Stopping because of ethics by j7953 · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Cloning is just another technology. What's hard to swallow for religious people is that it shouldn't be possible to do according to their beliefs and being proven wrong might have consequences for the validity of other things they belief (like having a soul, reincarnation, heaven, getting access to 70 virgins if you blow yourself up in a shopping centre, ..).

      Well, I am not religious and still believe that cloning is a bad idea.

      Why? Well, not because it is "evil," but because I fear that it endangers basic democratic principles like human dignity. Think GATTACA, without the happy end. There are also biological consequences of cloning, like the reduction of biodiveristy.

      My concern is mostly that everyone is excited about the possiblities of genetic technologies (as am I), but there is no real public discussion about the long-term social and biological consequences of the use of technologies, except the religious concerns that you've mentioned. In other words, one of my major fears is the fact that so many religious arguments are used in the public debates concerning genetic technology, and that valid scientific concerns are silenced alongside with the religious critics.

      Technology by itself is not bad. However certain applications of it can certainly be evil.

      Exactly. Yet whenever someone criticizes cloning, they are silenced as some religious freak who dimisses technology and wants to halt progress. I am not opposed to the technology that allows cloning, I am opposed to its application for cloning. I am certain that the same technology allows many legitimate medical uses, like the growing of human organs for implantation you've mentioned, and should be used for those.

      --
      Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
    19. Re:Stopping because of ethics by aled · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Saying that cloning is inherently evil would be stupid. But this "doctor" created an embryo that has a great chance of being malformed or suffer genetical diseases. And he seems to have done this for publicity. To use a technology -which effects are not fully understand to this date- in that irresposible way is criminal to me. Perhaps in 20 or 30 years will be (statistically) safe to clone people, but it is not now.

      --

      "I think this line is mostly filler"
    20. Re:Stopping because of ethics by The+LowTech+Swede · · Score: 1

      How healthy were the first test tube babies? If they weren't, was that suffering acceptable "for the greater good" or should those experiments never have taken place? I guess it comes back to the omelettes and the eggs. Of course I wish this child to be born healthy or otherwise not at all. / LTS

    21. Re:Stopping because of ethics by The+LowTech+Swede · · Score: 1

      "There are also biological consequences of cloning, like the reduction of biodiveristy." This is nonsence! 10 billion humans is probably 9.9999 more than is needed to conserve an adequate gene pool. Since this technology will not be widely available in the third world for a long time there is no problem with that. Even then ... The Jehovah's Witnesses are many enough to save us all. (Not going into what THAT might mean for the gene pool.) / TLTS

    22. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Zathrus · · Score: 2

      I, for instance, would love to have a clone of my heart available when my own one needs replacement in a couple of decades (not entirely unlikely given the number of heart deseases in my family).

      One of the biggest pushes for research into cloning and stem cell technology is for this kind of thing. Being able to grow a new organ, either cultured from your own cells, or from a stem-cell line that closely matches yours, would result in a vastly reduced rate of rejection. And the reason transplant patients die is not because of some inherent medical/surgical issue from the transplantation, but rather the body's attempts to reject the transplantation as a foreign body. There are drugs to combat this, but take too little and you get rejection. Take too much and you open up your system to real infections. Either way it's fatal.

      The support for full on human cloning is relatively small. And it's not just due to religious reasons - there are ethical and societal reasons why full cloning is reprehensible to some people.

      Of course I wouldn't want to kill a full grown living and breading clone of me to obtain that heart but that may very well be unnecessary

      Well that's good, because doing that would be murder. Your clone is not you. He does not belong to you. Believing otherwise is simply a new twist on slavery, nothing more. Odds are, your clone won't even think like you, because he is an entirely separate and independant person.

    23. Re:Stopping because of ethics by GungaDan · · Score: 2
      Um, he hasn't gone against a single law of the nation in which he's doing this work. And yes, he wants his name in scientific papers - all scientists want recognition for their achievements. As for this guy being "another Mengele," I might suggest you do some reading on Dr. Mengele, followed by some reading of what this guy's doing, and hopefully begin to realize just how ludicrous your statement is.

      In the 3 sentences that comprise the body of your post, you begin with an outright lie (born of equal parts ignorance and malice), move on to a meaningless and inane observation of the sub-motivations of all scientists, and close with an ad hominem attack so misinformed as to reveal the lazy, irrational, knee-jerk nature of your expressed opinion. Looks like you scored a shrub "trifecta" of obnoxious blathering.

      --
      Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
    24. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Speaking as an atheistic, rationalist, reductionist BSc(hons) in genetics, I am opposed to the cloning of children (as opposed to organs, tissues etc) for one reason.

      This technology creates a child who is going to know way, way too much about his or her future.

      *I* would not want to be condemnned to live a life where that much of my life was predetermined.

    25. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What was the purpose of THAT?

    26. Re:Stopping because of ethics by TheCaptain · · Score: 2, Informative

      You keep mentioning the religeous people as the opposition to this...believe it or not, there are more than a few non-religeous people who have a problem with it too.

      Don't oversimplify the problem for the sake of reinforcing your biases.

    27. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Forget unethical. It's downright barbaric.

      This researcher is bringing a living, feeling human into the world and condemning it, at best, to a life of medical testing and media bombardment. That's not to mention how potentially miserable his life may be health-wise.

      This young man is not going to have to right to choose his own path in life. Either Dr. Antinori doesn't realize this (which I doubt), or he's too obsessed with his work to care.

      "...we are doctors and will not harm a person."

      Heh.

    28. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Surak · · Score: 2

      Of course there are technological problems (most notably the large amount of cloning attempts needed to perform one successful clone) with the procedure but as scientists continue to do research these problems will be resolved eventually.

      It is these technological issues, and nothing else in your post, that, IMHO causes ethical issues with creating human clones.

      There's the high failure rate, the health problems that existing non-human clones, such as Dolly, have experienced such as premature ageing and arthritis.

      Are we ready to push cloning to humans when it has proved dangerous to both the health of the child and the mother? No, I don't think so.

      No one would be hot to trot to push out a new cholesterol lowering drug (for instance) if it caused 149 out of 150 of its users to die, and those that did live experienced arthritis and premature ageing. We would say go back to the drawing board and refine your drug until you get it right!

      And that's what I'm saying... we need to get this technology right before we try it out on humans. Just because we CAN do a thing doesn't mean we SHOULD do a thing, especially if its something that hasn't been perfected yet.

    29. Re:Stopping because of ethics by n-baxley · · Score: 2

      There are religious and ethical people who want to attach full human rights to arbitrarily small clusters of human cells (fertalized eggs, tiny embryo's, etc.).

      Where would you draw the line then? When the baby is born? Well, it could survive on it's own much earlier than that. When it's capable of breathing air? Well, there may soon come a technology that would allow that to be done earlier. When the collection of cells looks more "human"? What defines the look of a human? You? I hope not. You end up being in a very hard to defend spot when you say that life is worth saving only when it has progressed to a certain point. The person who makes that decision better have some pretty exacting determining points.

      I know "religious" points of view are not popular on /., but sometimes they are the correct views.

    30. Re:Stopping because of ethics by russellh · · Score: 1
      Won't the race be improved?, especially if we could raise the average IQ a little, after all the traditional model would have had Steven Hawking eaten by a dinosour and his intellectual value would not have been realised.
      Tragically, individuals don't matter that much when we're talking about this scale. As you said earlier in your post, the poor will continue to have more kids. Cloning will have only a symbolic effect on humanity - IMHO, a bad one. The "this isn't the kid I ordered" effect. The rich who already outsource as much of the raising of their kids as possible. We as humans have to love our kids no matter who they are, it doesn't matter what their traits are. Love them no matter what. Ordering traits via selection or cloning has already fallen from that position - it's stating you'll love this particular set of attributes more. But I'm not worried about it as a general trend since nature always proves herself much more complex than we think. And the poor have more kids.
      --
      must... stay... awake...
    31. Re:Stopping because of ethics by tzanger · · Score: 2

      Once the technique is perfected, we'll have a supermarket of acceptable clone sources. Which person do you wish to clone? The smart one or the dumb one? The beautiful one or the plain one? The white one or the black one?

      What's wrong with raising the bar of civilization? If done correctly, nothing. I'm not talking about Gattaca references here, I'm serious. Would you not want the best for your children? Wouldn't everybody? If you could screen your zygote and elimiate or drastically reduce the heart disease that runs rampant in your family, or the higher risk of cancer, or the anything, wouldn't you do it? If there weren't any drawbacks to giving your child beter memory or reflexes or learning ability, wouldn't you do it? If that choice were available for my children, I sure would have.

      Yes, it can be abused. And yes, it can cater to the wealthy. These things have to be worked around so that we don't create a Brave New World or Gattaca society but the idea about making the human race as a whole healthier is not something to scoff at.

    32. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Up until now they were able to hide behind the illusion that humans are somehow different from animals (which from a biological point of view is nonsense, it's just another mammal)."

      Although I can't speak for most religions, Christianity at least asserts that humans have a unique non-physical component to their existence as well as their physical bodies. That biology can't find that component is not earth-shattering to the Christian, as physical science cannot in principle deal with the non-physical. This is no different from Russian cosmonauts denying God's existence because they couldn't see him.

      "There are religious and ethical people who want to attach full human rights to arbitrarily small clusters of human cells (fertalized eggs, tiny embryo's, etc.). From a scientific point of view this is of course complete nonsense. Based on this they would consider it murder if such tiny clusters of cells are manipulated. However, often the same people eat meat (requires killing of much larger clusters of non human cells) and have no problems with getting rid of annoying insects, which is very inconsistent to say the least."

      There is nothing at all inconsistent about the religious viewpoint that human beings are more valuable that other species and must not be murdered at any stage of their development. It would be the meat-eating naturalist that would be living an inconsistency, since in his view there is no difference between man and animal.

    33. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Bongo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Technology by itself is not bad.

      Yes, because Science and Ethics are two separate domains. One is about Truth, the other about Good. (And art is the third: Beauty).

      There are religious and ethical people who want to attach full human rights to arbitrarily small clusters of human cells (fertalized eggs, tiny embryo's, etc.). From a scientific point of view this is of course complete nonsense.

      And as all you can do with Science is just count, you cannot get Science to tell you what is better or worse. A big number is not better than a small number. They're all just numbers. 'Better' and 'worse' are value judgements. Science has no business making value judgements. That's the domain of Ethics. Science is a separate domain. So please don't mix arguments about scientific numbers with arguments about ethical value judgements.

      I agree with you that we have the ethical problem of at what point an embryo is a 'person'. But being an ethical problem, we can't just count cells -- otherwise we could just compare counts of a cow and a human's cells, and figure that it's better to eat people than it is to eat cows.

      So drawing the line, ethically, at a few cells, is not necessarally stupid just because small numbers are 'inferior'. Ethically we're trying to figure out what is Good, and whether at this point in our development, with free markets, universities, tv, wars, the internet, famines, nuclear power, comfortable lifestyles for some, B.F. bombs, diseases, dodgy education, Atheists, Fundamentalists, a youth who don't see any meaning in life, a youth who are drafted to kamikaze missions, globalisation, red China, global warming, medical treatments for many ailments (but not available to all), McDonalds, wind power, etc. etc. etc. -- whether given, basically, the state of the world, good and bad, it is good for humanity to have more technology in this area, or whether, given our track record in other things, we should wait, or proceed with a different focus.

      Now I don't suppose the Catholics look at it this way. Their religion says that bunch of cells has a soul. Something which by definition we can't check scientifically. When a person experiences their Soul, an inner illumination or a vision, the only thing science can say is that you brain waves have changes, or that your heart rate has changed. For all you can tell from your instruments, the person could just have food poisoning. Spirituality is simply not accessible to objective measurement. It may exist, it may not... but you can't tell with instruments. But that's another problem -- Science has totally trashed Christianity. Beaten it to a pulp. And while Science was correct to do so in the areas where the Church had said all sorts of nonsence about the age of the Earth, etc. etc., we need to recognise that at a certain point in people's lives, they need something to believe in. At least as a basic moral guide. So we have to be careful not to totally destroy Religion. It helps to hold societies together. The common Myth. A basic bond.

      Of course, when you no longer need the Myth, then you should be free to forget it. But just remember that Science cannot tell you what is Good. And to live only by science is to live in a world devoid of values. I could rob and kill you and say it's survival of the fittest etc.

      So we can ask questions about Values -- do we value having more technology, or do we value more stability in human affairs? If stability is more valuable right now, can we forsee how cloning may alter things... will it prevent diseases, reducing medical bills, and be used throughout the world? Or will it have negative side effects that destabilise our country? Can we even answer these questions? Are these questions important? Or do we value getting results as quickly as possible, and say, "whatever, just keep doing the science, and we'll probably be ok?"

      So the problem isn't that some religious zealots are making ethical complaints -- it's that not enough intelligent and talented thinkers are botherting to make ethical considerations! Including the scientists!

      We've generally gone beyond religious dogma, and science has given us many answers. But that doesn't mean science can give all the answers. We've forgotten Ethics because it used to be associated with religion, and also because it doesn't show up on an oscilloscope.

      Um, this post is way to long. :(

    34. Re:Stopping because of ethics by chad_r · · Score: 1

      ... and maybe your clone will want to kill you to get your heart!

    35. Re:Stopping because of ethics by kaiidth · · Score: 1

      As I recall, cloning does not cause GATTACA. The belief that the genes you carry define your usefulness to the human race has more to do with it - if you don't have healthy enough genes you're not held to be worth the effort.

      Therefore, genetic engineering and screening are the causes of it, and as I understand it these are already being given more credence than they probably deserve. I suspect that things like compulsory medical/genetic screening to determine eligibility for jobs, insurance and so on, probably already occur and are likely to become more popular in future.

      I refer to these techniques as somewhat doubtful, since it seems to me that the effects of any given gene are not on the whole well understood. Some have very visible results, but when it's claimed that the presence of certain genes increases one's courage or problem-solving ability or tendancy to steal, then we're getting into the realms of emergent phenomena, statistics, environmental factors and pure fantasy.

      On the other hand, it doesn't look like this particular experiment has been thought out very well. Just think, if this stuff had more legitimate research, we would probably know for sure what would happen... but ignorance is bliss and high moral ground, all in one.

      *sigh* Brave New World, here we come.

    36. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Ded+Bob · · Score: 2

      I do not know, but I assume test tube babies did not have the high risk of deformities that clones currently do. It is much safer to mix than to splice.

    37. Re:Stopping because of ethics by stinky+wizzleteats · · Score: 2

      Their belief system espouses that humans are in the right to take life from those other "non-humans" in order to survive. ... Of course, I don't agree.

      Unless you eat rocks or are capable of photosynthesis, you are a hypocrite.

    38. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Ded+Bob · · Score: 2

      Up until now they were able to hide behind the illusion that humans are somehow different from animals (which from a biological point of view is nonsense, it's just another mammal).

      When another animal invents bubble gum, I will consider your view. :) Most religions that I know of will concede that humans are biologically animals. They also believe that humans are more than that on other levels.

      I, for instance, would love to have a clone of my heart available when my own one needs replacement in a couple of decades (not entirely unlikely given the number of heart deseases in my family). Of course I wouldn't want to kill a full grown living and breading clone of me to obtain that heart but that may very well be unnecessary.

      I agree with this. I have no problem with a clone of a piece of tissue. Killing another human just to get that piece is unacceptable.

      There are religious and ethical people who want to attach full human rights to arbitrarily small clusters of human cells (fertalized eggs, tiny embryo's, etc.). From a scientific point of view this is of course complete nonsense.

      I have seen articles were they said they have proven that at least fetuses are more aware than previously thought. They do feel pain. When studies were performed on aborted fetuses, they found high levels of chemicals that would be present in a "born" person that had sufferred pain.

      However, often the same people eat meat (requires killing of much larger clusters of non human cells) and have no problems with getting rid of annoying insects, which is very inconsistent to say the least.

      Killing another species is not the same as killing your own species.

    39. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shhh, you're going against the collective

    40. Re:Stopping because of ethics by mlong · · Score: 1
      What's so fucking terrifying about it? I'm not being facetious or trolling here. Seriously, what's so bad about it?

      I don't see it as any more unnatural than testtube babies which have been aroud for a long time and no one seems to have any problem with it.

      Um, maybe you need to do some research. Perhaps you've heard of Dolly the sheep who suffers from arthritis, premature aging, among a lot of other ailments. This kid will have the same problems because cloning is not up par yet. This doctor is being irresponsible and doesn't care about the suffering this child will face.

      --
      //m
    41. Re:Stopping because of ethics by bobol6 · · Score: 1

      What's hard to swallow for religious people is that it shouldn't be possible to do according to their beliefs and being proven wrong might have consequences for the validity of other things they belief (like having a soul, reincarnation, heaven, getting access to 70 virgins if you blow yourself up in a shopping centre, ..)

      OK, so I'm not religious myself, but I don't see why people who believe in souls should have any problems assuming that there is a new and entirely different soul housed in the clone. This should be particularly easy for anyone who believes in reincarnation.

    42. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Abcd1234 · · Score: 2

      Morally speaking, why? How is killing any other living creature different from killing a human being. Simply because it's "different from us"? Well, let's try a thought experiment. Suppose, some day, we travel to the stars and run across a new, sentient species. Is it okay for us to kill them?

    43. Re:Stopping because of ethics by cmallinson · · Score: 1
      Once the technique is perfected, we'll have a supermarket of acceptable clone sources. Which person do you wish to clone? The smart one or the dumb one? The beautiful one or the plain one? The white one or the black one?

      Or on the other hand, who will stop terrorist groups from cloning their own martyrs? They could choose the race of their clones to blend in to the target country, and raise them to believe their purpose in life is to become a human bomb.

      I'm not looking forward to genetic warfare...

    44. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Grab · · Score: 2

      Human cloning where clones are carried to term is illegal in the US and all European countries, due to the dangers for the cloned infant. The only countries in which this is not illegal are Third World countries where the ppl (and more importantly the government) will do anything to feed themselves.

      So he's getting round the laws in all the First World countries by using test subjects from Third World countries - up to this point, he's used 5000 women to get one impregnation. That's 4999 women miscarrying. That's ethical for sure. Suppose you had a vaccine which you thought might be dangerous - would it be right to go to Ethiopia and hand out $10 to everyone who'll try it for you? bcos that's exactly what he's doing. I'll grant you it's not illegal in that country, but there's plenty of places where murder, rape and torture are not illegal - it doesn't mean that we should go there to try them out!

      Mengele conducted experiments on humans to find out what would happen, without consideration of the fate of those humans. Antinori is doing exactly the same. In labs, most cloned embryos are miscarried; of the ones that are carried to term, many are stillborn, or are deformed and must be destroyed. The only clone of a largish mammal, Dolly the sheep, is suffering from premature aging and no-one yet knows whether this is just a coincidence or whether it's a fundamental issue with cloning. And with this total lack of information, Antinori is cloning a human to see what will happen. The only certainty is that 4999 women have suffered the pain first of the operation and then of the miscarriage; whether further pain is in store for the child is as yet unknown, since no research anywhere has proved it safe for lab rats, never mind humans. Does this sound like a valid scientific position to you?

      There's nothing wrong with wanting your name in the papers. But if he's prepared to instigate the successor to thalidomide by taking a chance on producing many deformed children in his quest for fame and fortune (and more likely the latter), then I think he's seriously screwed up.

      I've no doubt the scientific community will learn a lot from what he's doing. Mengele and his friends taught us just about everything we know today about the body's reaction to freezing to death - but at a tremendous cost. And they too thought they were doing a great job in advancing the cause of science. The point of the laws against carrying clones to term is to prevent another Mengele going for scientific knowledge at the cost of human life.

      Grab.

    45. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Afrosheen · · Score: 2

      During WWII the Nazis did a grand experiment of sorts. After measuring, probing, researching and prodding hundreds (if not thousands) of "Aryan" soldiers, they were sent to breeding houses. There they'd get it on with hand-picked Fraulines that met the criteria. AFAIK this continued for a few years and the results should be documented somewhere.

      What I wonder is, has there been any studies done that correlates post-WWII germany to this 'ubermensch' they were working towards? Was there any broad stroke of improvement, or any measurable good from this experiment? It'd be very interesting to find anything on this subject.

    46. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Afrosheen · · Score: 2

      True. Nature has always supported killing to sustain life. Vegetarians spouting dogma like 'meat is murder' don't realize that they kill vegetables to eat. Broccoli is murder. It's just a fact of life and it always will be, until the time that we eat lab-grown food comes around. Even then you're cutting off the life of the lab-grown meat slab and sticking a fork in it. Death begets life, get over it.

    47. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Afrosheen · · Score: 2

      We would say go back to the drawing board and refine your drug until you get it right!

      And how do you suppose medical refinements come about? Educated guesses? Computer simulations? Nope. Testing on animals and humans is the only valid research methodology for some things, cloning included. So you gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet...that's how it goes. I'd be really excited about human cloning if they removed the genes for the head and brains. What's the debate there? A body to be harvested for organs, etc. with no identity, no conciousness. Whether or not this 'thing' has a soul is a mystery.

    48. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Afrosheen · · Score: 2

      Of course, man! Haven't you seen any sci-fi movies? Aliens? HELLooo?

    49. Re:Stopping because of ethics by abigor · · Score: 1

      Eating people is bad for your health (kuru, I believe).

      Unfortunately, well-meant ethical systems based upon utter claptrap are themselves claptrap. Sorry about that.

    50. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Ded+Bob · · Score: 2

      Morally speaking, why? How is killing any other living creature different from killing a human being. Simply because it's "different from us"?

      Sentience is a big factor. Food is another. A creature being different is not a factor. I can eat fish. Dogs are different than humans, but I do not want to eat dogs. They are too smart for me to eat.

      No! That does not mean that they are able to get away from me. :)

      Well, let's try a thought experiment. Suppose, some day, we travel to the stars and run across a new, sentient species. Is it okay for us to kill them?

      I would not feel comfortable killing a sentient species except to defend and even then I would still not like it.

    51. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Rary · · Score: 1
      And, given the choice, would you rather have a child the natural way, or a clone of someone with admirable genes?

      Human beings are notoriously selfish. Most people, given the choice, want a child that is genetically "their own", and therefore will likely choose not to have a cloned baby unless they feel they have no other choice. That's why this debate even exists in the first place. Infertile couples want to be parents. There are plenty of parentless children in the world waiting to be adopted. But, for most couples, that's just not good enough. The baby has to be their genetic creation. So techniques such as in-vitro fertilization, and now cloning, are created, so all the selfish people out there can have their own children, instead of having to resort to "somebody else's rejects".

      So, in answer to your question, if the technique is perfected, the vast majority of fertile couples will have children the "old-fashioned" way. The vast majority of infertile couples will clone based on their own DNA.

      - Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

      --

      "You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein

    52. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Rary · · Score: 1
      "Dogs are different than humans, but I do not want to eat dogs. They are too smart for me to eat."

      Pigs are smarter than dogs. Do you eat them? Just curious.

      - Consistency is key.

      --

      "You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein

    53. Re:Stopping because of ethics by dgroskind · · Score: 2

      Such research often borders on medical research which arguably is beneficial to a lot of people.

      You've just thrown out what little point you had. Now you're defending research based on the fact it has some benefit "to a lot of people". The question then becomes is cloning beneficial to "a lot of people."

      Maybe it is and maybe it isn't but it isn't an ethically neutral question, as you suggested in your original post when you said, "Cloning is just another technology."

    54. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Derkec · · Score: 2

      You must also be a nature over nurture kind of person. Personally, I think that if we cloned Einstien and set the clone loose in a family where neither they nor he knew whose DNA was involved, we would not have another great physicist.

    55. Re:Stopping because of ethics by conundrum11 · · Score: 1

      You are confused about cloning. Cloning only makes an identical twin. There is no transfer of memories or conciousness. It's just twin. Now imagine you are the clone - born into the world as a 2nd class citizen. Worse, the person that is identical to you is probably decades older, so it's not like being born with an identical sibling. SmR

    56. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who cares if most people will have "cloned babies?" Big deal, that's their problem. If they want to destroy their own genetic lineage in exchange for uber-baby, that's their business. Darwin Awards all around.

    57. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      More like,

      "Are the results of IQ testing becoming more complete?"

      or

      "Are the means we use to measure human intelligence inadequate for the job?"

      You really don't need to look much further than Hagelin or Asia Carrera to see that just scoring highly on current IQ tests, doesn't mean you're not an irrational idiot.

    58. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Producing a clone is incredible expensive and technically involved, especially for spear-chuckers from turbin land.

      It's easier to just find some home-grown whacko, who at the very least will ally themselves with you until your mutual enemy is destroyed, or better yet, will actually join your cause.

      In this country alone, there are tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people that would like to destroy this country. So much easier to harness them than to clone people.

      That doesn't even touch on simply buying babies and raising them in turbin land, to do the same thing anyway.

    59. Re:Stopping because of ethics by cpeterso · · Score: 2


      Suppose, some day, we travel to the stars and run across a new, sentient species. Is it okay for us to kill them?

      turn the question around. Is it ok for the sentient alien species to kill/eat/clone US??

    60. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Surak · · Score: 2

      Testing on animals and humans is the only valid
      research methodology for some things, cloning included.


      Exactly. Get the technology as close to perfection as possible on *animals* as possible, which is what I said.

      And like I said, no one would even sponsor a drug for testing on humans if 149 out of 150 animals that it was tested on died as a result, and the ones that lived suffered from premature ageing and arthritis. It would be unimaginable.

      In most countries, you have to prove that a drug will work on animals, or at least in some other way prove that it will work on humans without harming them before you can go around drug testing on humans. The same would hold true for any medical technology, including cloning.

    61. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      murder is legal somewhere? where? neato.

    62. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And while Science was correct to do so in the areas where the Church had said all sorts of nonsence about the age of the Earth, etc. etc., we need to recognise that at a certain point in people's lives, they need something to believe in. At least as a basic moral guide. So we have to be careful not to totally destroy Religion. It helps to hold societies together. The common Myth. A basic bond.

      I agree with everything you said up until this last quote. Some people need "something" to believe in. Some others (like myself) don't. You are right about Science bashing Christianity to a pulp. It has also done a number on other religions. Why? because Science is Truth. You cannot argue with 1+1=2. That's why religion (esp. christianity) has had to change with the times and why there is so much diversity/controversy in the churches (ie..creation, evolution, birth control). I see the cloning issue as a matter of Ethics and human rights not as a "human soul" issue. The product of cloning is simply a genetic duplicate of the original. Just like natural twins.

      Just my 2cents

    63. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The world is experiencing global warming. Our planet's ozone layer has holes punched in it. Species are going extinct faster now than at any other time in the earth's history (including that 6 mile wide planet killer a few million years ago). Nuclear waste has nowhere to be stored for the billions of years it will remain toxic and radioactive. Pesticides and chemicals are the your drinking water. Air polltuion and its related sicknesses are endemic. If you eat meat, it is probably laced with antibiotics (chronic exposure causes nacteria to become resistant to them, maybe some nice "super-bugs" will be the result for future generations), hormones, and maybe even steroids, not to mention mad cow disease (the result of the brilliant practice of feeding herbivores the carcasses of dead animals and even road kill). Cancer rates are climbing (all types, cause: unknown). AIDS is currently unstoppable (the new cocktails of drugs developed in the late 90s are now losing the battle as all have before). Governments weaponize anthrax and other toxins and the craziest are planning new nuclear weapons (tactical nukes, which more likely to be used; unfortunately fallout is hardly tactical).

      Are you sure it won't be the end of the world? The world, as we know it, has ended many times and will continue to do so as things continuosly change and new "worlds" are born. But what makes you think our short-sightedness will not bring about the end i.e. the end from which there is no coming back, no birth, no creation? THE end?

      We are masters of our destiny and the paths we choose determine our destination. Since you believe in science so strongly, you should understand cause and effect. Cloning and other genetic engineering is not very well understood. As you know, they mapped the human genome the other day and it turns out it was much smaller than expected. What does this mean? It means they don't know what other factors besides the bare DNA sequences determine heritable traits. Here is an article expressing this view: http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0209-01.htm. In short, genetic engineering (and cloning) is like brain surgery without fully understanding how the brain works: you may have limited success in crude operations, but you can forget doing anything really useful unless you consider enormous damage useful.

      In summary, you are wearing blinkers if you think "its all good" because it is not all good! Science has yet more questions than answers and we don't know half the shit we think we do. Stop because of ethics. Stop because its logical. Stop and think. Or one day we will be on a path with no return.

    64. Re:Stopping because of ethics by dadragon · · Score: 1

      There were two goals:

      1) To kill Jews
      2) To determine how long it would take a person to freeze to death, and how much x-rays a person could handle.

      --
      God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
    65. Re:Stopping because of ethics by garglblaster · · Score: 1

      Well, this is one of the rare cases where I do agree with a 'first post' statement: "This is not going to end well" ...

      I don't think a comparison to Dr. Mengele is appropriate. I would have to compare this to Dr. Frankenstein !!

      Anyone that followed the evolution on research on cloning should be aware of the fact that this "technique" is far from being reliable..

      The experiences gained in experiments with cloning animals should have showed clearly that it is not safe at all. The risk of generating a 'monster' is just too high still! - There are many research reports that show clearly that 'cloned beings' suffer from serious genetic anomalies and are very probable (premature ageing is one of them, immune system deficiencies another..) to an early death.

      Please help to stop this irresponsible behaviour before it's too late !!

      --

      perl -e 'printf("%x!\n",49153)'

    66. Re:Stopping because of ethics by tshak · · Score: 2

      This is called justification by trivialization. The all too common "It's Just Science" statement is easily just as narrow minded as many of the religious people getting all worked up just because they don't understand something.

      There are religious and ethical people who want to attach full human rights to arbitrarily small clusters of human cells (fertalized eggs, tiny embryo's, etc.). From a scientific point of view this is of course complete nonsense.

      The problem with your logic is that it leads to all sorts of interesting debates. Such as, using inmates for all sorts of life threatening medical experiments (such as injecting a disease and studying the effects of an experimental drug). We attach full human rights to a human, not a small cluster of human cells. A cloned person is, in fact, a person, and they do have rights.

      However, often the same people eat meat (requires killing of much larger clusters of non human cells) and have no problems with getting rid of annoying insects, which is very inconsistent to say the least.


      This is not inconsistent at all if you believe that humans are above all other organisms. If you don't believe that, fine, but then you have to logically accept my example about inmates. What's inconsistent is people saying, "humans are just another mammal" but then give special rights to humans.

      --

      There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
    67. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are religious and ethical people who want to attach full human rights to arbitrarily small clusters of human cells (fertalized eggs, tiny embryo's, etc.). From a scientific point of view this is of course complete nonsense.

      From a scientific point of view, all human rights are complete nonsense.

    68. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Starcub · · Score: 1

      Oversimplifications, invalid comparisons, invalid assumptions about religious people, self-centeredness, and dead wrong on a couple points; 5, Insightful?

      Those who try to argue for cloning based on technical merit have already lost the battle, so why not focus the attack on the moral and ethical front with comments that on the surface might make sense to a moron, but break the surface and the absurdity becomes apparent.

      Cloning attempts to make use of technology far more complex and powerful than classical physics or traditional medicine. Nobody has even successfully cloned an animal yet, and my definition of success is no adverse physical or mental side effects. How would you like to be the one who is a clone? I bet you'd change your tune pretty quickly if you knew what you were getting into. How quickly we forget of our origins. I could draw several religious paralleles but you would not understand them.

      The fact of the matter is that even if cloning were technically acceptable (which for a reasonably intelligent person might not be the case for generations to come), the moral and ethical implications are grave enough to justify outlawing it altogether. Here I am talking about full cloning, as is the case with the subject article. I don't know enough about cloning body parts to make a judgment call on that but I'll follow the Church simply because they have a better track record than any other group or individual I know, and there has to be a good reason for it.

      Personally I feel sorry for those who involved in cloning humans because I know that there will come the day when they are shown the folly of their decisions and it will torment their souls just as it has to those involved in performing abortions, and woe be to them if they harden their hearts. The fact that this is being allowed to happen in our country says something about the leadership of this nation as well. I pray that we adopt good sense quickly in this matter before many suffer needlessly.

    69. Re:Stopping because of ethics by kongtomorrow · · Score: 1

      I'm not particularly agreeing with the parent's parent, but I understand the sentiment.

      If parents believe that their child will have a better success chance of success in the real world if they choose to buy a clone at the clone market (with good looks, brains, etc), then some parents are going to choose the clone. The more parents do that, the more perceived pressure there is on other parents to get clones so that their children can compete.

      You can the situation where most parents would rather have a natural pregnancy but feel they have no choice.

    70. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Bongo · · Score: 1

      Some people need "something" to believe in. Some others (like myself) don't.

      Yeah, I was thinking more about what little I've heard about child development. Young children don't have the more sophisticated rational thinking skills that develop later, but nevertheless they need ethical guidance. And maybe religious stories, whether true or false, can be useful here. But yes, overall, I'm not saying we all have to go to church. I don't.

      I see the cloning issue as a matter of Ethics and human rights not as a "human soul" issue. The product of cloning is simply a genetic duplicate of the original. Just like natural twins.

      Again, I basically agree with you here. I mentioned the soul thing just to highlight that if there is a soul, by definition it's not something we can really prove using scientific apparatus --and so we can't deny their belief that human cells have souls... and they can't prove it. As you say, scientifically it's a non-issue. I don't suppose the Buddhists would be bothered much about it, as they try not to identify with their bodies much anyway.

      The product of cloning is simply a genetic duplicate of the original. Just like natural twins.

      Yes, but only in the objective sense. Scientifically you might not find any difference between a clone and the original, but what about culturally and subjectively? The scary thing about GATTACA for me was the degree to which society's values and organisations changed around the cloning technology, although in some ways it was just an extension of what we do already.

    71. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I am also an atheist, but you are still more than just your genes. Your memories/past-experiences determine a lot about who you are/become. They also determine a lot about your interests, and your opinions. In order to produce the same person, you would have to expose the clone to almost the exact same life as the original person.


      That would obviously be next to impossible. Its not just the large events that happen in our life - the ones that affect us directly - but also the ones that practically no one remembers anymore. I certainly cant recall everything that has ever happened to me, and I doubt anyone else can either. However, even though I cant remember the event, atleast a few of those events still effected me - they effected my personality in subtle ways.


      Cloning a person will only create a person who is physically the same - not a person who IS the same.

    72. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      There are religious and ethical people who want to attach full human rights to arbitrarily small clusters of human cells (fertalized eggs, tiny embryo's, etc.). From a scientific point of view this is of course complete nonsense.

      From a scientific point of view, those religious and ethical people are right to do so. If one looks at the scientific definition of life, one will see that the "arbitrarily small clusters of human cells" meets the four qualities of life (locomotion, respiration, reproduction and metabolism). To decide what kind of life it is, we have to look at the DNA... surprise, surprise, it is human.

      Thus, we are dealing with human life. Why wouldn't we want to assign human rights to living humans?

      It is the non-scientific types that rely on arguments such as, "but it is not a person!" That same philosophical/pseudo-religious (i.e. non-scientific) argument was used in the southern part of the United States back in the 1850s concerning other human beings...

    73. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > I'm not looking forward to genetic warfare...
      >
      Genetic warfare has been going on since the first Ape-man dragged a woman from a different tribe by her hair into the cave. It hasn't stopped since, in fact, an argument could be made for the possibility, that all wars are somehow coming down to the desire of such (sexual) "conquest" and the subsequent proliferation of the victors genes. Of course, many different "explanations" and "reasons" have been given by various parties as to why they wage any particular war but it's usually complete non-sense. The first thing any army does is to kill the men and rape the women, although mostly only the first part gets any attention.
      Where that brings our species I don't know. One could say it is merely the application of "survival of the fittest". But who is procreating in such a way? The most violent and ruthless examples of the species, which means, it may work in the short-term for the individual men spreading their genes (as opposed to the men they killed) but in the long-run it may just prove disastrous for the species as a whole (Violence will increase due to genetic history and make-up of a majority of individual (descendents of violent males), leading to a general increase of destructive behavior and ultimately the potential of the entire specie's self-annihilation (for example, through wide-scale nuclear war or the destruction of our lives foundation: nature)).

    74. Re:Stopping because of ethics by Squalish · · Score: 1

      One of the main points cloning raises is that if it and research associated with it IS banned, in 20-30 years we will NOT have the experiance to start. This is the only certainty when dealing with cloning advances. Yes, right now it is horribly brutal - but this is like the period right after a teenager gets their learner's permit... you can't progress in skill without fumbling around at the beginning.

      --
      People in Soviet Russia, however, appear to be afflicted with amusing juxtapositions of the aforementioned situation
    75. Re:Stopping because of ethics by aled · · Score: 1
      Í agree that investigation should not be stopped but this is just a case of mad doctor playing to be god. Have you heard this guy talk? He says god helped him. Do investigation on cells, do it on animals, don't do it on humans until it is safe enough. And don't bank on the feelings of people who can't have children or want to resurrect dead familiars. He is mad or playing with people who don't understand the danger of the experiment to the new born.

      I'm not opposed to investigation on clonning or genetics, but it scares me something. There's many sci-fi stories in which everyone on the planet dies horribly by some experiment. Just a little mistake in the laboratory and all life erase, and it can happen.

      By the way, some years ago I predicted to a friend that someday making human virus would be little more difficult than computer virus. Imagine what will happen when the technology goes to the public hands. Virus that make addvertisament on your skin?

      --

      "I think this line is mostly filler"
  8. He'll have a cool introduction at parties by SweenyTod · · Score: 4, Funny

    Clone: Hello! I'm #15
    Cute Chick: Well hello hansome! What star sign are you?
    Clone: Pyrex
    Cute Chick: Ohhh baby!

    And things go downhill from there.

    --
    Alas gallinaceas de urbe bovis volo
    1. Re:He'll have a cool introduction at parties by esper_child · · Score: 1

      Clone: Hi, when I in High School I was voted the Class Clone

    2. Re:He'll have a cool introduction at parties by MrFredBloggs · · Score: 1

      Not much different to:

      Clone: Hello! I`m Pizza Delivery Boy #2
      Other clone: Hi! I`m long distance lorry driver Girl #1232
      Clone: Have you seen my daddy?
      Other clone: No. Have you?

    3. Re:He'll have a cool introduction at parties by rackhamh · · Score: 1

      Most of the researchers are male, yes?

      And they're cloning women, yes?

      I see where they're going -- I like!

    4. Re:He'll have a cool introduction at parties by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You sir, are obviously a deviant and a person of dubious character.

      I approve. :)

    5. Re:He'll have a cool introduction at parties by kaphka · · Score: 1

      You do realize that at some point in the fairly near future, there will undoubtedly be a community of clones to be offended by jokes like that?

      I'm being 97% serious. Everyone has been so absorbed in the (mostly silly) cloning debate, but hardly anyone has been thinking about how our society will deal with clones once they're a reality.

      --

      MSK

    6. Re:He'll have a cool introduction at parties by Afrosheen · · Score: 1

      What the hell is a lorry?

    7. Re:He'll have a cool introduction at parties by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Its a truck/juggernaut! (In English!)

  9. Finaly! by xpurple · · Score: 1

    Soon I will clone myself, and take over the world!

    No matter how you look at it, this is definitly amusing :)

    --
    http://www.xpurple.com
    1. Re:Finaly! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So if you clone your self are you twise the man? or only half the man you used to be now that there are two of you?

    2. Re:Finaly! by dentyou'reajerk · · Score: 1

      That will only work if you are going to form a river dancing troupe. And this time, keep Pinky's toe-nails out of the cloning machine.

      --
      "His name was Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged. He was a man with a purpose."
  10. That's because you're a pussy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


    You wanna-be-ethical sack of shit.

  11. a better look?... by thebigbadme · · Score: 1

    First thing we should be looking at is the credibility.... ok moving on...

    Are the steps taken in creating the cloned fetus repeatable?

    I've always wondered about finger prints.. perhaps this will shed some light.

    just thoughts.

    --
    "It's the Law of the Universe, and I'm the sheriff." Slash-cott 2/10-2/17
    1. Re:a better look?... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the fingerprints would most likely not be the same. Identical twins do not have the same set of fingerprints (or foot prints...helps for baby ID). fingerprints actually don't form solidly for days or weeks after birth....one reason why footprints are often taken.
      I believe other forms of bio-ID would be different as well...different retnal scans...voiceprint might be slightly different...etc. the faces would probably trick most biometrics though....

      "Some call me Tim."

    2. Re:a better look?... by ZigMonty · · Score: 2

      I've always wondered about finger prints.. perhaps this will shed some light.

      If you're referring to the finger prints on your hands (as opposed to DNA finger prints) and you mean "Will they be the same on the clone?" then... probably not. Identical twins can have different finger prints because of differing environments, etc. I don't see why it would be any different for other types of clones (yes, I consider identical twins clones, they were just cloned at the embryo stage). In fact, the environment of the clone will be *very* different to the environment the adult it was cloned from developed in so I'd expect the difference to be even larger. But, I'm not a doctor so I could be wrong.

    3. Re:a better look?... by SpinyNorman · · Score: 2

      From what I remember reading, the major features of fingerprints - the locations of whorls, ridges etc - ARE genetically determined, but the details are not... You'd of course expect clones to have the same degree of similarity as identical twins in this respect (although due to different mitochondrial DNA, clones could be said to be less alike than idential twins - they'd have different metabolisms).

    4. Re:a better look?... by mark-t · · Score: 2

      I remember learning in science class that there are a number of aspects to our body's architecture which are not determined directly by genes. Fingerprints are one of them, and would therefore be unique, even for clones. One working theory is that they are a side effect of living in a fluid for 9 months while our body is actually constructed. Since the motion of the fluid cannot be predicted (we're talking about molecular levels of motion here, by the way), every person's fingerprints would always be unique.

  12. I guess its time... by CrazyDuke · · Score: 1

    ...to patent your DNA if its worth anything to someone.

    --
    Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
    1. Re:I guess its time... by selderrr · · Score: 1

      Well, that might actually be impossible : if YOU pattent it, your clone might walk into the pattent office claiming the rights and accusing YOU of being the clone...Since you'll be indistinguishable from a clone, how are you going to identify the rightfull owner of your DNA ?
      Remember that he'll eb a full person too. he's not responsible for being a clone, and has equal rights to his/your DNA !!!!!

      One big advantage : we won't have to go to the movie theatre to see the sequal of "the fifth day" or some other Schwarzie/Sly/Vandamme vehicle...

    2. Re:I guess its time... by HiQ · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And why would you be indistinguishable from a clone. Random DNA mutations *do* occur, and the longer you are alive, the more 'copy errors' start showing up in your DNA. So if you look in close enough detail, there will always be differences.

    3. Re:I guess its time... by Organism · · Score: 1

      Erm... 'YOU' would be older?

      Christ...

      --
      -- My hovercraft is full of eels.
    4. Re:I guess its time... by CrazyDuke · · Score: 1

      Previous art comes to mind...

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
    5. Re:I guess its time... by Captain_Jackass · · Score: 1

      Since you'll be indistinguishable from a clone, how are you going to identify the rightfull owner of your DNA ?
      Oh that's easy. I'd be at least 19+(n+0.75)[where n is the age of the clone]years older then my clone was. Remember: Life is not like Star Trek. I can't just have a transporter accident and have an instant duplicate of myself whipped up.

    6. Re:I guess its time... by ansible · · Score: 2

      Er, no.

      Greater than 99.99 percent of random mutations either have no effect (a mutation on one of the many "garbage" sections of our DNA), or result in a cell that is not viable. A mutation in protein production will kill off a cell pretty quick, for example.

      Of the rest, some may result in a viable cell. However, the immune system tags it as a foreign cell and kills it.

      Some may result in cancer.

      And some small, small percent may result in a mutation that still leaves a viable cell that won't be destroyed by the immune system.

      But for the most part, you have the same genetic material you started with.

      There are many other factors (like the in-vitro environment) that have a significant effect upon development.

  13. Thanks to the late hour by ottffssent · · Score: 2

    I just might get a first post:) Probably not, since I'm going to put some content here, but it's a nice thought.

    I must say I'm a little torn on the issue. It's great if the technology can grow livers and hearts and kidneys and bone marrow and what have you, but I'm not sure there's any good reason to clone entire people. It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out, in any event.

    1. Re:Thanks to the late hour by ottffssent · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Did it really take me 12 minutes to type that?

  14. Gold Star by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Cloning the human is very different from cloning sheep"

    One has four hoves the other two feet

  15. the quote that sets me off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Like atomic energy, cloning can be used for beneficial purposes - to increase population


    I'd hate to let the future of overpopulation go unsupported. God forgive us if more people went the other way, deciding to not have kids to help reserve the planets resources because they aren't so self-absorbed as to need create their own offspring. [Adoption, OTOH, is a nearly selfless act.] Cloning humans is just one more way humans show how we put short term self-gratification ahead of anything else. You and I both know that when the humans race dies off (whether pollution, depleted resources, war, etc.) it will most likely stem from that same belligerence. ...It's 3am, so I'm a little strung out.

    1. Re:the quote that sets me off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Can't say I argue with that. Overpopulation is one of the world's greatest problems.

      Of course, if it gets too bad, it's possible that governments would put more money into various space programs and get around to colonizing other planets.

      More likely, we'll all starve. :p

    2. Re:the quote that sets me off by randal_hicks · · Score: 1
      . . .cloning can be used for beneficial purposes - to increase population...

      Oh y e a h. . . it set me off as well. Like, we really have a problem with UNDERpopulation? I cannot believe that anyone would use this as an argument to start cloning Humans. I agree with other posters that it sounds more like a question of ego than the desire to advance science. We're progressing science beyond the scope of our ability to deal with its moral or ethical consequences. Science should not forget that it is not a question of whether we can do something, but whether we should?
  16. Slashdot at 5:51 AM... by bacchusrx · · Score: 2

    What is this? Apocalypse hour on Slashdot? First the story on the implantable microchips, now clones...

    BRx.

    --
    Life after capitalism? The participatory economics project
    1. Re:Slashdot at 5:51 AM... by flipflapflopflup · · Score: 1
      > Apocalypse hour on Slashdot?

      Here in the UK its 11:52am - last thing I want is more stories about crazy bio-tech to put me off my lunch...

    2. Re:Slashdot at 5:51 AM... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Apocalypse hour on Slashdot? First the story
      > of the implantable microchips, now clones...
      >
      Don't forget about the asteroid that will with 300:1 chance hit the Earth in 847 years from now (unless another rock bumps into it and it shows up a lil' earlier) :-)

  17. All Mammal clones possible so far are FEMALE ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    All Mammal clones possible so far are FEMALE!

    You will never see this fact cited ever in a non-journal article.

    I have looked carefully in every news release since the original Dolly wave of press hysteria.

    Cloning will never be popular or interesting until telomere ends can be repaired in the zygote to prevent bio-clock failures (aging too fast).

    Cloning will also never be popular unless the person paying for the service (a rich white or asian male) can replicate himself, or his son.

    You read it here first... In 2002 only female mammals are capable of being cloned.

    (maybe they try to reduce rna conflicts from differring mitochondrial dna)

    These clones only clone the genes in the chromosomes alone and not the mitochondrial entities (entombed bacteria from billions of years ago in evolution).

    1. Re:All Mammal clones possible so far are FEMALE ! by Johnathon+Walls · · Score: 1

      They've also engineered in a lyseine deficiency in case they ever get off the island.

      It's the Frog DNA they've used that makes me worried ...

    2. Re:All Mammal clones possible so far are FEMALE ! by MongooseCN · · Score: 2

      All Mammal clones possible so far are FEMALE!

      Well if these scientists have the same problems with women that computer geeks have, then it's no wonder...

    3. Re:All Mammal clones possible so far are FEMALE ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ha!

    4. Re:All Mammal clones possible so far are FEMALE ! by Surak · · Score: 2

      Errmmm...yes, but weren't those REPTILES, not MAMMALS? :)

    5. Re:All Mammal clones possible so far are FEMALE ! by kmellis · · Score: 1
      Hey, AC-with-a-score-of-five, I have some questions.

      First of all, do sperm and ova show the same amount of degredation through mutation (via cosmic radiation, mostly?) as the rest of the DNA in the body? (Well, since ova are single generation then they're not mutated, just damaged, right?) Also, since ova are "original eqipment", and so aren't subject to generational mutation -- but they are still subject to damage in place. So that's why older women are more prone to having babies with deformities. But if regular cells accrue genetic drift through generational changes, how come this isn't so with sperm? Or if it is the case, how come we don't worry about older men reproducing as much as we worry about older women? (It occurs to me that the reson for this is that the younger woman's uncorrupted DNA from her ova counteracts the corrupted DNA from the male's sperm. But was women get older, then both the DNA from the sperm and ovum are likely to be corrupted.)

      Secondly, is this largely corrected via sexual reproduction, and how?

      Thirdly, so how do creatures that reproduce asexually avoid this problem? Is it simply that they're less complex?

      Fourthly, at some point won't we be able to actually sequence, easily, an individual's DNA and then do a statistical analysis that produces the "corrected" genome? Could we then synthesize that corrected genome?

      Fifthly, why are they only cloning females? Because DNA taken from ova is such an easier task than taking it from sperm? Or is it something else?

      Sixthly, I'm really curious about sexual differentiation. Since sex is determined by the Y chromosome, and a chromosome is such a large unit of genetic data; isn't it correct that it doesn't make sense to say that there is a "male" version of a female (because it's dependent upon the particular Y chromosome inherited from the father); but that there is a "female" version of a male (just duplicate the X chromosome that came from the mother)?

      Seventhly (okay, this is getting annoying, huh?), I thought that I read that many of the problems associated with damaged clones has to do with the fact that the DNA doesn't match the cellular environment it's been placed into. It's not just that the DNA is degraded, supposedly... If so, however, I imagine that this is a surmountable problem.

      Eighthly, just how much does the mitochondrial DNA matter, anyway? Does the genome of the mitochodrial DNA influence anything beyond the mitochondria? Do we know? Is it possible that there are complex developmental (to pick something plausible) differences that might result from a cascade of increasing effects that stem from a mitochnodrial difference?

    6. Re:All Mammal clones possible so far are FEMALE ! by bluebomber · · Score: 2

      how come we don't worry about older men reproducing as much as we worry about older women?

      First, as women age their bodies become less adapted to bearing children. Evolutionarily speaking, prime childbearing years are 16-28 or so. After 30-32 there is a much higher rate of complication.

      Second, all the male has to do is make his "contribution". His little swimmers don't degrade over time. AFAICR, they don't reproduce themselves so thus aren't subject to generational mutation/degradation. Aren't they more, uh, "manufactured".

      (Dislcaimer: Yeah, yeah, biology was never my strong suit. I can maybe name the two dudes that are credited with DNA and what it stands for. I can tell you how to cut open a worm. And I can tell you that you need to be careful with a scalpel so you don't slice a schoolmate's hand open. It was an accident, honest.)

    7. Re:All Mammal clones possible so far are FEMALE ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Cloning will also never be popular unless the person paying for the service (a rich white or asian male) can replicate himself, or his son.

      Can someone clarify what the reasoning for this is?

    8. Re:All Mammal clones possible so far are FEMALE ! by wurp · · Score: 3, Informative

      There is a kind of cloning, parthenogenesis, which only clones females. Dandelions and some amphibians do this as a matter of course, and it has been observed to naturally occur in mammals (rarely).

      Somatic cell nuclear transfer is what most people are talking about when they talk about "cloning", and it can produce a clone of either males or females. However, with the current technology these clones have health problems throughout their (short) life. It is downright evil to use the technology to produce humans right now, since you're condemning the progeny to a short and unpleasant life. I have no ethical problems with cloning per se, just with any technology that makes people who will have a crappy quality of life.

    9. Re:All Mammal clones possible so far are FEMALE ! by Mr.+Neutron · · Score: 2
      Cloning will also never be popular unless the person paying for the service (a rich white or asian male) can replicate himself, or his son.

      Can someone clarify what the reasoning for this is?

      Yes. Why pay mucho $$$ for an expensive and risky cloning procedure to produce an "offspring" that isn't genetically related, when cheaper, safer, more conventional methods exist (like donor egg/sperm, or the cheapest and safest: adoption) that produce the exact same result?

      --
      dinner: it's what's for beer
    10. Re:All Mammal clones possible so far are FEMALE ! by jred · · Score: 1

      It's all a part of the big conspiracy. Obviously us males aren't worth much, but we are (were) necessary for reproduction. Now the ladies can just clone offspring & do away with men (& sex) altogether. I know this because I stumbled into one of my daughter's indoctrination sessions the other day. They've cleverly hidden their communication devices in the dolls called "Bratz" so the males wouldn't find them. I'm pretty sure they don't know I'm on to them, but if I disappear, you guys will know why...

      --

      jred
      I'm not a mechanic but I play one in my garage...
    11. Re:All Mammal clones possible so far are FEMALE ! by kmellis · · Score: 1
      Well, no offense, but I think I'm a little more up on reproductive biology than you are. Thanks for trying to answer my questions, though.

      The reason that women have the so-called "biological clock" is because they are born with the few million eggs they'll ever have already in their ovaries. Those eggs sit there, being released one at a time (usually) each month starting at menses. The reason there are increasing complications with pregnancy as a woman's years advance has much more to do with the increasing likeliehood of harmful mutations in the DNA of those eggs as a result of, primarily, cosmic radiation. The older the mother, the greater the likliehood of birth defects.

      Sperm cells don't reproduce (except in reproduction!), of course; but they are produced by cells that are -- I'm assuming -- themselves reproducing and so are prone to cumulative mutation. I bring this up because this is one of the main problems with cloning -- as it was explained to me years ago by a friend who's a molecular biologist -- in that taking the DNA from any random cell of an adult's body will likely yield DNA that's been significantly corrupted from the DNA at birth. It normally doesn't matter (but does not infrequently result in cancer!) mostly because these cells are already highly specialized and so the odds are against any given mutation being relevant to that cell's workings. But when you take that damaged DNA and use it to generate stem cells, then that damaged DNA will be expressed in the functional damage of some of the differentiated cells which result. My question is how do sperm cells avoid this problem. One possible answer I provided was that they don't -- since half of the genetic material comes from the mother, and most mutations are irrelevant because they're recessive -- then it ends up not mattering. I don't know if that's the case or not, but it seems plausible. But anyway, this is all why men don't have the "biological clock" the way that women do. It's (mostly) not because older women's bodies are less robust for pregnancy and birth than are younger women's.

      It does make me wonder why people aren't harvesting some of the young females' eggs and putting them in cold storage protected from radiation. Especially so if cloning becomes viable.

      But it still seems to me that all of these problems with cloning could be overcome. You could only use the least likely to be damaged DNA from the woman. You could do a statistical analysis of many DNA samples from the woman (or man), and thus getting a "corrected" genome to use (providing you could put it together somehow). If it's the mitochondrial DNA that's part of the problem, then start cloning it, one way or another. (Why not simply transport the mitochondria into the new cell as well as the nuclear DNA?) If it's the alien cellular environment (apart from the mitochondria problem), then why not do the whole thing in a two-step process wher you make sure the cellular environment is "correct" for the DNA package you're transporting?

      The minor problems with cloning are the access problems -- will it be only for the rich? But that's a general health care problem. What is a real threat, in my opinion, is that widespread cloning will reduce the genetic variability across the human population. That's a bad thing for a huge number of different reasons.

    12. Re:All Mammal clones possible so far are FEMALE ! by Mr.+Neutron · · Score: 2
      To amend my previous post:

      As far as why it would have to be a "white or asian male," I think the original AC for some reason assumes that either only white or asian males are rich enough, or that only white or asian males would want to be cloned.

      ACs. What can you do about it?

      --
      dinner: it's what's for beer
    13. Re:All Mammal clones possible so far are FEMALE ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Simple Economics 101.

      If you get a book on recent population dynamics or any simple almanac you will learn that the highest IQs are not equally spread out in all people randomly,

      In fact you will also realize that in general, even in cases where income is not benefitted by high IQ, it is benefitted by assertive testosterone driven leadership skills instead of IQ.

      Whatever the root cause, the result is the same.... the top 99.99 % of the worlds richest self made people fall into the category of being male and (white or asian).

      Thus that is the target demographic for this very costly industry (commercial cloning).

      To be economically popular in marketing... your product has to reach its most likely target audience.... Thus instead of looking to target millionaire African American Female physicists or billionaire Hispanic Female chemists, its more economically sound to create a product (male cloning) that is attractive to the market audience of rich males.

    14. Re:All Mammal clones possible so far are FEMALE ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Scientific American had an amazing groundbreaking major story in April of 96 or 97 on the genetic process of mammalian aging (and cancer control).

      This fundamental discovery is not heeded by the current cloning people and it took results of Dolly to remind them of basic facts... every time a cell divides it gets a few atoms shorter in its chromosomes.... the time clock.

      When the ends are too short, the cells are "aged" and fail.

      Fixing the ends can be done with simple protein drugs, but provokes cancer.

      Cloning is as ethical as watching two genetic twins be born from a test tube with one twin frozen a year longer before implantation.

      Coning is nothing big.

      However creating people with screwed up mitochondrial lineage or screwed up lifespans is indeed evil.

      They will fix it the day they fix aging in all adults... thus nullifying the need for clones except for body parts.

    15. Re:All Mammal clones possible so far are FEMALE ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The assumption is correct if you correlate people who earn enough income and started from scratch and thus might want to have vain or egoist desire (same as parental urges I assume) to "go on.

      People who earn the most in the world when all accounted for and ranked are predominently higher IQ people whom are male, and eirher white or asian.

      Its a valid assumption based upon commonly available statistics.

    16. Re:All Mammal clones possible so far are FEMALE ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You wrote :

      "The minor problems with cloning are the access problems -- will it be only for the rich?"

      Why is it a problem that some things in life cost a lot and some people have a lot of money and those people are called "rich people"

      You are some kind of communist I guess.

      Are yachts a "problem"

      Are tennis lessons?

      Are bottles of Champagne a problem?

      I think lazy communist poor people who envy talented workers are the "PROBLEM"

      Hurray for the rich... they and their 66% tax basis help build America.

    17. Re:All Mammal clones possible so far are FEMALE ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


      >Cloning will never be popular or interesting >until telomere ends can be repaired in the >zygote to prevent bio-clock failures (aging too >fast).
      Advanced Cell Technology have already solved this problem, http://www.lef.org/featured-articles/apr2000_clon_ 01.html

    18. Re:All Mammal clones possible so far are FEMALE ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All Mammal clones possible so far are FEMALE!

      What do you call them?

      Clunts

    19. Re:All Mammal clones possible so far are FEMALE ! by flink · · Score: 1

      But if regular cells accrue genetic drift through generational changes, how come this isn't so with sperm? Or if it is the case, how come we don't worry about older men reproducing as much as we worry about older women?

      Women are born with all the eggs they will ever have. Each month after puberty, an egg matures and detaches itself from the ovary. Men, on the other hand, are constantly producing sperm. I'm no expert, but my guess is that a forty year old egg is more likely to have incurred damage than a few day old sperm produced by forty year old testes.

    20. Re:All Mammal clones possible so far are FEMALE ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I shall use that term! "Clunts"... quite appropiate.

      I predict that in 2014 the vast majority of cloned humans (legal in some country somewhere) will be MALE and probably related to the person paying for the procedure.

      Price for "Clunts" might be set at free or negligible and subsidized by the male clone business.

      Annual reports will boast that females are being born and pretty smiling kids holding hands of mixed races and genders witll addorn the cover of the Annual report... even though all the paying customers are insisting on copies of themselves.... white or asian males.

    21. Re:All Mammal clones possible so far are FEMALE ! by SmittyTheBold · · Score: 1

      The propbem is, there are multiple ways DNA can get damaged. Cell age is not the only cause; copying errors are also possible. Think slight generational loss, nowhere near as bad as VHS, but still there.

      A man's sperm is a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy, while a woman's ovum is a first-generation copy that has sat in a dusty closet for the past thirty years.

      --
      ± 29 dB
    22. Re:All Mammal clones possible so far are FEMALE ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      True, except transcription errors are mostly self correcting and no evidence exists that very old mens sperm causes trouble except for a small study that said that very wealthy old men tended to have schizophrenic offspring.

      Thus genetic schizophrenia is caused by transcription errors... or else hi-iq people are PREDISPOSED to schizophrenia but do not always become schizophrenic.

    23. Re:All Mammal clones possible so far are FEMALE ! by bluebomber · · Score: 2

      Hey, I figured it was worth a shot... your reproductive biology sounds a little more current -- in the academic sense, at least. ;)

      The reason there are increasing complications with pregnancy as a woman's years advance has much more to do with the increasing likeliehood of harmful mutations in the DNA of those eggs as a result of, primarily, cosmic radiation.

      Huh. Pesky radiation. Next thing you'll be telling me that a) my tinfoil hat doesn't defeat that cosmic radiation and b) the lead-lined dress I just got for my "better half" to protect her eggs is a health hazard.

    24. Re:All Mammal clones possible so far are FEMALE ! by kmellis · · Score: 1
      Heh. No, I'm not a Communist, I'm a guy who wrote a check to the government in '00 for $96,000 to pay (the rest of!) my income taxes. And "66%" is not the highest bracket, much less the total amount that the wealthiest pay in taxes. The highest bracket right now is about 40%. Only people whose majority of their income is in the very top bracket -- about 200K or so -- will actually pay close (as a total percentage of their income) to that 40% in taxes. In a nutshell, you don't know what the hell you're talking about; and not only do I know what I'm talking about, I'm one of those "rich people" you're talking about.

      The reason that this is a problem is the same reason that providing only the very best education to rich children is a problem: it creates a permanant underclass where only the wealthiest have the best opportunities to make money. This isn't good for democracy; but just on a purely pragmatic level it isn't good for capitalism. Any given poor, underfed, undereducated kid could be a potential Bill Gates but is far less likely to become a Bill Gates. We all benefit materially when people create new wealth. That's the beauty of market economics.

      When advanced reproductive technology becomes available to only the wealthy, they will use it, naturally, to give their children as many advantages as possible. This will the rest of the children out in the cold and create, eventually, an insurmountable barrier for them to contribute at the same level. The result will be a rigid class society -- something Americans aren't too fond of (which is why we have financial aid and not the sort of prep school system that, for example, Britain has) -- that will also be less economically productive. America's economic mobility between classes and its large middle-class have played a large role in our extraodinary productivity. Technologies and social policies that concentrate wealth in families through generations are a bad thing for a whole host of reasons. Not the least of which is that it means there will be less rich people, and less wealth creation.

    25. Re:All Mammal clones possible so far are FEMALE ! by kmellis · · Score: 1

      Okay, but then why (I have been told) are transcription errors in DNA taken from regular cells for cloning a problem?

  18. Gates No 10 by heytal · · Score: 1

    Imagine the number of anti trust cases which would be running if there were 10 bill gates each with his own Microsoft[1-10].

    err.. wait.. that wouldn't be a monopoly..

  19. Now, if this were an april fools joke... by joto · · Score: 1
    ...I wouldn't believe it at all.

    Sometimes the world is a strange place!

  20. Name the child contests? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If it is a boy, would Adam suit?

  21. Clarification, Sorta by citizenc · · Score: 2

    I think that some people, when they hear the word "clone" used, they immediately think that it is literally a clone -- the same appearance, the same likes, dislikes, etc. However, that isn't the case -- it is just a clone on the genetic level. The child will grow up and have different experiences, will probably look different, like different things, etc.

    Think twins. Sorta.

  22. Sharing Marie Curie's birthday - and fate by MobyTurbo · · Score: 1

    I hate to say this, but considering the fate of cloned animals, with genes misfiring or not turning on at all, not only will the clone be born on Marie Curie's birthday, assuming it even gets to that point, it will also share her fate; being short-lived.

  23. Disturbing by Captain+Large+Face · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It is ever-so-slightly worrying that the doctor in question, Severino Antinori, admitted in a press conference that Dolly, the cloned sheep, was suffering from premature aging. His defence, that the experiments were not conducted well, and that sheep cloning is vastly different to human cloning, does not inspire confidence.

    This child (presuming it survives) is nothing more than a guinea pig for Dr. Antinori's ego. Will this child be able to live a normal life? No. Look at Dolly -- how many tests do you think she goes through on a daily basis?

    Whilst I am reluctant to encourage animal testing, would it not be better for those in the same field as Dr. Antinori to perfect cloning of non-humans before moving onto humans? It seems the doctor is in a hurry to stake his name in history. If he is not careful, he'll get his wish, but it will appear closer to Josef Mengele than Marie Curie.

    1. Re:Disturbing by ardiri · · Score: 1
      • This child (presuming it survives) is nothing more than a guinea pig for Dr. Antinori's ego. Will this child be able to live a normal life? No. Look at Dolly -- how many tests do you think she goes through on a daily basis?
      do you think dolly is happy? doesn't matter if it is human or sheep or dog.. animal rights activists will be on your case forever.

      the family involved surely much know the risks of doing such experiments - will they be prepared to terminate the child if it is deformed, and, would it pass as murder? thats where governments are really worried about such things.

    2. Re:Disturbing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      DNA becoms corrupted over time

      The DNS used for the sheep was adult dna

      The resulting sheep started off with corrupted DNA

      They are working on a process to avoid this problem.

    3. Re:Disturbing by Captain+Large+Face · · Score: 1

      The DNS used for the sheep was adult dna

      Compulsive typing?

      Thanks for clearing up the reasoning!

    4. Re:Disturbing by pknut · · Score: 1

      AIRC in the experiment that created Dolly, 8 embryos were implanted into separate ewes. Just one of the embryos (Dolly) made it all the way through to birth. Going by this, the chances that the child is born appear to be slim. However, the details also appear to be slightly vapourous...

    5. Re:Disturbing by 8string · · Score: 1

      I agree.

      I think the 20th century was the begining of a dangerous trend in science in which the only valid reason to achieve something is for the betterment of the scientists reputation, not the betterment of humanity. There's no thought of morality, the health of (whether a clone or not) is still an innocent baby human being. Human experimentation should NEVER take place except under very, very strict supervision within 'acceptable' parameters (like clinical trials for medication, etc).

      It is only a matter of time before someone starts abusing the techniques developed from this and other types of research. In my opinion just DOING this type of research is evil. Trying to grow stem cells in a lab is one thing. Trying to clone a human is messing with a pot only God should be stirring.

    6. Re:Disturbing by p3d0 · · Score: 1

      What is AIRC? "As I Recall Correctly"?

      --
      Patrick Doyle
      I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
    7. Re:Disturbing by mshurpik · · Score: 1

      The chances of deformation in assisted reproduction in humans is four per cent, though in women aged over 40 it is six per cent.

      "Data, what is the likelihood of deformation if we start cloning the crew?"

      "Deformations will occur in exactly 4.01876 per cent of the yielded population."

      "Commander Data, when you say 'exactly', do you mean that the figure is precise to the limits of your capability?"

      "No, Captain, the rest are zeroes. I have arbitrary floating point capabilities. Seven digits...<huff>...I mean, really Captain."

      "OK, sorry. Well, you realize that we're dealing with whole unit quantities here, so to achieve that kind of precise ratio... I mean, say we only cloned 100 people. How are you going to get that zero-point-whatever fraction you're talking about?"

      "Yes, Captain, I am aware of your human concept of 'integer math.' For your information, I am also capable of predicting exactly how many crewmembers we will clone."

      "Um, alright, whatever. Seems like a lot. Warp speed on my command."

    8. Re:Disturbing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh god, please let's leave bible thumping outta this...

  24. Why do people still want to clone? by Blikkie · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I suppose wanting to drive thing to the edge of what's possible is something that is built into human beings, but, in the case of cloning I think this just is irresponsible. Aside from all the ethical stuff (Like in The Boys from Brazil by Ira Levin) chances are that the child won't live long because on DNA level the child is as old as the mother, but there are no definitive conclusions on that. All in all I think it unacceptable to perform such extreme experiments un children (or animals) who don't have a say in their treatment.
    If only human beings knew their limits when messing around with technology some of the worst atrocities wouldn't have happened, but some revolutionary things that have enabled to prolong life and welfare on higher age wouldn't be discovered either. Fortunately I am no philosopher, or I would be driven mad when trying to decide whether technology is a blessing or a curse.

    Quote from Blade Runner:
    Replicants are like any other machine, they are either a benefit or a hazard, if they are a benefit it is not my problem.

    1. Re:Why do people still want to clone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Geez, when Hitler's scientists did these experiments he was called a monster, when modern day scientists do them they get interested comments. Why do people want to clone human beings? Because the people doing it are geeks and can't get laid by any normal human mate so they need to reproduce through cloning or their geek species will die off leaving only jocks and cheerleaders.

  25. The Queen is dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  26. Controversial? by altaic · · Score: 1

    I don't think it's so controversial. It's just like having an identical twin, except at different ages. Twins aren't the same people, just as clones aren't.

    The genetic engineering scares me a bit, though. I'm not religious, but I know there can be serious risks. How about an airborne gene therapy retro-virus? Ever seen those two episodes of Outer Limits where they time travel into the future and see the results of genetic horrors? Yikes. But, putting it in perspective, it's just another tool, and tools are neither good nor evil. It can be used for as great good as evil. Just need to genetically engineer all the evil out of people and we'll be all set! ;)

    Anyway, the cloning is really cool. If anything, clones'll be used in psychological studies to resolve the personality from dna vs. experience debate. Except that scientists have no concept of analog. =)

  27. Anybody care to comment on involuntary cloning?... by Numen · · Score: 1

    Lets fast forward a little, as the reactionary arguements for and against cloning have pretty much been heard, and will continue in much the same vein.

    Lets consider... what if any leagal framework might address the issue not of a clone itself... but a clone or a particular person who a) objects to having been clones, and b) objects to the clones continued existence.

    Kind of knocks media copyright issues to the sideline no?

  28. what a shame by PsychoElf · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You think they would have learned from those damned sheep. The clone's chromosomes are the same as the person they were taken from. Which means they will be born with already damaged and shortened chromosomes. This will mean further complications down the road for the child at a much earlier age, not to mention all the psyche help the kid is gonna need. I know im gonna get hit for this one.... First Post!!!

    1. Re:what a shame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree with the bit about damaged and shortened chromosomes. I don't think cloning should be availible for mass consumption until that problem can be worked out. (Though, it's possible that if we figured that one out, we'd be at the brink of immortality sans violent death/disease..)

      However, I can't see why the kid would need psychiatric help. It's a clone, yes, but it's not like, say, setting a = b. The kid isn't going to spring into existance with all the memories of the clonee sitting in its mind. There's no issue of, "You mean, I'm not really me?" here.

      Actually, thinking about it, you're probably right - the kid may need psychiatric help, if only because of the millions of zealots who will point fingers at him or her while muttering wonderful lines such as 'spawn of the devil' and other nonsense.

      Then again, people say that about me, and it's arguable that I don't need psychiatric help. :)

    2. Re:what a shame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When it comes to raw damage, I feel it depends on the type of cell the initial samples are taken from- a cheek swab of a smoker probably has a greater chance of mutational damage than a blood sample, say. Don't forget, gonads are exposed to the same blood-carried toxins as the rest of the body; it just helps that severe damage will also produce weak sperm, or infertile eggs.

      There's also the matter of how the sampled DNA is handled once removed from the cell- perhaps if you're pulling something from the results of PCR, you probably have a higher chance of error, due to contamination, etc. (PCR works better for electrophoresis (as seen in forensics), because even if a small amount of error is intorducted, you have tons and tons of DNA, and most of it's going to be accurate and migrate to the right place in the goo. However, if you pull one strand out and try to make a clone from it, that's another matter.

      So, I think mutations can be avoided by improved protocol, as the doctor suggests. Picking a weak host cell is another issue, but "test tube" kids seem to do fine; not a problem. That leaves the still-misunderstood telomeres, and *that's* why this would best be postponed.

      I don't have a problem with cloning, but there *is* a serious issue of consumer education here. People are already clamoring to clone 'replacement' kids when they've lost the first to terminal disease; while I don't favor eugenics in either direction, I think this is a case where, sans-manipulation to cure the illness/improve the immune system, the genes should best be selected out of the population- why create another life to *purposefully* suffer the same fate?

      Let people clone apparently-healthy genomes if they want to, once the aging issues are worked out; we aren't evolving in any productive direction anyway, and evolution is *not* the end-all of existence, just a property of self-reproducing systems. We probably do need a limit on the total number of clones of a particular genome walking around at any one time (to avoid eugenic 'armies' of custom kids; we do need to preserve diversity in the human immune system, if we care about survival of the species, or more directly ethically, about having healthy people around to care for the sick), but that's about it.

  29. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? Not really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That would be the desired outcome, but so far clones still have major genetic problems such as wiht Dolly the sheep.

    I feel sorry for that kid already. You'd think they'd learn how to do it properly with the animals before trying to make a human.

  30. Easy Clone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    cp -R / /clone

  31. Great news. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's about time someone stepped up to the plate and attempted this.

    Of course, now we have to put up with all the naysayers who haven't a clue - the ones who think cloning in this nature produces identical creatures.. Ignoring the fact that environment and a hell of a lot of other factors have as much, if not more, to do with personality/etc. than genes.

    Well, they're better than the religious nuts who insist we shouldn't 'play god'. (Usually, they're from a certain church that has a body count higher than Hitler and Stalin's put together, a church that utterly decimated other religions, robbed from the poor to give to the rich, etc..)

    The first type can be educated, or at the least, disagree with a manner of rational thought. The latter, well, they're out to preserve their own powerbase. At any rate, we need more scientists who aren't afraid of losing funding or popularity to keep carrying out research and experiments in 'taboo' areas. Fear should never stand in the way of progress.

  32. Antinori by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Being Italian I know very well doc. Antinori and I can assure you that here his reputation is equal to 0, he's a fool who would do anything to get some articles on magazine and on TV. In the past he already committed many operations of this kind all absoloutely against any ethic.

    1. Re:Antinori by The+LowTech+Swede · · Score: 1

      This would have been much more interesting if it wasn't by an AC. / TLTS

  33. Re:Anybody care to comment on involuntary cloning? by altaic · · Score: 1

    Ask any identical twin if they had any choice in the matter. =) -Altaic

  34. for the love of science by ardiri · · Score: 1
    push aside all ethetical and religious issues - but, this is science here! some may call it an advancement in humankind and, some will say it is a message of the devil. either way, we were given our own minds and the ability to control what we do with them - this does not make us evil or bad.. thats all the eye of the beholder.. the families involved in these tests want children - and, they dont want to seek alternative methods such as adoption (which, is understandable). i imagine in the future, it may even be possible to take two parents.. mix the genes of both and have a new child via cloning - you could take the best from both worlds (mother + father).. and, have a unique individual.

    it makes me sick when governments try and get in the way to oppose research like this. it should however, be done with caution. we wouldn't want to see genetically engineered porn stars with 20" penises now would we (women, please refrain from commenting) :P

    1. Re:for the love of science by AVee · · Score: 1

      it should however, be done with caution.

      Do you trust the world enough for that? Take a look around! Sure, from a science point of view it's a big achievement. But it one of those things that are sure to be abused and I this case the damage is very likely to be bigger then the gain from it. Besides that, Dr Antinori takes great risks with the life of this child and I don't think he has the right to do so.

    2. Re:for the love of science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... please think of the children? :)

      So, ummm, there's nothing wrong with conducting experiments where you know that you're probably going to wind up with a lot of babies who are born with serious deformities?

      How is that a good thing? We can learn a lot about toxicity by poisoning people (perhaps even how to cure them), but that doesn't mean it's a good idea by any means...

      > i imagine in the future, it may even be possible to take two parents.. mix the genes of both [snip] .. and, have a unique individual.

      Umm, you *have* heard of "sex" right??? :) It has a much lower failure rate (in terms of deformed babies; esp. with proper pre-natal care) not to mention other advantages.

    3. Re:for the love of science by Grab · · Score: 2

      Nope, he doesn't have the right to do so, and his government has made that clear by passing laws against it. If this news article is correct, he will be arrested and disbarred for conducting illegal experiments on ppl.

      Certainly abuse _can_ take place, but it doesn't mean that "the world" will sit idly by. Josef Mengele and others conducted experiments on humans in WW2, and "the world" decided that they should be strung up for it.

      Grab.

    4. Re:for the love of science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sure, just like reckless bioengineering and the atomic bomb, right?

      This scientist is typical...running around, stroking his ego, saying "look what I can do!" without ever giving thought to the simple question, "should this even be done?"

      Science need not advance by kicking open every Pandora's Box we come across. Once the box is open, we can't close it...and we've already got enough scientific daemons to deal with as it is.

    5. Re:for the love of science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > we wouldn't want to see genetically engineered
      > porn stars with 20" penises now would we
      > (women, please refrain from commenting) :P
      >
      There are no women on Slashdot. They are too busy getting laid...:-)

  35. Why this is good by Ubi_NL · · Score: 5, Insightful

    First of all: I do not believe this is actually true. Antinori really isn't better at cloning then the Roslin Institute, and they usually have a few hundred miscarriages for every successful pregnancy. Presuming Antinori did not have a few hundred women standing by to be impregnated, he really is very lucky to have a 100% success rate.

    But anyway: Let's just assume this is an actual clone. Evidence is now coming through showing that dolly isn't quite as healty as we first expected.
    Apparently she ages a lot faster, and has a number of diseases. Now imagine that, when the baby is born ('prototype clone'), (s)he starts getting all types of horrible diseases, limbs missing and what have you. That is when Joe Schmoe will understand you just can't copy people like you can copy a CD. Too bad someone has to suffer for it.

    --

    If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
    1. Re:Why this is good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, I guess now we'll find out...

    2. Re:Why this is good by BerserkDog · · Score: 1

      If some people can't bring forth life, there's probably a good reason, eg;disease,genes,whatever...
      Pass it along in perfect replication-sounds like a sorry idea to me.
      Also, with depleting natural resources, non-child-bearing-people are doing us a favor by helping to keep the population in a little check.
      Organ farming,OTOH,can be extremely useful IMO.
      this is only my opinion,not an attack on anyone else's beliefs.....

    3. Re:Why this is good by Cryp2Nite · · Score: 1
      If some people can't bring forth life, there's probably a good reason, eg;disease,genes,whatever... Pass it along in perfect replication-sounds like a sorry idea to me.
      It might be a sorry idea, but there's not much we'll be doning about it. Because these clones will probably 'bring forth life' they'll just be doing it in labs. Maybe all the effort involved in growing a reproductory system in humans could be done away with and be used for growing a larger brain or whatever evolution feels would prove to be a useful addition to the human machine. (that's why it could be good)
      On the other hand if some future catastrophy leaves us without the possibility to clone and evolution has done away with the natural reproduction system. (that's why it could be bad)
      The thing is evolution doesn't care about what strategy will be succesful tomorrow, only what has proven succesful yesterday, and the human race doesn't exactly have a track record of being particularly visionary,.....
      Hmm,.. I realise I need some clever way of finishing this comment, but I don't have the time come up with one so I'll leave it at this.
    4. Re:Why this is good by FFFish · · Score: 2

      Too bad someone has to suffer for it.

      On the other hand, perhaps it'll put an end to this idiocy. The technology is so new that it really shouldn't be used on humans yet. Let the monkeys suffer first; iron out the bugs and maybe a hundred years down the road we'll know enough to be able to pull it off successfully with humans.

      --

      --
      Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
    5. Re:Why this is good by Derkec · · Score: 2

      yeah, good unless you're the screwed up kid or the family.

    6. Re:Why this is good by troff · · Score: 1

      That is when Joe Schmoe will understand you just can't copy people like you can copy a CD

      Yes you can. They just have to be Sony's clones of Celine Dion to start with...

    7. Re:Why this is good by djrang · · Score: 1

      population does not need to be held in check- are we still believing Malthus?

  36. What about the 'failure rate'? by WolfWithoutAClause · · Score: 4, Insightful

    With Dolly the sheep, the 'failure rate' was running at over 150:1 success.

    The failure rate was mostly failures to implant, spontaneous abortions as well as some very deformed births; mostly some that died in a few days, and some that were euthanised.

    If this translates into humans in the same way, for every successful clone we can expect several deformed, live, births.But there are questions as to whether Dolly is really 'successful'; the sheep is suffering from arthritis at an unusually young age for example. If you accept this as a cloning problem, then the failure rate runs at 100%.

    Ignoring the ethics of successful cloning; given this deformation rate, given we do not allow euthenasia of human infants; is this really ethical right now?

    --

    -WolfWithoutAClause

    "Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"
    1. Re:What about the 'failure rate'? by Juju · · Score: 2
      The failure rate was mostly failures to implant, spontaneous abortions as well as some very deformed births; mostly some that died in a few days, and some that were euthanised.

      Well, I guess the failure to implant is not relevant anymore! So goes spontaneous abortion and deformed birth (you can do most viability tests at 8 weeks.) Remember, he has 500 women to 'play' with so I am sure he has got already is fair share of failure.
      But then, I agree about this not being ethical... The baby is most likely to be born with some anomalies (like Dolly has) and doing that to a human being is wrong. Just plain wrong!

      --
      Black holes occur when God divides by zero.
    2. Re:What about the 'failure rate'? by WolfWithoutAClause · · Score: 2

      >So goes spontaneous abortion

      Some of the abortions occured unusually late IRC.

      >and deformed birth (you can do most viability tests at 8 weeks.)

      One sheep came out looking perfectly normal, but it was panting all the time. They decided it was better to euthenise it.

      What about mental issues? What about subtle immune problems? The number of things that can go wrong and make the kids life hell and yet be completely undetectable are pretty scary.

      --

      -WolfWithoutAClause

      "Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"
    3. Re:What about the 'failure rate'? by Juju · · Score: 2
      Yes, I should have made it more clear in my post. There is no way the baby is going to be healthy and there is still about 25% chance that it will not come to term.

      I believe that you would have to be a monster to be willing to conceive a baby that way, and that you are surely headed for trouble (big time.) All I wanted to point out is that the chances very fairly good (about 75%) that this baby will come to term. But it surely won't be healthy!!!

      --
      Black holes occur when God divides by zero.
    4. Re:What about the 'failure rate'? by renehollan · · Score: 2
      I believe that you would have to be a monster to be willing to conceive a baby that way

      While I am a big fan of science and technology, and see no ethical reasons not to pursue human cloning technology, it does strike me as horribly immature at the moment, and not appropriate to apply, given the expected problems the clone will face. So, I agree with you sentiment.

      However, people bring children into the world who will undoubtedly suffer: they either live in poverty (the parents can't afford to effectively house/cloth/feed the child), or turmoil (there's a war going on!). While these situations are subject to interpretation (what's poverty for me might be acceptable for you) of course, as a general rule it's a bad idea to make your children suffer more than you do (another mouth to feed, known defects, etc.). Yet, people have kids anyway. So, it should not be surprising that the selfish desire for a child, even if the child will suffer, is a strong one.

      Does that make it right? I don't think so, but it doesn't surprise me that it will happen.

      --
      You could've hired me.
    5. Re:What about the 'failure rate'? by OTailchaser · · Score: 1

      As long as they don't euthanize the failures by defenestrating them...they could be accused of making an obscene clone fall. :-)

      (Sorry, it was *begging* to be said...)

      --OT

  37. Re:clarification by PsychoElf · · Score: 1

    First Post as in: My first post, not the First post

  38. Vanity publishing with a human face by nagora · · Score: 4, Insightful
    The evidence from the sheep is that any child born this way will have some signs of accelerated aging fairly quickly, so the only reason to do this is the vanity of the researcher and the parents. No one would appear to give a shit about the ethics as long as there's money in it.

    Prison should beckon for all involved.

    TWW

    --
    "Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
    1. Re:Vanity publishing with a human face by shawnce · · Score: 1

      I agree.

      I am all for genetic research with the goal being advanced medicines, therapies and detection. I also support the use of cloning for the replication of cells, tissues, and organs.

      In my opinion the use of cloning for the replication of an individual is wrong, not because someone is being cloned but solely because the clone, using current technology, will most likely have a reduced life, a propensity for various ailments (include immune deficiency). Sure children conceived by normal means may have similar issues however they are far less likely.

      This event shows that the parties involved used a clear lack of ethical judgment and shows selfishness on the part of the "parents".

  39. Test-tube babies are now common place. by garrick_rorapaugh · · Score: 1

    For people who find this dehumanizing, remember the case of Louise Joy Brown--the first test tube baby. At first people found in vitro fertilization dehumanizing, then they saw a cute, well adjusted young girl brought into the world. It's hard to call a technology dehumanizing that creates cute, healthy babies.

    The public will accept reproductive cloning as long as the babies produced by it are healthy and are born into normal, caring families. I will be interested to see whether cloned babies grow up healthy. If they do, then parents desire to have children will overcome any squeamishness they may have about raising an identical twin, and cloning will become common place.

  40. Hey by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    In 2002 only female mammals are capable of being cloned.


    More chicks for me, then. Zupa!

  41. Do you think the doctor has been watching... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    too much Dark Angel?

    I can just see his labs now.

    scary stuff!!!

    Mark.

  42. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? Not really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nobody really knows whether or not cloned humans will have the same issues that cloned sheep have---apparently problems only happen to certain mammals.

    But hey, we can always spread a little fear of the unknown, right?

    Ass.

  43. What If. . . . by Tim12s · · Score: 1

    Things go wrong . . .

    We'll have a re-run of the elephant man, and human cloning might be banned worldwide.

    This might seriously hinder research stem cell research which might have many future benifits.

    Regretably, If this turns out correct, you may have your real life... "clone billgates, take over microsoft, and selfdestruct". Now... many of you might say "What a plan!! :)".

    "clone president, take over country, and selfdestruct". Not such a wonderfull idea.

    -Tim

    1. Re:What If. . . . by nochops · · Score: 1

      I've got news for you, but genetic mutations like John Merrick (the Elephant Man), while not common, certainly do exist. Even without cloning.

      --
      "A terrorist is someone who has a bomb but doesn't have an air force." -William Blum
  44. No big deal... by Lispy · · Score: 1

    since i was just planning on cloning SMG anyways, now that i found that i cant order the Buffybot at http://www.aibo.com/, yet...harhar!!

    cu,
    Lispy

  45. Haiku by offtopic_haiku_man · · Score: 2, Funny

    What would the Pope say?
    La vita no e bella
    Cloning humans bad

    1. Re:Haiku by keefey · · Score: 1

      According to freetranslation.com that translates to "The life no and attractive". Hmm...

  46. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? Not really by AVee · · Score: 1

    Nobody really knows whether or not cloned humans will have the same issues that cloned sheep have

    Well, that whould be even more reason not to mess with these kind of things!

    [sarcasm]
    I've got a medicine for you, it will make you, yes even you, smarter then anybody else. It killed sheep when testing it, but that shouldn't cause any fear for it. I'm sure you'll love to be the first one to try!
    [/sarcasm]

  47. The clones had better have chip implants by Conspire · · Score: 1

    I sure hope all the clones have chip implants like these , !

    --
    Real men don't need signitures!!!
  48. Unethical! by primenerd · · Score: 1

    I consider Dr. Antinori to be a rouge scientist in the tradition of Dr. Frankenstein. He is so anxious to get his name in the history books that he is willing to violate legal and ethical codes. What truly worries me is if the clone is brought to term. The reason so many cloning attempts end in miscarage is the horrific developmental defects. During the cloning of Dolly and other farm animals, some animals were brought to term with non-functioning lungs, unconnected organs, veins and organs on the surface of the body etc. With animals it is ethical to euthanise the animal, but with a human that would be legally considered murder. Any human being with such defect (and they are certainly possible) would live a a truly horrifying (but mercifully short) existence. Even if a clone was born that seemed normal, it would not be out of the woods. Many animal clones, as they have matured have developed truly bizzare diseases; spontaneous organ failures, degenerative nervous diseases and the like. In addition there are questions about long term genetic defects, predisposition to cancer and shortened life spans.
    I hope, for the sake of the fetus he has created, that this cloning attempt fails.
    This man belongs in jail.

    --
    AUGAUUUGCGCACAUAUCUCAGCGAAUGAAAGGGAUUAA
    1. Re:Unethical! by JimPooley · · Score: 2

      I consider Dr. Antinori to be a rouge scientist...

      Rouge scientist? You sure he's not a puce scientist or a maroon scientist?
      Why oh why do so many people on Slashdot have this deep inability to spell ROGUE?

      --

      "Information wants to be paid"
    2. Re:Unethical! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      hey, don't loose your cool over it

    3. Re:Unethical! by DigitalGlass · · Score: 1

      It may be unethical to you, but maybe someone else does not agree with you. I personally think that more advancedments need to be made in this field. We eventually will be able to clone specific things which are needed. The ethical reasons out of cloning never seemed to bother me that much, then again, i was never really against abortion, in my oppinion it is a good thing to have. .... just my 2 cents.

  49. Cloning by l0wland · · Score: 1

    This wil surely offer some new possibilities to people who are asked to go fuck themselves.

    --

    "Honey, I feel a certain distance between us..." "Really? A 31ms ping ain't that bad..."
  50. Uh oh.... by DohDamit · · Score: 4, Funny

    Looks likes its confirmed: slashdotters will finally be able to reproduce. Kinda. Of course, I didn't say anything about getting laid....

    1. Re:Uh oh.... by teslatug · · Score: 1

      You forgot about sperm banks :)

  51. It's a good start... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The sooner I can get my Dark Angel (Max) the better!

  52. me.clone(); by LadyLucky · · Score: 5, Funny

    throw new CloneNotSupportedException();

    --
    dominionrd.blogspot.com - Restaurants on
  53. What I want to know is: by G-funk · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Is the sex of a human baby determined partially by temperature, like in chickens? Could I technically have a female clone? If brothers and sisters often produce mutations in their offspring (bloody tasmanians), what is to happen if two people with the same dna reproduce?

    --
    Send lawyers, guns, and money!
    1. Re:What I want to know is: by posmon · · Score: 0, Funny

      http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8 &q=%22the+birds+and+the+bees%22

      --

      update comments set karma=-1, reason='offtopic' where sid=26315

    2. Re:What I want to know is: by inburito · · Score: 2

      Nope. purely genetical. In fact one gene alone in the y-cromosome(which women don't have) makes a man.

    3. Re:What I want to know is: by rark · · Score: 5, Informative

      Eh, no.

      Each ovum has an X chromosome. Each spermatozoa has an X xor Y chromosome. The only determiner of sex in baby mammals (and in birds afaik, as well) is which, of set (X,Y) chromosome the fertilizing spermatozoa carries. XX = female, XY = male (okay, this occasionally breaks, creating humans with XXY, XYY, etc combinations. If you want to know more, I highly recommend google.

      For a clone, the *only* determiner of sex is the sex of the original cell, which will *always* be the same sex as the original donor.

      There is evidence that temperature (as well as the amount of time between coitus and ovulation, and a few other things) affects the likelihood that a particular ovum will be fertilized by X-bearing or Y-bearing sperm in humans, and I suppose a similar thing could happen with chickens, but while I know of many lower animals (amphibians are, I believe, the highest order animals that do this) change sex in response to environmental change, I know of no birds or mammals that do so.

      So two people with the same DNA will obvious not be reproducing in the usual way.

      There have been experimental techniques involving fusing the genetic material in two ovum, and if this was used to produce offspring that had the same genetic-mother (or genetic-father, if a similar technique could be used for sperm, but that problem is more complex) then what would happen would depend largely on the genetic specifics of the person(s) involved. But the same thing could be done with two ova from a (non cloned) woman, so...

    4. Re:What I want to know is: by G-funk · · Score: 2

      It's pretty common knowledge that the temperature in egg-ovens (the correct term just slipped, it's late) can be adjusted to ensure the sex of the chicks.

      --
      Send lawyers, guns, and money!
    5. Re:What I want to know is: by tzanger · · Score: 2

      So two people with the same DNA will obvious not be reproducing in the usual way.

      Correct. However imagine getting a clone to puberty and then taking the ova or sperm from both the original and the clone and creating a baby that way. No links handy but I believe that it is possible for two women to concieve through manipulation of the ova) -- would this 2nd-gen clone now be a healthy (in terms of good genes) human? Remember that the telomeres would be the normal length now since you're using the sex cells to procreate instead of normal, mature cells.

    6. Re:What I want to know is: by duct_tape_n_wd40 · · Score: 4, Funny

      "Is the sex of a human baby determined partially by temperature, like in chickens? Could I technically have a female clone?"

      Uh, no. What determines the sex of a baby is whether daddy kicks in a Y-chromosome (boy) or an X-chromosome (girl).

      Of course a clone doesn't have a daddy, so somebody might imagine doing a little test-tube magic to change the gender of a clone. In fact, a couple of obscure SF writers (Randall Garrett and Isaac Asimov) did just this. They even wrote a song about it. Get out your guitar and sing along with me now, it sounds a little bit like "Home on the Range"


      Oh, give me a clone
      Of my own flesh and bone
      With its Y-chromosome changed to X
      And when it is grown
      Then my own little clone
      Will be of the opposite sex.

      Chorus: Clone, clone of my own,
      With your Y-Chromosome changed to X
      And when I'm alone
      With my own little clone
      We will both think of nothing but sex.

      Oh, give me a clone
      Hear my sorrowful moan
      A clone that is wholly my own.
      And if she's an X
      Of the feminine sex
      Oh, what fun we will have when we're prone.

      (Chorus)

      My heart's not of stone,
      As I've frequently shown
      When alone with my own little X
      And after we've dined
      I am sure we will find
      Better incest than Oedipus Rex.

      (Chorus)

      Why should such sex vex
      Or disturb or perplex
      Or induce a disparaging tone.
      After all, don't you see
      Since we're both of us me
      When we're having sex, I'm alone.

      (Chorus)

      And after I'm done
      She will still have her fun
      For I'll clone myself twice ere I die.
      And this time without fail,
      They'll be both of them male
      And they'll ravage her by and by.

      (Chorus)
      (Chorus)


      --
      .siggy .siggy .siggy .siggy hoi hoi hoi - Prosit!
    7. Re:What I want to know is: by gailwynand · · Score: 1

      I have no idea if you could actually have a female clone - but check out Heinlein's "Time Enough for Love"

      --
      A pilot, in those days, was the only unfettered and entirely independent human being that lived in the earth.-Mark Twain
    8. Re:What I want to know is: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      the temperature in egg-ovens (the correct term just slipped, it's late)

      They're called masturbators, dumb ass.

    9. Re:What I want to know is: by payslee · · Score: 2

      David Brin is another author whose work has several times dealt with societies where cloning of some sort is the norm. He explores many of the possible consequences for the structure of the societies involved. He is way smart, and a lot of the ideas he envisions are startling but plausible. He also spins a good tale.

      His book Glory Season shows a world where about 80% of the people are (female) clones. In this world, cloning is just as easy or hard as getting pregnant the normal way, and whether you have a clone or a mixed-gene child mostly depends on the season. The story revolves around a young mixed-gene child trying to make a place in the world, and a visitor from a more normal human world, whose arrival sets the whole social order boiling. You can find an excerpt from the book at Brin's website here

      His most recent book, Kiln People deals with a society where you can create disposable mental clones. How convenient! Make a copy of your mind, load it in a blank, and have it study calculus while you're on a date. At the end of the day you download the new memories, the "clone" degrades, and you have essentially been in two places at once.

      Of course, sometimes the copies of you don't want to degrade, or be the one who is stuck studying calculus. Lots of ethical questions explored here, within the framework of a murder-mystery.

      So, in not-very short, if you're interested in exploring possible societal effects of cloning, read these books!

      --payslee "fangirl"

      --
      Doing my part to piss off the religious right.
    10. Re:What I want to know is: by schmink182 · · Score: 1

      Incubators. That out of the way, I'd just like to point out how odd it is that there are very few people with ethics against playing God on animals, while there are so many against the same on humans. We all evolved from the same stuff, ya know. I think it's great how arrogant we are as a whole on these kinds of topics. Just my 2.

    11. Re:What I want to know is: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Doesn't seem to be any reason a male can not have a female clone. Every male has one X chromosome. If the sampling is truely random, one out of every 4 clones should be female. Of course, I have no idea what would happen to the sad idividual who ends up with two Y chromosomes. I know those born with 2 Y's have all kinds of defects, but I wonder what the total lack of an X chromosome will do to a person. Probably that embryo would not be viable, as there are so many genes on the X chromosome just not found on the Y....

      Anyway, as far as the defects. Well yes, if you are a carrier for some desease, then your clone has 50-50 chance of having that desease....

      So in a way, it is very much like inbreeding.

    12. Re:What I want to know is: by lukesl · · Score: 1

      The only determiner of sex in baby mammals (and in birds afaik, as well) is which, of set (X,Y) chromosome

      This is correct, except that in birds XY is the female and XX is the male.

    13. Re:What I want to know is: by quantaman · · Score: 2

      obscure SF writers (Randall Garrett and Isaac Asimov)

      Obscure?!? Asimov is one of the most famous science fiction writers of all time!! Unless of course SF reffered to Self Fondling writers, in that case I would have to agree that I hadn't heard of either of them referred to in that context before!

      --
      I stole this Sig
    14. Re:What I want to know is: by rark · · Score: 2

      I believe I dealt with this in my original post, however, the point I made was that I don't think (modulo the age of the genetic material that is causing dolly the sheep to be having old age problems before her time) that there's any logical reason to believe that the result of taking two ova from two clones (or one from a clone and one from an 'original') is going to be significantly different than the result of taking two ova from one person.

      *shrug* IANARG (I am not a research geneticist)

    15. Re:What I want to know is: by rark · · Score: 2

      It may be "common knowledge", but it's knowledge that no biology teacher of mine ever let slip, nor does it seem to be obviously available on the web (I did look). Not only that, but I know that the egg industry destroys (for animal feed, etc) around half the baby chicks they get because they are male (and thus don't lay eggs). Since they already incubate the eggs in incubators (the term you want) it would seem trivial to, if the temperature really could be adjusted to ensure the sex of the chicks, adjust the temperature appropriately and stop losing money on about half their chicks.

      Do you have any references? Or is this just an urban (rural?) legend?

      (if not, I know something you could patent and sell to the egg industry ;) )

    16. Re:What I want to know is: by rark · · Score: 2

      neat! I didn't know that!

      (actually, I think I did and forgot, but..)

  54. Re: yeah but big deal.... by cb0y · · Score: 0

    because by 2020 or so they will have invented rechargers that will make you live for 500 years.

    oh and they will sell for $50/tablet weekly. ;)

  55. Real Question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The real question is, what effect will this have on quantum computing ? =P

  56. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? Not really by khuber · · Score: 2, Insightful

    No, that should be reason to "mess with these things". You make it sound like this is some hack mixing DNA in pails in his garage.

    Progress in medicine depends on experimentation. We'd still have shamans if people weren't willing to take risks and explore the unknown.

    -Kevin

  57. Concerning the success rate by Juju · · Score: 2
    Have you read the article?
    He has 500 women available for his experience! I am pretty sure he had his share of failure, miscarriage, abortion...

    Nowhere is it said he has 100% rate, on the contrary. The first weeks are the one where he is most likely to have trouble, so after 8 weeks, chances are good that the baby is healthy and will get to term...

    --
    Black holes occur when God divides by zero.
    1. Re:Concerning the success rate by sam_handelman · · Score: 2

      so after 8 weeks, chances are good that the baby is healthy and will get to term

      Chances still aren't "good" that the baby will go to term. If success is only 1% likely (according to the BBC interview someone posted), then even if 75% of the embryos terminate in the first eight weeks (which is just what I recall), that means that only 1%/25% = 4% of the remaining embryos go to term. I wouldn't call those odds "good".

      As far as being healthy; of the animals cloned so far I believe the healthy total - Dolly was about as healthy as they come - is more like 0%.

      That said, it's entirely possible that they have an eight-week old clonal embryo; for one thing, the success rate in humans may be higher than in other species; everyone is keen to point out that it might be lower but we don't know. If the baby is brought to term I'd want to see genetic tests to prove it was really a clone, of course.

      In any case, this is monstrous. The babies are likely to be deformed, and this should be stopped immediately.

      --
      The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
    2. Re:Concerning the success rate by Juju · · Score: 2
      Methink you have got you math and your figures wrong!
      The 1% success rate is for implant/early miscarriage... The actual success rate you want to use is 75%. This is IMHO a good chance.

      Do you really think that at 8 weeks they would still have not detected big anomalie? He has 500 guinea pigs to play with. The 99% failures were seen on other people. You can bet there has been hundreds of early failure, miscarriage to get to that one 75% chance.

      --
      Black holes occur when God divides by zero.
    3. Re:Concerning the success rate by Juju · · Score: 2
      Just an add-on to make it absolutely clear that I believe the baby will be unhealthy. But it will be born and technically will be a clone (same DNA.)
      Like Dolly has proven there is still much we ignore about cloning and it's consequences. Life is more than just DNA and the women who participate in the experience are in for a big disappointment. They will get their baby alright, but this will be more of a Dr Frankenstein kind of story...

      --
      Black holes occur when God divides by zero.
    4. Re:Concerning the success rate by mlong · · Score: 1
      He has 500 women available for his experience! I am pretty sure he had his share of failure, miscarriage, abortion...

      Are these women just dense or what? I am sure they could find a man willing to help them reproduce for free, and probably have an extremely low risk of defects. The offspring would even be unique. Wow, what a concept.

      --
      //m
    5. Re:Concerning the success rate by ArsonSmith · · Score: 2

      >He has 500 women available for his experience!

      Not just playing god, He "IS" GOD!!!

      --
      Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
  58. Slashdot editors, pls chk facts thx by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Human Cloning predates Dolly the sheep. Read You are being lied to for further information. Basically humans have been cloned, in one case the clone grew to have 32 cells before termination.


    Now this is not exactly a superhuman race of warriors (like the US presumably wants) but the facts remain. Humans have already been and are being cloned in laborotories.

    1. Re:Slashdot editors, pls chk facts thx by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Buddy, if you really want to convince everyone you're not a raving loon, post a link to something that looks vaguely reputable and doesn't cost $13.97 to buy.

      For now, I'm going to assume this "Anonymous Coward" person is a nutter... I mean, just looks at all the "fp" posts and trolls and whatnot he puts up...

  59. Technology is not evil by radi0man · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I agree that technology by itself is not bad. However, the process that is followed to develop the technology can be. IMHO Experimenting on humans to refine a new technology is not a good thing.

    1. Re:Technology is not evil by Shardis · · Score: 1

      Even if the humans are willing? *You're* going to decide that for them? So much for people having control over their own life.

  60. The Genesis Code by Idimmu+Xul · · Score: 1
    I read an excellent thriller once, called The Genesis Code by John Case. It was about a doctor who was getting DNA from holy relics and trying to clone Jesus.. (I might have just ruined the ending for you :) ) but not only was it an excellent book, imho it is a truely excellent concept!

    Jesus Cloned! Now that would make a truely interesting news story!

    --
    The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
    1. Re:The Genesis Code by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except given the doubtful authenticity of most holy relics, you'll probably end up with a dozen "jesus"

      Assuming any useful DNA would've lasted 2 millenia, no matter what Jurassic Park may claim.

      Heck, we'd probably have a hard time cloning Abe Lincoln -- at least he'd be fresher. Not to mention we know where he was buried, and whether he existed.

  61. ...Make that prior art... by CrazyDuke · · Score: 1

    Just so I don't end up with a flood of replies from the grammer nitpickers.

    *sigh*
    Its 7 am and I haven't had my coffee, yet...

    --
    Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
    1. Re:...Make that prior art... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Its 7 am and I haven't had my coffee, yet...

      Hello. This is a grammar nitpicker.

      You spelled "grammar" wrong.

      There should not have been a comma before "yet".

      Thank you.

  62. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? Bad Science. by rakjr · · Score: 2, Informative

    The point is, this experiment is being done knowing that the child produced could suffer physically in a similiar manner to the other clone experiments. Think about this from a personal standpoint. Picture being an 8 year old child who has a 80 year old body. Yes, there is a genetic condition which causes rapid aging of the cells, but in your case, it was not an acident of nature. You are just a test. They knew there were things they did not understand that were still going wrong when they made you. Rather than doing more tests to determine what were the causes of the failures, they just decided to roll the dice, make a mutant, become famous, and hope that you had the grace to die quickly, quietly, and with only a little pain.

    I think the scientist should be executed the same day as the experiment dies because of "unforseen" defects. Yes, the human birth experience is a roll of the dice, but in this case, the scientist rolling the dice is doing it with the knowledge that there is next to no chance that things will turn out just fine. It would be another issue if we understood and corrected the problems with the other clones.

    I personally have nothing against the idea of cloning. I do have a problem when science willfully ignores the individual upon which it inflicts suffering.

    --
    In a place beyond time and space, in a land far better than this, look for me there...
  63. How much did George Lucas pay the guy? by Performer+Guy · · Score: 3, Funny

    This announcement has got to be worth a good $15M in ticket receipts for Ep.2.

  64. Backups by ZaneMcAuley · · Score: 3, Funny

    Cool, now I can "back-up" myself :D

    --
    ----- Whats wrong with this picture? http://www.revoh.org:1234/whatswrong
    1. Re:Backups by (H)elix1 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Cool, now I can "back-up" myself :D

      I prefer the old school way myself (grin)...

  65. DNA theft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Suppose I work at some hotel and I steal myself some Britney Spears DNA, maybe even an egg from a used tampon. Now I clone it. And sell the clones (you know people *would* pay). Would anyone object?

  66. Cloning Rabbits by (outer-limits) · · Score: 1

    I saw another article in the paper last week that claims they have cloned rabbits. Yeah right, like, rabbits are so rare, and so difficult to breed. They may as well have just spent their time playing quake.

    --

    Microsoft - Where would you like to go today, Maybe Jail?

  67. This Guy is Nuts... by telstar · · Score: 4, Interesting
    "Like atomic energy, cloning can be used for beneficial purposes - to increase population and to open the window of genetic reprogramming." -Dr Antinori
    • And what world currently has an underpopulation problem?
    1. Re:This Guy is Nuts... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, but the western world does. The proportion of people in the third world is rising compared to the developed world - unless we in the developed want to be overrun, it'd be wise to get the birth rate back up.

    2. Re:This Guy is Nuts... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I think you're fixing things in the wrong direction. If your neighbor can't take care of their 12 cats, you don't go out and buy 10 of your own.

    3. Re:This Guy is Nuts... by ansible · · Score: 2

      And what world currently has an underpopulation problem?

      Uhhhh... Mars?

      Sheesh. Seriously, if we (the west) were really worried about underpopulation, we could just loosen the restrictions on immigration a little.

    4. Re:This Guy is Nuts... by blue_adept · · Score: 1

      And what world currently has an underpopulation problem?

      The birthrate in north america and most of europe is under 2.0, in other words, in the absence of immigration, the population is declining.

      --

      "Is this just useless, or is it expensive as well?"
    5. Re:This Guy is Nuts... by Hoi+Polloi · · Score: 1

      The evil scientist population is obviously the issue he is referring to.

      --
      It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
    6. Re:This Guy is Nuts... by AndrewCox · · Score: 1

      There are restrictions to immigration??

      --
      The Red Pill ... all I'm o
    7. Re:This Guy is Nuts... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      russia, and most other developed countries when you consider immigration. arabic asian and african people are going to take over your white asses in the near future!

    8. Re:This Guy is Nuts... by Jon-1 · · Score: 1

      Check the other paragraph as well,
      Terming the U.S. ban as a violation of human rights, he stated that everyone had the right to transmit their particular characteristics to their progeny, or to use cloning to reduce infertility.

      I don't see how a ban on cloning is a violation of human rights. It seems closer to be the opposite way around.

      I'll also point out that none of the information in the article has been independently varified, peer-reviewed or published and thus should be taken with a grain (or a kilo!) of salt.

    9. Re:This Guy is Nuts... by ansible · · Score: 1

      Um, yeah. Go to CA, AZ, NM or TX sometime and have a gander at the big fences between us and Mexico.

      Then check out the INS web site for quotas.

  68. Re:So can I have my own clone army? by markyd · · Score: 0

    Thats not a troll, thats a funny. Moderators are w*nkers

  69. increase world population??? by marijne · · Score: 1

    "Like atomic energy, cloning can be used for beneficial purposes - to increase population and to open the window of genetic reprogramming."
    Why the $%#@ would we want to increase the population of the world even further?

    1. Re:increase world population??? by BethLogic · · Score: 1

      What if, in the future, there is a serious decrease in population and we needed to rebuild? If there was a devastating war, perhaps against aliens, and all the women of childbearing age are killed, what would we do then? Wait until the young girls grow up?

      Or if there was a large asteroid? I bet the dinosaurs would have done it if they could.

    2. Re:increase world population??? by marijne · · Score: 1

      even with cloning you still need a woman of childbearing age to give birth to the clone. We have not yet reached the cloning system described in A. Huxley's "a Brave New World".

  70. Slashdot: Tommorrows' News Today; by Ironfist_ironmined · · Score: 1

    Yommorrow on slashdot: - First Human Clone Eight Weeks and One Day Along

    --
    0xC3
  71. bah. by mano78 · · Score: 1

    I feel shame to be italian.

    1. Re:bah. by Jackson_Ash · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't feel too bad mano78. Perhaps it's just the conspiracy theorist within me, but I truly doubt that it is only the Italians that are performing cloning experiments. Antinori is just the first scientist with enough balls/stupidity (take your pick) to publicly admit to doing so. Jackson Ash

    2. Re:bah. by wo1verin3 · · Score: 2

      But what does this have to do with the article?

      Offtopic for you.

  72. reduce infertility? by marijne · · Score: 1

    Terming the U.S. ban as a violation of human rights, he stated that everyone had the right to transmit their particular characteristics to their progeny, or to use cloning to reduce infertility.
    How can cloning be relevant to reducing infertility. I assume that cloning is a last resort to infertile pleople. If you clone an invertile individual you would just get another invertile individual.
    it could be just me butit seems to me that this doctor has some very daft reasons for this cloning.

    1. Re:reduce infertility? by The+LowTech+Swede · · Score: 1

      ... except of course that not all sterility is due to genetic factors. / TLTS

    2. Re:reduce infertility? by TeaDaemon · · Score: 1

      You are assuming that the infertility is genetic in origin. A large proportion of fertility problems are not due to genetics (for fairly obvious reasons) but due to mechanical or chemical damage to the relevant organs, or ageing-related degeneration.

      I have no intention of trying to support Dr. Antinori, I think he is exceptionally misguided in trying to press ahead so quickly with human cloning when there is no compelling reason for such haste. Whilst techniques for mammalian cloning are continuing to be developed and yields are still variable at best, there is no justification for bringing potentially seriously genetically damaged people into the world.

  73. Linus Clones and Open Source DNA by ayjay29 · · Score: 3, Funny

    The DNA for Linus, the well known operating system developer is now available as open source. This has taken the open source movement by storm as the possibilities of Linus clones become fully realised.

    "Normal operating system developers suffer greatly from obsessive compulsive disorders, which causes many problems with other team members. Now we have access to the DNA for Linus, we are able to determine the causes of these disorders, and develop a fix" said Dr Jeckal, a leading expert in developer cloning.

    Microsoft, who have no plan to make Bill Gates DNA available to the public have been strongly opposed to this idea.

    "Imagine a world where every operating system was designed by a slightly different Bill Gates, each with its own quirks and eccentricities. It would be total chaos."

    Microsoft are currently fighting a court case in which Sun, Oracle, Netscape and RedHat are all demanding access to Bill Gates DNA.

    "How can we possibly compete with Microsoft unless we are able to clone our own version of Bill to run on our projects."

    --
    Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated up.
    1. Re:Linus Clones and Open Source DNA by Puk · · Score: 2

      Well, at least it will solve the "patch penguin" problem. Imagine a whole army of Linuses (what's the plural of Linus?) verifying patches!

      -Puk

  74. Relaxing moral views by bartyboy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Is the relaxing of moral views really such a good thing? Today we accept cloning. Tomorrow we accept euthanasia of clones who are not healthy. The day after, we accept killing old people who are not healthy. Then we accept killing all people with uncurable diseases. Sure, we have strenuous procedures and laws for all of these, but we're still guilty of clensing the human race. (Rememeber Hitler?)

    These are all logical steps. Maybe not within 4 days, 4 years or 4 generations, but they are certainly possible.

    The loss of high moral standards is not always a good thing.

    1. Re:Relaxing moral views by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe they're "logical steps" for you. They don't seem all that logical to me...

    2. Re:Relaxing moral views by gowen · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Lets see:

      Reference to Hitler? Check
      Slippery slope fallacy? Check
      Utterly unsupported reference to "logic"? Check

      You sir, are a troll.

      --
      Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
    3. Re:Relaxing moral views by cisco_rob · · Score: 1

      This has got to be the most slippery slope I've ever fucking seen. Please, *please* learn how to argue.

      --
      "I do not fear computers. I fear lack of them." -Isaac Asimov
    4. Re:Relaxing moral views by frank_adrian314159 · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Just because we accept one does not mean we HAVE to accept the others. Man is a thinking creature and has choices about what he or she allows to happen. Just because something is logical does not mean it is mandatory (selling Crack for money is logical and we still do not let GM do it legally) no matter what people who believe that logic is a sine qua non happen to believe.

      Furthermore, I challenge the assumption that euthanesia would not be controlled by the patient (I'm from Oregon, we're funny that way) and that killing unhealthy old people or people with incurable diseases is "logical". In the end, whether people live or die has nothing to do with logic and everything to do with value. The fact that you see all of these items as logical steps says more about your value structure than about reality.

      And whoever modded this tripe up as "Insightful" must truly be illogical.

      --
      That is all.
    5. Re:Relaxing moral views by gerbache · · Score: 1

      The slippery slope can be used in a formal argument, except that it should properly be backed by at least some evidence. Ever read writings by any of our modern philosophers? Especially in the field of medical ethics? They throw out the slippery slope argument all the time, both when trying to prove and disprove things.

      That being said, I don't necessarily agree with the actual post in question; however, don't go blasting his logic without being pretty darned sure of yourself. This sort of thing, like asking that he "learn to argue" sounds really petty to me, like a cop-out by someone who is afraid of challenging the actual point.

    6. Re:Relaxing moral views by (void*) · · Score: 2

      That largely depnds on how well founded that moral view is. Please backup your moral views with moral arguments, so we can actually judge them.

    7. Re:Relaxing moral views by Raptor+CK · · Score: 2

      Maybe not, but he *did* invoke Godwin, so he loses. Either way, his argument smacks more of watching Logan's Run one too many times than of actually studying WWII Germany.

      --
      Raptor
      "Procrastination is great. It gives me a lot more time to do things that I'm never going to do."
    8. Re:Relaxing moral views by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      The problem with the slippery slope fallacy is that it's not necessarily wrong. By itself, "this leads to this, leads to this" doesn't follow, but if you can back it up, it might be valid tho still looking like a slippery slope argument.

      Just saying "that won't happen because it looks like a slippery slope fallacy" is in itself a fallacy. It could happen. It's not a purely logical conclusion, but it could happen.

    9. Re:Relaxing moral views by mlong · · Score: 1
      Just because we accept one does not mean we HAVE to accept the others. Man is a thinking creature and has choices about what he or she allows to happen.

      Yes thinking creature except some choose not to think and be complete idiots. Like the good doctor here who doesn't seem to care about the suffering this child will have due to health problems.

      --
      //m
    10. Re:Relaxing moral views by uigrad_2000 · · Score: 5, Interesting
      It's hardly comparable.

      He suggests that euthanasia will soon be allowed for clones. You think it's improbable.

      The article mentions that there's about a 4% chance of deformation. I'm guessing that's a low estimate. The scientist is trying to sell people on the idea, so he's going to say something that sounds good. What if 5 of the next 20 cloned humans are badly deformed?

      If we don't "slide down the slippery slope", then those deformed children will be kept alive. Cloning of humans will be discouraged, because of the poor success rate (4% is a poor success rate too, IMNSHO), but it will still happen. Fertility drugs are discouraged for women who are fertile, yet they're abused from time to time too.

      In any case, neither option (euthanasia or deformed children) is good. You live in a dream world if you think that guy's worry is implausible. It certainly is worth discussing. I think you, sir, are the troll.

      --
      Free unix account: freeshell.org
    11. Re:Relaxing moral views by smithmc · · Score: 1

      It sounds to me like you define your moral views as "high moral standards", and everyone else's as "relaxed moral standards". By what right do you do so?

      --
      Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
    12. Re:Relaxing moral views by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He is not a troll - he is a student of history. The Weimar Republic in Germany was the most liberal Government in Europe. It published such works as "The Defense of the Destruction of Life without Value" by two Weimar Doctors. The Nazi's instituted a Euthanasia program, and we all know where that led.

      The point is that when you do not value human life, government and social policies will step in line. The brave new world is not far away now.

    13. Re:Relaxing moral views by glitch23 · · Score: 0, Troll

      We already kill babies whether they are outside of the mother or not. We already allow numerous variations of the act of sex on television. We allow kids to be taught sex education when they are 10 years old. Since when has the protection of our high moral standards ever been an issue before based on the previous statements? Obviously the government and media don't care about our standards. All the above has happened in the last 50 years or less. I'd guess it won't take 4 generations to get to the point you describe above. I'm guessing your 4 year guess will be more on target.

      We already think we are allowed to kill a human at any stage in the life of that human. Why not go a step further and try to be even more like God and create humans at will without any need for the usual, initial 2 human interaction (sex)?

      --
      this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
    14. Re:Relaxing moral views by SmittyTheBold · · Score: 1

      Fucking "slippery slope." It is perhaps the least valuable argument in the history of debate.

      Someone will make a logical conclusion, and another person will chime in with "that's slippery slope! A fallacy of the worst kind!"

      Why can't people see that just because a small hop of reasoning is required does not make an argument invalid. If you read the link you gave, it cites extreme examples such as banning pron transforming into book burning.

      If you let yourself loose ground an inch at a time, you will eventually fall off the cliff. You can rationalize it and say "oh there are still three feet left!" Eventually you will run out of inches, though, and hit the really slippery slope.

      --
      ± 29 dB
    15. Re:Relaxing moral views by Afrosheen · · Score: 3

      Nature used to do a pretty good job of 'cleansing the human race' with diseases, aging, etc. In recent times, people are living longer because our society has changed so much. Science and medicine is inadvertantly creating longer lives for most and helping those who wouldn't have made it past age 6 a hundred years ago to live until they're much, much older.

      Personally I don't have a problem with any of this, so don't take offense, just look at this from a purely logical standpoint.

      Who will feed this giant new geriatric population? How will they be supported? Is the quality of life overall better for everyone or for the geriatrics now?

      The main question you have to ask yourself is this: is living longer better? I don't know if it's a good idea to have everyone living well into their 90's. I don't know if it's good to help chronically ill people survive. Given the tendency of nature to kill the weak and support the strong, some science and medicine is circumventing the bonuses to genetic propagation. If the weak and strong both survive, if the terminally ill pass their genes on to their children, what's the outcome in a hundred years? I'm all for gene therapy but extending lifespan of an entire continent is not really a good idea.

      This is a fascinating topic and I'd love to go into more detail but I already feel a flame, a troll and whatever other bad mods coming down on me.

    16. Re:Relaxing moral views by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hitler?! Haven't you seen the latest wacko - Sharon?

    17. Re:Relaxing moral views by GSloop · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      And you sir are a moron!

      The events are related. The proposition is certainly a possibility - even though I disagree.

      You are the fallacy!

      Cheers!

    18. Re:Relaxing moral views by Winged+Cat · · Score: 2

      What if 5 of the next 20 cloned humans are badly deformed?

      Then it would be a 25% chance. 4% is 1 out of 25.

      If we don't "slide down the slippery slope", then those deformed children will be kept alive.

      Or repaired. There are prosthetics for naturally deformed children, you know; the same could be applied here. And that's assuming the existence of deformed children does not greatly spur research into more natural cures (like finding out why they're born deformed, and fixing those factors).

      4% is a poor success rate too

      Quite. But he's claiming 96% (100% - 4%) chance of no deformation. Unless you meant to say that the kids should be deformed.

    19. Re:Relaxing moral views by GSloop · · Score: 2

      I do think that we are accepting cloning and the possible ill effects says something about the value we place on human life.

      If we value human life less, than the possibility of such things following increases.

      (I'm an Oregonian too - BTW, I DID vote to pass the DWD law - both times!)

      I don't think that the things he suggests will happen will actually happen, but the concerns raised about the value we place on human life are valid.

      Cheers!

    20. Re:Relaxing moral views by Galvatron · · Score: 2

      In case anyone was wondering, I just saw an article yesterday (probably in CNN's archives if you want to check) which pegged the rate of deformation in children born to first and second cousins at about 4% as well. So yeah, for an optimistic estimate, it's not good.

      --
      "The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
    21. Re:Relaxing moral views by elb · · Score: 2

      I don't understand why anybody thinks that clones would or should somehow end up being treated as anything other than regular people. So what if their genetic material is "identical" to someone else's -- which it won't be, given small genetic mutations and changes that occur during early development? They'll still be a human being, entitled to all the rights and charged with the responsibilities thereof. And there is no reason why a genetic clone should ever be considered any more the exclusive property of the genetic source than a sperm-and-egg child would be. Clones will still have to grow up and develop, and that process will make them much different from their donor.

      There's been too much dark science fiction about clones -- people are so used to thinking of clones as servile androids that they don't even stop to think about how unlikely that would be. As long as we don't differentiate legally between a clone and a sperm-and-egg, we're fine. And there's no good basis for differentiating, really.

    22. Re:Relaxing moral views by Derkec · · Score: 2
      Cloning is not a relaxed moral standing. It is a new thing we, as a society, are trying to find a standing on. Time travel back 200 years and ask the Vatican for an opinion on cloning, they wouldn't have one since they wouldn't know what it is.


      Your assumption that we would implement euthanasia on unhealthy clones needs explanation. Why would we euthanaise unhealthy clone babies and not unhealthy 'normal' babies? When you say killing of old people, do you mean the doctor walking up and saying, you're sick and then killing the person or legalizing doctor assisted suicide? One appeals to our sense of mercy over our sense of preserve life at all (human) costs. The appeals to some superiority complex. Same goes for the uncurable diseases arguement. Frankly, if my body is wracked with pain and I will die, I would like the option of saying, "it's been a good life, I'm done." We give dying dogs the dignity of a quiet death with minimal pain once they go lame, we should give people that option as well.


      Excuse that last stump. Anyway, please answer the following questions:

      1) How is cloning (which Italy said was bad) truly a relaxation of our moral views? What traditional moral view has changed?

      2) Why will we use euthanasia on unhealthy clone babies when we don't for unhealthy natural babies?

      3) Are we killing old people or helping old people kill themselves? If the later, why is this bad?

      4) How do you justify the logic of if(cloning) society = Hitler.

      5) Isn't the real "cleansing" issue going to be genetic engineering out of 'bad' traits or persecution based on DNA (ala Gataca)?

      6) How did such slippery slope logic get modded as Insightful?

    23. Re:Relaxing moral views by Derkec · · Score: 2
      Right on. But I don't think science and medicine have been 'inadvertant' about lengthening our lives. That's more or less the goal of medicine ...and laws about seatbealts.


      p.s. don't fear the trolls.

    24. Re:Relaxing moral views by pythorlh · · Score: 1

      Science and medicine is inadvertantly creating longer lives for most and helping those who wouldn't have made it past age 6 a hundred years ago to live until they're much, much older
      And the evolution of camoflage-like coloring is inadvertantly creating longer lives for animals that would have been killed earlier. The whole point of evolution is in taking advantage of your fitness. Refusing to use medicine because it distorts evolutionary progress is ass-backwards.

      --
      Do not confuse duty with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different.Duty is a debt you owe to yourself.
    25. Re:Relaxing moral views by Geek+In+Training · · Score: 2

      Is the relaxing of moral views really such a good thing? Today we accept cloning. Tomorrow we accept euthanasia of clones who are not healthy. The day after, we accept killing old people who are not healthy. Then we accept killing all people with uncurable diseases. Sure, we have strenuous procedures and laws for all of these, but we're still guilty of clensing the human race. (Rememeber Hitler?)

      I'm going to follow my own advice and post a thoughtful (not necessary correct, but thoughtful) response, rather than using my remaining mod points in this thread.

      While the "logic" you use in your argument does appear to come off as FUD, I think there might be a kernal of truth in there. The difference between a slow societal acceptance of genetic cleansing technology (a la Gattaca) and Hitler is just that; slow human acceptance. While progressives who dared to argue with The Church that the Earth was NOT the center of the universe may have been put in jail for herecy; today we accept it as fact through technological advancements and observations, and a little bit of free-thought by those not blinded by faith.

      Will we also one day accept that fetuses (fetii?) who are imperfect are "disposable?" That those who are no longer capable of caring for themselves are guaranteed the right to death? (Insert Humor: Obligatory Futurama reference to the Suicide Booths that Frye mistakes for phone booths. :)

      These are deep questions that we ponder today, where any opinion is criticized for being either immoral (by the right) or Luddism (by the left). I will express no opinion here except this: I promise that if the day comes where society does accept genetic cleansing as the norm, none of us posting here today will be in a physical condition required to argue.

      Keep in mind I'm not going into the cloning aspect here, as that is happening today. We're not yet worrying about the rights and wrongs of raising organ farms, or self-determination of clones, etc. That is a messy ball of wax that we probably WILL see play out during the next several lifetimes.

      --
      SlashSigTheorem: Humorous, Political, Critical, Constructive- If you have a .sig, someone WILL complai
    26. Re:Relaxing moral views by kaimiike1970 · · Score: 2

      Who will feed this giant new geriatric population?

      Feed them? they will be feeding us! Haven't you see the documentary soylent green?

      --


      Do a google search before posting.
    27. Re:Relaxing moral views by Brigadier · · Score: 1



      How did this get moded up so high, This isn't an axample of a "slippery slope" logic, but based on past actions, ie history. Traditionally it only takes one significant event, to start a ball rolling, example, Roe vs Wade now we support partial birth abortions, now cloning a child. yes it's alittle stretch, but it only takes a small break in a mind set to start an avalanch in belief.

    28. Re:Relaxing moral views by Kibo · · Score: 2

      I'll bet we'll see new interesting variations of progeria. What's really sad is that Sally Jesse got canceled so this kid will only be able to go on the Maurie Povich show. And that's no kind of life.

      IIRC, and IANA Molecular Biologist or geneticist, but the standard rate of birth defects is about 4%, so what the italian evil master mind, with delusions of world domination, is saying is he doesn't expect a greater rate of defect than is found through the more classical processes. Which makes him pretty stupid. And possibly this is his version of the fatal flaw that all arch-villians are required, by law, to have in their master plan.

      --
      --Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
    29. Re:Relaxing moral views by Afrosheen · · Score: 2

      Almost a valid point...but medicine isn't evolutionary or genetic.

    30. Re:Relaxing moral views by RayBender · · Score: 1

      Mod this up! Insightful, and just plain RIGHT.

      --
      Human genome = 3 billion base pairs = 6 GBit. Windows + Office = 20 Gbit. Which is more impressive?
    31. Re:Relaxing moral views by Dan+D. · · Score: 2
      Man is a thinking creature and has choices about what he or she allows to happen.

      What kind of fantasy world do you live in? Man, all you gotta do is spend a day with the people around here to know that's not true. And the women aren't much better.

      I personally find my lack of faith in the thinking man myth emperical. :)

      --
      People who quote themselves bug the crap out of me -- Me.
    32. Re:Relaxing moral views by jafac · · Score: 2

      Next, we accept the euthanizing of clones birthed purely for liver transplant for the wealthy party animal who burned his liver out on drugs.

      --

      These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
    33. Re:Relaxing moral views by jafac · · Score: 2

      where do they get 4%? from what I've read, every mammalian clone to date has been an unmitigated disaster. Let's see, we have cancerous chimps, aged sheep, and obese mice. I don't know about you, but if I were the clone-ee, I sure as hell would resent anybody having even tried to clone a human at this stage of the art. It's just not ready for human trials yet. It's obvious that there are many many mechanisms at work that are not fully understood.

      --

      These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
    34. Re:Relaxing moral views by ArsonSmith · · Score: 2

      how do they get 4% right now it is more like 0% of all clones born so far have been deformed. So I would say the chances are good right now that this clone will be fine.

      --
      Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
    35. Re:Relaxing moral views by Jagasian · · Score: 2

      Oh please, its a splippery slope fallacy because each of its steps commit the non-sequitur fallacy. Furthermore, claiming that "it could happen" as an explanation is a sure sign of a slippery slope fallacy.

    36. Re:Relaxing moral views by Jagasian · · Score: 2

      "Possibly implies" and "Necessarily implies" are two different things. Repeated use of "Possibly implies" taking you from proposition A to B, and then concluding A "Necessarily implies" B is what makes something a slippery slope fallacy. See "modal logic" if you still don't get it. Both philosphical and mathematical accounts of modal logic will show you your error.

    37. Re:Relaxing moral views by Jagasian · · Score: 2

      So having sex makes the act of creating people, a moral act, while not having sex, makes the act of creating people, an immoral act?

      Thats the thesis of your arguement. Now hopefully you will start arguing down that "natural = moral" path. That one always leads to a deadend.

      For the record, we have long since found ways to create people without the need to have sexual intercourse.

      I also find it interesting that you think that creating by having sex is un-God-like, while creating by any other means is God-like. This weirdo psuedo-religious arguement falls flat on its face. I mean, if I was to take your strange "god" arguement, I could claim that we are supposed to use God as a role model and not something or someone other than God.

      Why not go a step further and try to be even more like God and create a world of love and peace? According to your "god" arguement, such a "step further" would be immoral. So either its moral, or God isn't all about love and peace. Who is your God anyway?

    38. Re:Relaxing moral views by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey genius, no one was arguing from necessity. That is your own imagination talking. The correct criteria is (risk) = (probability) * (badness). Have a nice day.

    39. Re:Relaxing moral views by maxpublic · · Score: 1

      Morality has nothing to do with cloning. Oooh, wait, I forgot - some folks think that cloning *itself* is immoral! Silly me!

      Max

      --
      My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
    40. Re:Relaxing moral views by maxpublic · · Score: 1

      Unless you're a religious fundamendalist of some sort, it's rather ridiculous to assert that an 8-week-old embryo is a child. If such an embryo is deformed, then abort it; it's that simple.

      Max

      --
      My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
    41. Re:Relaxing moral views by maxpublic · · Score: 1

      There's no such thing as a 'partial birth abortion'. That term is hysterical propaganda used by religious fundamentalists in an attempt to force their rather distasteful version of morality down everyone else's throats.

      If you're against abortion, don't have one. If you think for some odd reason that cloning is immoral (though I've never heard a reasoned argument as to *why* it's immoral) then don't clone yourself.

      Max

      --
      My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
    42. Re:Relaxing moral views by maxpublic · · Score: 1

      That's funny - I'm for life extension no matter what the price. Immortality, even. And hoping that such a thing is possible in my lifetime.

      The way I figure it, everyone who's against immortality can choose not to undergo the medical treatments required for it. They can stay true to their beliefs and die of old age, leaving the rest of us the hell alone.

      Now, anyone who thinks that pushing mortality on other folks who don't want it is a good idea is looking for a bullet between the eyes. Another healthy way to 'cleanse' the human race of people who insist on trying to force their morals on others.

      Max

      --
      My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
    43. Re:Relaxing moral views by GSloop · · Score: 2

      Ok, Einstein...

      If cloning devalues human life - you can argue both ways - then might we not expect similar and perhaps continued actions in devaluing human life and the choices that result?!

      (Just for your information, I'm protecting a viewpoint that I don't particularly have a strong position on. I support the right to choose (abortion) and death with dignity, but I can also see the concerns of the parent of the thread. The slippery-slope fallacy as pointed out is, and I quote
      "The Slippery Slope is a fallacy in which a person asserts that some event must inevitably follow from another without any argument for the inevitability of the event in question."

      The poster postulated that devaluing human life would allow for cloning, and that subsequent devauluation could lead to more devaluation, and more stark consequenses.

      Perhaps you disagree, but it clearly doesn't follow the Slippery Slope Fallacy.

      Cheers!

    44. Re:Relaxing moral views by jcast · · Score: 1

      The delivery of a fetus is called ``birth''. If you partially deliver a fetus, why is that not a partial birth by the same rule? And if you partially deliver a fetus (all except the head) and then abort it, why is that not a partial-birth abortion?

      --
      There are reasons why democracy does not work nearly as well as capitalism.
      -- David D. Friedman
    45. Re:Relaxing moral views by jcast · · Score: 1

      Why is non-man-made change evolution but man-made change isn't?

      --
      There are reasons why democracy does not work nearly as well as capitalism.
      -- David D. Friedman
    46. Re:Relaxing moral views by jcast · · Score: 1

      There's no good basis for the DMCA, really.

      Think about it.

      --
      There are reasons why democracy does not work nearly as well as capitalism.
      -- David D. Friedman
    47. Re:Relaxing moral views by Afrosheen · · Score: 2

      I can't believe people are still reading this thread...

      Anyway, here's the definition of evolution:

      Biology.
      Change in the genetic composition of a population during successive generations, as a result of natural selection acting on the genetic variation among individuals, and resulting in the development of new species.

      Now in a broader scheme, a non-biological focus, it can mean this:

      A gradual process in which something changes into a different and usually more complex or better form.

      However, using medicinal, cybernetic or other enhancements still does NOT change the underlying genetics, hence, from a biological standpoint, zero evolution. If you're talking gene therapy, it still doesn't apply because it's a short term fix...the genes you pass on to your offspring won't have your 'patches' applied.

      To summarize, man made change isn't evolution because 1. it isn't permanent and 2. it isn't passed on to your offspring. This may change in the future but for now I stand by my original statement.

    48. Re:Relaxing moral views by jcast · · Score: 1

      1. it isn't permanent

      By ``permanent'' I presume you mean w.r.t. an individual---taking it as w.r.t. a species makes your two points redundant.

      Now, then, medical enhancements are permanent (lasting as long as the patient, anyway) they just have a roughly linear cost (as opposed to genetic enhancements, which have constant cost.) So, it's linear cost permanence.

      and 2. it isn't passed on to your offspring.

      In a civilized society it is. That's why life expectancies have risen over the past few centuries.
      --
      There are reasons why democracy does not work nearly as well as capitalism.
      -- David D. Friedman
    49. Re:Relaxing moral views by Afrosheen · · Score: 2

      Life expectancies have risen for many reasons, genetics being the least of these. More people are well fed (in first world societies), well cared for, and generally just living better. Most of the plagues have already come and gone. Life expectancies in 3rd world countries have continued to remain low. Now are you trying to say that the first world people are evolving while the third world people aren't? That's absurd.

      Just because you take heart medication to keep your blood pressure down has no bearing on whether or not your children will be susceptible to heart disease based on the genes you pass to them. A ridiculous claim at best.

      Individual or not, our species is not evolving very quickly at all. Depending on what school of thought you subscribe to, the human tribe is hundreds of thousands of years old or possible much, much older. The only way to force the hand of evolution is genetic engineering. If 'corrected' gene sets start showing up in impregnated women then we can say a few people are evolving. Society and the human population at large remains the same.

      There is still nearly zero evolution no matter which way you look at it. People are just healthier, have easier lives and aren't dying young from things medicine has solved (or should I say 'patched' since it's not solved at the genetic level, i.e. people are always susceptible to polio pre-vaccination). When people are born immune to polio, immune to AIDS, immune to Hepatitus, etc. etc. then you can say we are evolving.

    50. Re:Relaxing moral views by jcast · · Score: 1

      OK, I give. You've defined evolution as genetic, and there's obviously nothing I can do about that.

      YHW. HAND.

      --
      There are reasons why democracy does not work nearly as well as capitalism.
      -- David D. Friedman
    51. Re:Relaxing moral views by quintessent · · Score: 2

      It's very hard to "prove" anything. So, all too often, we're stuck reasoning with logical fallacies (some of which you're bound to point out in what I'm saying. But I still submit that it's true).

      A second logical fallacy is say, I'm right because you committed a logical fallacy. And I would go a step beyond that (maybe a slippery slope) and say, we can't conclude anything until one way or the other is "proven." Unfortunately, those of us living in the real world are stuck using incomplete facts without the time to carry every set of reasoning to completion. Even then, are you absolutely sure of your conclusion? So sure, logical fallacies are a way of pointing out a weakness in what someone says, but what the person is saying could still be quite valuable.

  75. missing limbs can be a good thing by yerricde · · Score: 1

    Now imagine that, when the baby is born ('prototype clone'), (s)he starts getting all types of horrible diseases, limbs missing and what have you.

    "Limbs missing" is not a "horrible disease." Having a child born without legs (but with fully-functional arms) can be a good thing for the parents because it means the little fellow can't run off as easily. Besides, it's cute.

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
    1. Re:missing limbs can be a good thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ahh! This one'll go perfect with my mantlepiece!!

      Thank you for the great idea you've just given me. >:-E

    2. Re:missing limbs can be a good thing by djrang · · Score: 1

      yeah, but how is is for the person themselves? what a weird view: don't run away junior or we'll have to amputate... what the heck are you talking about? Any rational thinking person would know that having all your limbs is a good thing. Not that life isn't worth living, or can't be great without them, but it is definately not a plus. Why would you try to make it that?

  76. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? Not really by eXtro · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Well, that whould be even more reason not to mess with these kind of things!
    There's a big difference between not messing with things and caution. Human history is filled with instances of messing with potentially dangerous things. Alexander Fleming for example noticed that penicillin, a mould that grows on cheese and fruit when it goes bad, inhibited the growth of bacteria in a petrii dish. He tested it out on humans and in general it did good things. To put this in perspective he tested something that killed one type of organism on a human being, a different type of organism.

    Jonas Salk developed technologies which led to a vaccine for polio. With a vaccine you're injecting a weakened version of a dangerous virus into a person to combat that same virus. That to me seems terribly dangerous, yet its now one of the most basic elements of modern health care.

    Both Fleming and Salk are examples of people cautiously exploring dangerous areas. I don't know that Antinori (the person responsible for this cloning attempt) did proceed cautiously. The United States, the Vatican and other governments share the blame for this however. They've banned research in the area and by doing so they've ensured that only the more cavalier will carry out investigations. Any suffering which does result from this is the fault of both Antinori and the governments who try to ban the research.

    I'm not a biologist or doctor, but it seems to me the proper first steps would be the cloning of individual human cells then clusters of human cells and possibly functional organs. After problems were solved through these steps then it would be time to investigate a human clone, in the mean time perhapas diabetics could be cured with cloned pancreas tissue or people with heart disease aided with cloned heart tissue. We've jumped to the most lucrative possibilities of cloning but skipped over the most therapeutic.

  77. Arthritis and Obesity by emil · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I read an article some time ago that Dolly the sheep had developed arthritis and was suffering from obesity, both of these conditions being extremely rare for her age.

    This person that has been created may suffer from intense health problems. I consider this action to be extremely unwise, as it will play into the hands of extremists seeking a ban.

    I personally would like to see cloning technology developed, but used on humans only when it is both safe and effective.

    1. Re:Arthritis and Obesity by pomakis · · Score: 2
      I personally would like to see cloning technology developed, but used on humans only when it is both safe and effective.

      Even if the cloning industry perfects the cloning of certain animals to the point where it's "both safe and effective", it doesn't follow that human cloning will automatically reach that state. Every animal is different, so to reach a state where human cloning is "both safe and effective", actual human cloning experiments are required to allow it to reach that state. I'm not saying that I condone the experiments; I'm just pointing out that your logic is flawed. If you want human cloning to someday be "both safe and effective", you must concede to allowing human cloning experiments that involve a certain amount of risk.

    2. Re:Arthritis and Obesity by Ded+Bob · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It depends on what you want. There is no point or need in cloning an entire person. Once they can actually have a chance at performing brain transplants, successfully, there might be a need, but I do not see that coming for quite some time.

      What would be useful now is a way to clone a specific part of the human anotomy. Hearts, livers and kidneys should be where the experimentation is done. It also has the benefit of not treading against any morals.

      I have problems with cloning a human being but not the body parts.

    3. Re:Arthritis and Obesity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      There is no point or need in cloning an entire person.

      To you, you mean.

      I have problems with cloning a human being but not the body parts.

      It's settled then. We'll just call it the Ded Bob Line and be done with it.

    4. Re:Arthritis and Obesity by Z4rd0Z · · Score: 2
      Brain transplants? Scary. I think you're right that it is a long way off.

      If hearts or livers were cloned without the whole human, where would they grow? On mechanical "trees"? That's what intrigues me.

      --
      You had me at "dicks fuck assholes".
    5. Re:Arthritis and Obesity by TotallyUseless · · Score: 2

      i understand that cloning a sheep or any other animal for that matter wont be the same as a human, and that all species are different, but maybe they should get it right with one species first before rushing right into humans tho. for all we know, scientists will never be able to create healthy clones of any species. we just cant tell right now. i just dont see what the rush to clone a human is, other than the prestige of being the first to do it. i know medical knowledge will come from it, but in my opinion that is at most 50% of the motivation behind this man's work. I think maybe we should attain a better success rate with animals lower on the food chain before we work on humans. why not work on cats and dogs first. that way when my dog and cat die i can just start over with new ones!

      --

      Time for some tasty Shiner Bock!
    6. Re:Arthritis and Obesity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you want to work on dogs and cats, be my guest. Your nonsensical inhibitions are your own, and how I come about producing a child is really no concern of yours provided it doesn't involve violence.

      Letting retards and other genetically malformed individuals breed often result in dysfunctional children, but the times of forcing sterilization upon them are over. You're not going to tie my hands for producing my children, so long as I take responsibility for them.

      Seriously, get the fuck out of my lab.

  78. Orgazmo! by JatTDB · · Score: 2, Funny

    What makes a man, is it the power in his hands?
    Is it his quest for glory?

    What makes a man, is it the woman in his hands,
    Just 'cause she has big titties?

    Or is it the way, he fights every day?
    No, it's probably the titties!

    Now you're a MAN! (MAN!)
    Now you're a MAN! (MAN!)
    Now you're a MAN! (MAN!)
    MAN MAN MAN MAN M-A-N MAN
    YOU'RE A MAAAAAAWWWWWWWNNNNNNNN!
    Now you're a MAN!

    --
    "That's Tron. He fights for the Users."
  79. Name that species! by bodland · · Score: 2, Funny

    Human cloning will destroy the human genome by introducing hideous genetic mutation into the gene pool at an ever increasing rate. We may be able to struggle our way out but "homo-sapiens" will become extinct. So lets come up with a scientific name before the clone geeks do...here are my ideas..

    Homer Sapiens
    HS-V2R1
    Homo-XP
    Homo OhNo

    1. Re:Name that species! by nochops · · Score: 2, Funny

      How about:
      Man 2.0 (AOL guy: "You've got opposable thumbs!")

      --
      "A terrorist is someone who has a bomb but doesn't have an air force." -William Blum
  80. Gulfnews.com? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Er, if this was genuine, would GulfNews.com scoop every other news site?

    The Arab press is notorious for spreading rumours and poor journalism. (It usually has to do with "Jews controlling everything and killing everyone", but the general lack of journalistic skill due to the lack of free presses can also lead to crap like this.)

    It's possible, but I'd want to see confirmation before believing any of it.

    1. Re:Gulfnews.com? by martissimo · · Score: 1

      well they would definitely have an edge in reporting this story since the announcement was made in Abu Dabhi, Dubai. And Antonori has certainly been working in the cloning field (albeit very uncautiously).

      Anyways it will be easy enough to test the child to prove or disprove if it's DNA is a match of the parent once born. But i would certainly not be surprised if it's exactly what he says it is...

      i would be surprised if there are no complications in the child, but thats another story

    2. Re:Gulfnews.com? by be-fan · · Score: 2

      While it may or may not be true that the Arab press has a bad reputation, is this kind of statement any better than "jews can't be trusted with money" or "christians are all prosletyzers" crap?

      --
      A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
  81. Re:Anybody care to comment on involuntary cloning? by Grab · · Score: 2

    What's the legal problem? The original person is one individual, the clone is another separate individual. No matter how strongly you may object to my continued existence, there's nothing you can do about it within the law! ;-) Obviously you *could* shoot me, but then you'd be liable for murder as per normal.

    However, you may be able to claim for assault against the person who took a sample of your cells to produce the clone.

    Grab.

  82. Multiplicity? by Frank+of+Earth · · Score: 1

    Let's just hope that the kid doesn't end up like the 3rd clone in Multiplicity.

    "I like Pepsi" *puts pizza in wallet*

  83. I don't buy the infertility issue by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What are the chances that an individual with fertility problems won't produce a clone which also has fertility problems. What happens when that infertile clone wants to reproduce? What then? I know this 'should' never happen, but if cloning is allowed, who's to stop it? Then again, who's to say if it is right or wrong until cloning is proved a success or failure?

  84. Until they clone Elvis by truffle · · Score: 2, Funny


    It's all just practice!

    --

    ---
    I support spreading santorum
  85. eeeeeeeager beaver? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful
    I remember a Star Trek episode that address a similar situation where scientists where rushing ahead with research without thinking about the potential implications.

    This might be fatalistic, but if humans are dumb enough to repeat the same damn mistakes and cause our own destruction, so be it. As inhabitants of this planet, humans have been very self-centered and destructive. The sooner humans die, the sooner the planet can heal itself.

    I find the doctors arguments weak. "We're doctors, we're not going to hurt anyone." Sure and no doctor has ever done harm. Like being a doctor some how makes a person more ethical, moral, or trust worthy. A title or degree does not grant an individual superiority. I'll stop bitching now. Since eager beaver doctors and scientists aren't going to listen anyways. Rapid progress is not always good. Learning to cherish life and live in the moment is.

  86. Living Heart Donors by funwithstuff · · Score: 1

    I, for instance, would love to have a clone of my heart available when my own one needs replacement in a couple of decades (not entirely unlikely given the number of heart deseases in my family). Of course I wouldn't want to kill a full grown living and breading clone of me to obtain that heart but that may very well be unnecessary.

    There is at least one person in the world who does keep a living heart donor on hand at all times, the Sultan of Dubai I think. Wherever he travels, he has a second private jet, kitted out with an operating theatre, a medical team... and the volunteer living heart donor.

    Should the Sultan have a heart attack, the volunteer will be killed, his heart transplanted. This is a sought-after job, with a fixed term of a couple of years. There is a waiting list hundreds long, and even if you don't die in the line of duty, you and your family are richly rewarded.

    Unless it's just another urban legend...

    --
    it's not about the karma, it's about the whuffie
    1. Re:Living Heart Donors by RKloti · · Score: 1

      I very much doubt that is true, though I couldn't find anythink on Google over it. Though many of the self-appointed middle eastern "royalty" are cynical and corrupt, I doubt that they'd go that far, openly flouting the religous beliefs so strongly held in the Arabian Peninsula. I doubt that'd be considered ethically acceptable even in the most liberal of countries.

    2. Re:Living Heart Donors by BinxBolling · · Score: 1
      Should the Sultan have a heart attack, the volunteer will be killed, his heart transplanted.

      Uh, isn't that little "killing the volunteer" step illegal? Maybe there's a special exception in Dubai, but you mention that the donor travels everywhere with the Sultan, and surely that must include plenty of places where no such exception exists.

  87. Instruments of torture not neccesarily evil by A55M0NKEY · · Score: 1

    What if a certain testicle zapper R&D'ed by Microsoft was used on a captured Usama bin Laden to get him to divulge the location of the smallpox bomb he planted somewhere in Chicago before it went off? I'd say the device would have served a good purpose.

    --

    Eat at Joe's.

  88. Let's stand up for the haploids! by The+LowTech+Swede · · Score: 1

    (trolling) Haploid human life is life as well. Let's go out and protest against the murder of all the little ovums and sperms that never get the chance to join and live out their natural lives! / THS

    1. Re:Let's stand up for the haploids! by JimPooley · · Score: 2

      Or as Bill Hicks once said, "I have wiped whole civilisations off my chest with a kleenex."

      --

      "Information wants to be paid"
  89. Wrong, for a few years now by damiangerous · · Score: 5, Informative

    All Mammal clones possible so far are FEMALE!
    You will never see this fact cited ever in a non-journal article.

    You will never see this "fact" because it really isn't a fact.
    See this article from way back in 1999 about the first male mouse clone.

    1. Re:Wrong, for a few years now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That article cited only ONE, just ONE non aborted result of a male clone rat.

      males are a big problem STILL.

    2. Re:Wrong, for a few years now by 8string · · Score: 1

      So I guess that proves that where cloning is concerned, the penis don't enter into it.

      Maybe I could have phrased that better. ;)

    3. Re:Wrong, for a few years now by aclarke · · Score: 1

      I might also point out that a rat is a rodent, not a mammal. The poster commented that all MAMMAL clones possible so far are female.

    4. Re:Wrong, for a few years now by Yunzil · · Score: 1

      I might also point out that a rat is a rodent, not a mammal.

      Um, all rodents are also mammals.

    5. Re:Wrong, for a few years now by aclarke · · Score: 1

      *blush* I was going to write IANAB(iologist) but I suppose that was plain... Come to /., learn something new every day.

  90. Re:Anybody care to comment on involuntary cloning? by The+LowTech+Swede · · Score: 1

    Luckily the experiment took place in Italy instead of USA, so there is little chance for a mega law suit :-) / TLTS

  91. Inquiring minds want to know by IDigUNIX · · Score: 1

    Will the clone have "Patent Pending" tattoed on it's butt shortly after birth? Is this just another publicity stunt for Star Wars Episode II? Will it's name have to be printed with a Trademark symbol next to it? Will the clone have 5 asses? If not, what use will it be? If it will have accelerated aging issues, will it be told about it's incept date and longevity? Will it know it's a clone? Will it someday hunt down it's creator and squish his skull?

  92. LucasFilm by saddino · · Score: 1

    If George and Co. don't help fund this project, they're gonna miss an important marketing tie-in.

  93. Telomeres by Davak · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Does anybody know the latest information regarding the telomere problem in clones?

    Telomeres are long stretches on the end of the chromosome that are cleaved off through the life of the cell. When a certain number of telomeres are gone, the cell knows to undergo death. Some cancer cells protect these telomeres... and thus are immortal.

    However, as clones are created from already aged cells... these clones have shorter telomeres. In theory, these clones should age differently. This may be the reason that Dolly already has arthritis, for example.

    Anybody with new news on this theory?

  94. Baby Bills by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well, a bunch of the microsoft breakup people wanted baby-bills... now we have a second chance.

  95. Quote by kruczkowski · · Score: 3, Funny

    "Like atomic energy, cloning can be used for beneficial purposes - to increase population and to open the window of genetic reprogramming."

    I'll leave it to you to comment on that.

    --
    hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
  96. selling out by f00zbll · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This could cause some huge legal problems. Say hypothetically an attractive poor girl decides to sell her genes to a greedy corporation. The corporation then decides to use the DNA to clone her. The clone is raised in a "well adjusted environment," and groomed to be a superstar. The clone now has no rights, since she was purchased, created and programmed (raised) by the company. We now have created exactly what blade runner portrays. How is the creation of slaves any better than all other attempts at slavery throughout the history of humanity?

    1. Re:selling out by PigleT · · Score: 2

      "The clone now has no rights, since she was purchased, created and programmed (raised) by the company."

      How exactly does this differ from Britney Spears?

      --
      ~Tim
      --
      .|` Clouds cross the black moonlight,
      Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
    2. Re:selling out by f00zbll · · Score: 1

      Goood one! But then again I don't support Britney spears, even if she knows how to shake her things. I take it all back. We're still living in slavery, so no difference. Continue cloning :) Atleast this way, every geek can have his own britney slave.

    3. Re:selling out by PigleT · · Score: 1

      That's an even better consequence. :8))

      I'm thinking the answer is, "so the poor girl shouldn't sell herself at all, or at least shouldn't under-sell herself" in the first place...

      --
      ~Tim
      --
      .|` Clouds cross the black moonlight,
      Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
    4. Re: Re:selling out by f00zbll · · Score: 1
      'm thinking the answer is, "so the poor girl shouldn't sell herself at all, or at least shouldn't under-sell herself" in the first place...

      Hmmm.... some enterprising salesman could make a killing at it. Find poor good looking girls and act as their agent. The salesman and girl both live off "royalties". This way every time her clone makes a buck, she gets a percentage. Man she could retire rich.

      Hmm... the po-tent-ial :P

    5. Re:selling out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why would the fact that the genome was purchased lessen the fact that the clone is a human being with the same rights as all others? After all, a child produced via artificial insemination (purchased sperm) or in vitro fertilization of a "donor" (read: purchased) ovum is considered fully human, with all the rights thereunto pertaining.

      I agree that various corporations wouldn't be opposed to what you suggest, but they wouldn't necessarily be opposed to other forms of slavery either. I fail to see how cloning makes corporate rapaciousness any more of a worry than it already is.

    6. Re:selling out by be-fan · · Score: 2

      The clone now has no rights, since she was purchased, created and programmed (raised) by the company.
      >>>>>>
      Umm, this statement doesn't make sense logically. The situation of a clone is no different from any adoption or surrogate mother case. A women would have to carry the baby. In order to get the baby, the corporation would have to make formal procedures to transfer guardianship to the corporation. Once that guardianship is transferred, the corporation has to follow all the rules any guardian does. Once the child passes the age of 18, the corporation no longer has any legal hold on the child, just as with any other guardianship situation. Even if you consider that the corporation rasies a test-tube baby, you still have to remember that people are people. This is simple biology. An organism that is produced by cloning human DNA must also be a human. Legal rights are granted to people, and thus as long as the clone is a person, they have the same legal rights as anyone else.

      --
      A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
  97. Why this troubles me by tysonkam · · Score: 1

    It's about biodiversity. One day we'll get really good at cloning and then we'll clone everything, people, pets, endangered species... It will probably be fine for a while, until something unexpected happens. When a bacteria, or virus appears that the specific genetic tree we've been using is particularly susceptible. Understanding that some genetic code is more or less vulnerable to different attacks, all of the sudden the genetic diversity that protects us on a species level is gone.

  98. "I want more life, fucker." by pgilman · · Score: 0, Offtopic


    TYRELL: The facts of life. I'll be blunt. To make an alteration in the evolvement of an organic life system, at least by men, makers or not, is fatal. A coding sequence can't be revised once it's established.

    BATTY: Why?

    TYRELL: Because by the second day of incubation any cells that have undergone reversion mutation give rise to revertant colonies -- like rats leaving a sinking ship. Then the ship sinks.

    BATTY: What about E.M.S. recombination?

    TYRELL: We've already tried it -- ethyl methane sulfonate as an alkylating agent and a potent mutagen -- it created a virus so lethal the subject was dead before he left the table.

    BATTY: Then a repressor protein that blocks the operating cells.

    TYRELL: Wouldn't obstruct replication, but it does give rise to an error in replication, so that the newly formed DNA strand carries a mutation and you're got a virus again... but all this is academic -- you are made as well as we could make you.

    BATTY: But not to last.

    --
    if i'm a grammar nazi, you're an illiteracy nazi.
    1. Re:"I want more life, fucker." by pgilman · · Score: 1


      to the idiot who modded this "off topic:" this post is not off topic. it's a passage from the film "blade runner," and it deals specifically with the issue of the longevity of "created" humans. just because you didn't understand it doesn't mean it's off topic.

      --
      if i'm a grammar nazi, you're an illiteracy nazi.
  99. Solution to Linux Kernel Forking! by omkhar · · Score: 1

    Seems Linus has been overwhelmed with kernel patches as of late, this could lead to the kernel forking. So..... let's clone him and make a beowolf cluster of Linus's!!!!!!

    I need to get out more....

    Omkhar

    MCSE - Must Consult Someone Experienced

  100. Can he sue? by lwagner · · Score: 1
    I wonder if you can sue for being born in a way like this for deficiencies that are a result of the way the process is done?

    In our lawsuit-happy world, I would think so.

  101. sue by mlong · · Score: 1

    If I was this kid I'd sue the hell out of this doctor for any medical problems I might have, etc.

    --
    //m
    1. Re:sue by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If I were your parents I'd have a very late stage abortion tomorrow.

  102. OT: sig by Ded+Bob · · Score: 1

    The world is run by idiots because they're more efficient than hamsters.

    Prove it. :)

  103. Oh great by Dirtside · · Score: 2
    If the pregnancy continues without miscarriage, the tyke may share a birthday with Marie Curie
    So the clone might end up radioactive! What, is he gonna try to make it a zombie, too? Just what we need, radioactive zombie Italians running amok.
    --
    "Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
    1. Re:Oh great by NeuroManson · · Score: 2

      *gets image of giant radioactive Madam Curie running amok with laser beam eyes* Bart: "Kewl!"

      --
      Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
  104. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? Not really by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 1

    No, he's right. The did a study and it turns out that human clones eventually develop big floppy feet and a red nose.

  105. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? Not really by mlong · · Score: 1
    Both Fleming and Salk are examples of people cautiously exploring dangerous areas. I don't know that Antinori (the person responsible for this cloning attempt) did proceed cautiously. The United States, the Vatican and other governments share the blame for this however. They've banned research in the area and by doing so they've ensured that only the more cavalier will carry out investigations. Any suffering which does result from this is the fault of both Antinori and the governments who try to ban the research.

    That's right. And the same thing with murder. They banned murder so all murders are their fault. See, if they didn't ban it then everyone could do it and you wouldn't have these fringe people doing it. Oh wait, that makes no sense. Just like your post.

    --
    //m
  106. Hmmm.. by MassD · · Score: 1

    I seem to remember an article in Discover about how things age. Basically, they suspect that there is a protien locked in the end of a gene, and as the cell replicates and "ages" blocks of this protien drop off. When the protein is completely gone after many generations (say when a person hits middle age) all sorts of regenerative bits start shutting down... skin cells stop producing colligen(sp), bones and cartilage no longer replenish, neurons start dying at an accelerated rate.. stuff like that. So the newborn clone has already ages 30 or so years genetically speaking, by the time she takes her first breath. A girl could develop breat cancer the instant she hits puberty, some poor dude could get alzhiemer's when he is in his 30's (early onset arthritis too) ...Rough stuff actually. I would think that unless they figure out this process, this TYPE of cloning should only be done on young sources. So someone could take a sample shortly after birth and use it later in life. Well, you could also get into a kind of moral snafu when you have parents losing a child very young to some sort of accident and then having them cloned so they get another crack at it... But I am not even getting into the ethical side of this maelstrom.

  107. sudden braingasm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My friend asked if the clone was of the woman herself. Without knowing either way I realised that carrying your own clone might be really dangerous. The body knows where the mother ends and child begins by the foreignness of the tissue. I'm wondering how long it will take before someone tries this? Unfortunatly my Biology ends at 8th grade, Anyone have any clue how it would turn out?

  108. Transcript by sharkey · · Score: 1, Offtopic
    The nurse who performed the latest ultrasound checkup on the mother-to-be claimed she heard words over the fetal heartbeat monitor. After running the heartbeat recording through the "Sing-Like-N'Stync Karaoke Machine's" sound-scrubber, we have early words from this ground-breaking fetus!

    Quoth the fetus:
    • "Me Stan. Pachewie-chomp, pachewie-chewie-chomp."
    There you have it, a shocking report from the exciting world of genetical engineering!
    --

    --
    "Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
  109. Parenting made easy.. by uigrad_2000 · · Score: 1, Redundant
    Think of all the stuff you can know about your child without asking!

    You can know what subjects the girl will be good with before she does!

    You can understand why she doesn't obey you!

    You can know which boys she'll find attractive!

    All this, and more can be yours! All it costs is $299.95 per attempt.

    And, for a limited time, the first 20 attempts are free!
    What do you have to lose, except your individuality?

    --
    Free unix account: freeshell.org
  110. Is this necessary? by Hoi+Polloi · · Score: 1

    Lets see, 5 billion people and growing. Spending huge amounts of money on artificially generating people when it can be done easily already via sex and when we don't need a bigger population anyway. Really frigg'n brilliant. If this guy wants to make a name for himself he should work on generating a human being without blind selfishness.

    --
    It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
  111. Telomere bio-time clock except... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The citation you listed said :

    "After I left Geron, they evidently agreed that therapeutic cloning was the way to go, and they set up the collaboration with Ian Wilmut, the man who cloned Dolly at the Roslin Institute. Dolly came from a sheep that I think was about six years' of age, from a cell grown in the laboratory from breast tissue. So obviously they named Dolly after Dolly Parton. In 1999, they announced that cloning did not reset the clock of aging in cells (13). In other words, they claimed that Dolly is "a sheep in lamb's clothing." That she is older than she appears to be.

    Ian measured the clock of aging, the telomeres, in the blood cells of Dolly. The telomeres are like a burning fuse. They measure how many cell doublings have passed and the life span of these cells. And he said the telomeres of Dolly, or the cellular age of Dolly, was quite old. Her telomeres were shorter than would be expected for normal sheep of the same age. His data were very preliminary, and it has been difficult to pin down, but I guess the best estimate is that Dolly appeared to be older than six years of age, even though she was in reality only one year at the time her cells were analyzed."

    But the article does not prove that they have a way to clone a male mammal and simultaneously also reset the telomere time clock (as discussed in legendary April 96 or 97 issue of Scientific American).

    In fact the stock swindling con artists that wrote that interview to rob people of investment money claims that their undemostrated research is SECRET!!

    Here is an excerpt of a reply to a question :

    "LEF: So we need to get a clear idea of why your method allowed for a reversal of the cellular aging clock, and why the method used by Westhusin and by Ian Wilmut did not.

    West: I don't think we want to elaborate on that at this time."

    Ha Ha Haaaaa!!!!! Hucksters and LIARS!

    "I don't think we want to elaborate on that at this time !"

    No proof, no reproducable results, no expanation, no witnesses.

    Thus Dr. Michael West is (was?) possibly a deceitful liar looking for investement money $$$ and dreaming of a huge IPO for him to cash out of his share$.

    Cloning will never be popular or interesting until telomere ends can be repaired in the zygote to prevent bio-clock failures (aging too fast).

  112. I'ts not fear of the UNKNOWN by hey! · · Score: 2

    The problem is that there is good scientific reasoning to show that a cloned mammal will not be a normal, identical copy of the original -- reasoning that thus far has at least preliminary support from the sheep experiment.

    It's not just simply fear of the unknown -- it's fear that something will occur that we have reason to suspect will occur.

    DNA does not copy with perfect fidelity. There are a number controls that limit transcription errors, the ulitmate limitation being protein complexes called telomeres on the end of chromosones which, in effect, prevent a chromosone from being replicated more than a fixed number of times. One way of assesing biological age is by how close one's chromosones are to this limit. An infant clone from a 30 year old man will, in one sense, be a 30 year and nine month old baby. This is apart from the issue of mutations that will inevitably occured to the 30 year old's DNA.

    This guy is monkeying with a very complex system which nobody fully understands at this point. Normally this would not be a problem, but there s a human life that will be greatly affected by these uncertainties. Is he fully prepared to take responsibility for the results of his actions? I doubt it.

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  113. Bladerunner by Colz+Grigor · · Score: 2

    Didn't Ridley Scott present this concept to us twenty years ago?

    If we've never empathized for Roy Batty and always rooted for Rick Deckard, maybe we ought to turn that around?

    (Note: I've read Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Scott did far better at presenting this particular facet of replicants than did Dick.)

    ::Colz Grigor

  114. Infertile humans - why not try adoption? by surfimp · · Score: 1
    Like atomic energy, cloning can be used for beneficial purposes - to increase population and to open the window of genetic reprogramming

    As far as I know, we're doing just fine with the task of increasing the human population of this planet without the help of cloning. (And isn't one of the better-known applications of atomic energy used to decrease the world's population??)

    But what I'm concerned about is this: Why don't these infertile people consider the fact that, right or wrong, justly or unjustly, they're not meant to conceive on their own? If they want children that badly, I believe they should consider adopting an unwanted child before launching off on some science adventure to make copies of their (apparently) defective genetic material.

    There are thousands of children around the world that could benefit from being placed with a loving family, able to provide for their care and upbringing. Obviously, the families interested in these cloning experiments really want a child--so why risk creating a Frankenstein when there are so many living, deserving children in need of a good home?

    1. Re:Infertile humans - why not try adoption? by f00zbll · · Score: 2

      mod up the parent!

    2. Re:Infertile humans - why not try adoption? by EllF · · Score: 2

      Disclaimer: I agree with your point (or at least one of then): there is no *need* for anyone to reproduce, and adoption is an excellent option for many, many people.

      Why don't these infertile people consider the fact that, right or wrong, justly or unjustly, they're not meant to conceive on their own?

      Because such a view implies an acceptance of an intentionally designed world. An atheistic would-be parent, for example, would not necessarily accept that they were *meant* to not have children. If one views the world as the product of fluke instead of fancy, then there is nothing is either allowed or prohibited. Nothing "meant" for anything to even exist - and thus, there is no problem with a cloned child.

      --
      We who were living are now dying
      With a little patience
    3. Re:Infertile humans - why not try adoption? by Mr.Spaz · · Score: 1

      Atheistic or no, this still doesn't dodge the adoption issue. There are children out there who will grow up without parents or WCS not grow up. If someone were to adopt them, their lives would be wholly different. Why all the cost and craziness to clone oneself when the same end can be met through adoption? Some people claim that they want a child of their own, who is a part of them. I say that argument is selfish. Marriage is an acceptable means of introducing genetic material to a "family line." Why isn't adoption?

  115. Re:Is this necessary? THIS IS NECESSARY by Turd+Rippleton · · Score: 0

    Look. The only thing that is going to push mankind forward is science and technology. I think you need to look beyond your own selfishness and think of what these scientific advances can do for us. I just read the other day (here on slashdot) that a "bubble boy" was cured due to gene therapy using stem cells. The same sort of cures may (or may not) come out of cloning. But the most important aspect of this whole situation is *education*. Mankind cannot move forward unless there are technological and scientific advances... such as cloning. ~Turd

  116. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? Not really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As far as cloning, we HAVE taken risks and we HAVE explored the unknown via research on animals and found that cloning produces horrific results.

    The SUCCESS rate in animals is typically much less than 10%. There is no reason to believe this doctor can achieve a FAILURE rate of only 4% to 6% in a species that has never been cloned before!

    Since there are no human experimental data to draw on (no living human clones), I have to conclude this is nothing more than a self-serving prediction he pulled out of his ass. I fear for this child (and it's mother).

  117. Neutron Bomb by Unpossible · · Score: 1

    Is a good example I can think of.

  118. That male rat was such a poor yield its worthless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That male rat was such a poor yield its worthless to cite as progress.

    So far all "celebrated" successes of cloning are always females... though progress in cloning a male mammal is quite interesting though its still a fact that its practically impassible with current methods.

    That male was a one in 500 thing and may have been a fraud or mistake (sequencing to prove its not an ovum from a relative rat is too costly)

    I hardly trust Wired, though your point is made.

  119. I'm all for human cloning. by mindstrm · · Score: 2

    The only 'ethical' problem I have with it is how said cloned human is treated once conception occurs.

    As long as the person is treated normally, as any other child would be, I have no problem with it.

    The *REAL* danger is when we start viewing clones as sub-human.

    Yes, it is an experiment. And when this child is born, and grows up, he must be free to not participate.

    1. Re:I'm all for human cloning. by NeuroManson · · Score: 2

      That's a good question, take for example the first test tube babies... Nowadays invitro fertilization is commonplace, but the first few had to spend the first formative years of their lives with TV cameras shoved in their faces, and their entire lives reduced to media circuses...

      That's just ONE factor... However, how did their lives go outside when the cameras were turned off? Were they treated better or worse by their peers, were they made fun of in school, etc?

      --
      Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
  120. uh oh. by _ph1ux_ · · Score: 2

    lets just hope its not a clone of mouselinni (sp) or some other super villain.

    no off to read the article!

    1. Re:uh oh. by NeuroManson · · Score: 2

      Nah, long ago it was determined that the majority of human behavior is caused by how said humans are raised (unless you're talking full blown congenital or genetic defects)... If one was to clone Hitler or any other varieties of supervillains, stuck them into nice caring and loving homes, etc etc etc, then they would probably wind up like anyone else... Hitler, for example, was heavily abused (mentally and phsically) by his father, not to mention went through WWI... And as anyone who went through such (or studied such) a situation like that can tell you, it can make even the nicest, Mr. Rogersesque person into a raving homicidal lunatic...

      --
      Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
  121. Dare I say it? by word+munger · · Score: 1

    ... Imagine a beowulf cluster of these!

  122. God Said... by Threed · · Score: 2, Funny

    In the Bible, God says "Go forth and multiply." He doesn't specify HOW.

  123. legal assonance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0



    If the baby is fucked up, will the doctor go to jail?

  124. Theory? Try Fact. Dolly measured short temomeres. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Its all been well published in April 96 or 1997 Scientific American article.

    It was a landmark issue.

    But the solution to the telomere time-clock is a solution for IMMORTALITY.

    If you can fix the telomere count down you can ELIMINATE the normal desire to make a clone of yourself (except for spare parts) because you can live three times longer or more probably.

    Plus if you are a male you are in better luck, because all truly successful cloning methods on mammals are females... just as the worlds first human clone will undoubtably be a female.

    They should spend more time researching ways to clone a male and fix telomere chains.

    There is one coniving lying researcher who is requesting money for his starup that has a secret unpublished method for fixing telomers in clones... and he just wants to create a huge startup IPO and get-rich with his schemes. IT would be fine if iT was the truth.... but its not the truth.... they cannot fix the telomeres in a 2002 clone except in theory.

  125. Re:Theory? Try Fact. Dolly measured short temomere by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The issue refers to Telomeres alone, not the many-years-later measurements of Dolly's shortened Temomeres (as posted altready in this thread (change browse level to spot except and link)).

  126. current cloning = Frankenstein by peter303 · · Score: 2

    Literally.
    The most popular method (Dollys mehod) for integrating alien nuclear material in a host egg cell is to electro-shock it. Other methods use chemicals. The underlying reason for why an electrical or chemical shock works is not yet understood.

  127. So? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    At 5 billion and rising WORLDWIDE is this a bad thing? Are you proposing we keep up with underdeveloped nations in some sort of baby race?

  128. They only claimed to succeed one time with a male by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They only claimed to succeed one time with a male.

    Seems like Hawaiin professors might have made a mistake or realize their method is practically fruitless.

  129. Forget the morality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Cloning anything other than organs, ie in vats
    not from a cloned body is indolent indulgence.

    Evolution will not be served by having various copies of michael jackson and madonna around
    for several hundred millenia.
    The idea is to come up with something new.
    ie mix it up.
    this is true fucktard dumbwittery.

    God Save us.

  130. Twins Can be Genetic Clones by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Twins Can be Genetic Clones.

    Therefore you are foolish, and just as Psychology is a "soft" science, so is your theory that you need clones for study in psychology.

    There are plenty of twins (genetic twins) to study.

    They used it in the 1952 Minnesotta twins study to prove that genetics was a prime determinant for IQ potential.

    That is why some quasi-races are smarter than others on average (whatever ethnic races "are" or could be if there were such a thing such as breeds of Dogs)

    no need for clones

  131. The good doctor needs some jail time! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I was shocked beyond belief when I read this story and at first thought is was some kind of joke!

    I don't have moral objections to most cloning research and perhaps one day when we fully understand how and why genes work the way they do we might think about helping infertile couples but we just DON'T know enough today. Remember, this isn't an experiment on the parents, it is an experiment on a human life about to be created! (who, btw, didn't sign a consent form)

    Heck, apparently the doctor is using the same technique that failed on Dolly (sure, he *THINKS* he knows how the fix the problem but I have yet to see a conclusive paper on this in any reputable journal!). Worst of all this is being done to simply to fulfill the vanity of the parents, however culturally influence the vanity might be. When messing with a new human life don't *THINK* you know what your doing, *KNOW* you know what your doing!

  132. It's worse than that - Re:That'll be nice for the by schmaltz · · Score: 2

    It's not that you are illegal, or that you could be deformed, mentally incapacitated, or worse.

    What if you are just one of a string of successful clones, all from the same genetic source?

    One of the givens of being human, that we are all unique, will not apply to you; instead, the inverse, that you're a copy of a copy of a copy, and that you are somehow connected with a bunch of strangers who share your exact genetic makeup, your genetic twins.

    Not to mention that, depending on the country, you may be alive simply as a tissue harvesting candidate for the original genetic donor.

    Freaky.

    Human rights will have to apply.

    --
    Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma ... where's Siggy?
  133. Just take some telomerase and call me tomorrow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    it seems the fix is still a little ways off.

  134. And their little brother... by MadCow42 · · Score: 2

    named "BSOD"

    MadCow.

    --
    I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
  135. Re:Theory? Try Fact. Dolly measured short temomere by Davak · · Score: 1
    But the solution to the telomere time-clock is a solution for IMMORTALITY

    Actually, telomeres are not the key to organism immortality... only cell-lines. Scientists have developed several immortal cell lines... all from cancer cells.

    The human body needs cells to die on a regular basis. Older cells are more likely to have genome damage... and thus work less well and fail to accurately pass on genetic materials to future cells lines.

  136. Alan Cox on a Chip by cpeterso · · Score: 2

    Don't forget that we have "Alan Cox on a Chip", so there is no need to worry about losing our operating system developers! And now that the FDA Approves Implantable Microchips, how long must we wait before we can all have Alan Cox chip implants?

  137. i'm quite disappointed in slashdot.org by BRUTICUS · · Score: 1

    and how this news was presented. How can you quote such a ridiculous statement in the headline as "Now how long until we can buy our own clones?"

    That is total ignorant stupidity.

    Of course nothing like this will EVER happen. Why stir the pot, obviously someone has such a flawed view of this subject and is aware of this to the point that he must pull idiotic statements out of his ass to feed the fire of mindless activists. Get real. ok?

  138. Microsoft... by NeuroManson · · Score: 2

    Do you REALLY want an army of Bill Gateseses rampaging across the world? Say no to cloning!!! Clone Linus instead! Open source clones for all!

    --
    Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
  139. It just gives further example... by Tazzy531 · · Score: 2

    It just gives further example...that just because there is legistlation stating that something shouldn't be done here in the US, it doesn't stop it from actually happening somewhere in the world...even in the US. Take for example RIAA/MPAA attack on MP3s/DivX...It's still going to happen whether it's legal or not.

    --


    _______________________________
    "I'm not Conceited...I'm just a realist..."
  140. It's not like we need more people by Eric+Damron · · Score: 2

    A lot of people who are against cloning feel that way due to moral beliefs. They may say it's because of concern for the newly created human being but it's really that they don't like man playing God.

    Personally, I don't know where the science will lead us and maybe it's worth investigating. I don't like the idea of creating human beings just for the sake of doing it. We don't have a shortage of people on Earth.

    --
    The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
  141. Everybody Sing! by flogger · · Score: 1

    (to the tune of Home on the Range)

    Oh, give me a clone
    Of my own flesh and bone
    With its Y chromosome changed to X
    And When it is grown
    Then my little clone
    Will be of the opposite sex

    Clone, clone of my own,
    With its Y chromosome changed to X
    And when I'm alone
    With my little clone
    We will both think of nothing but sex.


    An oldie but goodie....

    --
    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
    "First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
    -- The Doctor, "Doctor
    1. Re:Everybody Sing! by spike+hay · · Score: 1

      You know, sleeping with your own clone of the opposite sex would be way worse than normal inbreeding.

      --
      If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
  142. Re:i'm NOT quite disappointed in slashdot.org by dtabraha · · Score: 1

    If you'll kindly take note, the author of the offending quote:
    "Now how long until I can buy my own clone?"
    was Vegeta99, who is not one of the active authors on slash dot. It was posted by chrisd who is listed.

    The job of a media source is to quote news submissions as they are received, not steal the scoop and rewrite the tag lines as they see fit.

    It's also not the responsibility of any media source to judge the future implications of a news submission.
    That's why we have forums to discuss these topics, and while you may believe the concept of purchasing a clone of yourself is ridiculous, some other "ignorant stupid" person with a "flawed view of this subject" might find it not so offensive.

    For Pete's sake, who ever thought they'd transplant a monkey's head?

  143. Attack of the Clones by panic911 · · Score: 1

    GREAT, that Italian researcher should be shot!

  144. imagine... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    imagine a clone reading beowolf

  145. Baby Jango Fett - A Virgo? by dtabraha · · Score: 1

    Actually, the date listed on the gulf news report, is 3/4/2002.
    So if the baby was reported 8 weeks along by March, that would put the birth in September?

    Ironically, a Virgo sign (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) may be a little more appropriate, being the first cloned human.

    The legendary sci-fi kid will then be listed with the likes of Stephen King (September 21st, 1947) if you think the kid is a nightmare,
    or Christopher Reeve (September 25th, 1952) if you think he is a positive icon in the scientific and medical field.

  146. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? Not really by duct_tape_n_wd40 · · Score: 1

    Jonas Salk developed technologies which led to a vaccine for polio. With a vaccine you're injecting a weakened version of a dangerous virus into a person to combat that same virus.

    (Pedant) The Salk vaccine is a killed-virus vaccine. Sabin developed the first live-virus polio vaccine.(/Pedant)

    Big debate back in the 50s and 60s about the relative merits of each. Sabin won - his vaccine was cheaper to make and could be taken orally. Mmm...yummy polio virus...

    --
    .siggy .siggy .siggy .siggy hoi hoi hoi - Prosit!
  147. Your Parents did the same thing by The1lorax · · Score: 0

    Every parent makes the choice to have a child knowing that the child will suffer then ultimently die. The only difference with clones is that it is more likly that it will happen. But the same basic parenting principles apply. The Mortality rate among humans is still 100 percent. There are no survivors.

    --
    You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
  148. Slippery Slope __Fallacy__ ?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A: Hi B!

    B: Hi A! What you doing tonight?

    A: I'm going to drink six pints and drive to Dallas! Wanna come?

    B: Don't do that!

    A: Why not? It sounds like fun to me!

    B: But think about the consequences. First you'll get drunk, or at least intoxicated. Then you might lose control of your car. Even if you don't end up killing yourself or anyone else, the cops will probably pick you up and throw you in jail. With your record, your license will be suspended for sure. Your girlfriend will be mad, and probably throw you out of her apartment. You won't be able to drive yourself to work or anywhere else. If the school district finds out, you'll lose your job as a phys ed teacher. No other school will want to hire you. There's a good chance you'll end up a skid-row bum, begging for money to get drunk on. So you better not drink and drive!

    A: ...

    A: Why, that's nothing more than a slippery slope fallacy! Ha!

  149. Carrot Juice is Murder by dadragon · · Score: 1

    listen up brothers and sisters come hear my desperate tale
    i speak of our friends of nature trapped in the dirt like a jail
    vegetables live in oppression, served on our tables each night
    this killing of veggies is madness, i say we take up the fight
    salads are only for murderers, coleslaw's a facist regime
    don't think that they don't have feelings, just cause a radish can't scream

    Chorus:
    i've heard the screams of the vegetables (scream, scream, scream)
    watching their skins being peeled (having their insides revealed)
    grated and steamed with no mercy (burning off calories)
    how do you think that feels (that it hurts really bad)
    Carrot juice constitutes murder (and that's a real crime)
    Greenhouses prisons for slaves (let my vegetables go)
    it's time to stop all this gardening (it's dirty as hell)
    let's call a spade a spade (is a spade is a spade is a spade)

    I saw a man eating celery, so i beat him black and blue
    if he ever touches a sprout again, i'll bite him clean in two
    i'm a political prisonner, trapped in a windowless cage
    cause i stopped the slaughter of turnips by killing five men in a rage
    i told the judge when he sentenced me "this is my finest hour"
    i'd kill those farmers again just to save one more cauliflower

    Chorus

    how low as people do we dare to stoop,
    making young broccolis bleed in the soup
    untie your beans, uncage your tomatoes
    let potted plants free, don't mash that potato
    oh spare the spud! Eat a cow instead!

    I've heard the screams of the vegetables (scream, scream, scream)
    watching their skins being peeled (fates in the stir-fry are sealed)
    grated and steamed with no mercy (you fat gourmet slob)
    how do you think that feels (leave them out in the field)
    Carrot juice constitutes murder (V8's genocide)
    greenhouses prisons for slaves (yes, your composts are graves)
    it's time to stop all this gardening (take up macrame)
    let's call a spade a spade
    (is a spade, is a spade, is a spade, is a spade......)

    Power to the peas! Give peas a chance!
    all we are saying, is give peas a chance

    -- The Arrogant Worms

    --
    God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
  150. Cleansing the race? Bring it on! by DahGhostfacedFiddlah · · Score: 1

    Right - I'll play the devil's advocate - quite possibly literally in this issue, and say it. "What's the problem with cleansing the human race?" Evolution did that for millions of years to *produce* the damn thing, why let it stop there?

    That means that killing old people is not an option - they've already reproduced. In a civilized society such as ours, I don't see killing as the answer to improving our race, but sterilization. There's no point to killing people when they can be sterilized. Better than that, though, is the solution in this slashdot article - removing undesirable eggs from the mix altogether.

    What's wrong with wanting a society without Alzheimers? Without diabetes?

    The huge problem comes when people add "Without blacks or catholics" into this mix, and start killing them off. The main point is who gets to decide what is undesirable? It can't be by majority - "you can't have 4 wolves and one sheep vote on what to have for dinner".

    I also think that the parent should have the final veto. They can have whatever kind of child they want.

    There are issues that have to be dealt with, but I hardly view the improvement of the human race as a bad thing, just a sensitive one. After all, if we don't start improving ourselves now, we'll have no chance at all when the robots come.

  151. Re:what's wrong with clones anyways? Not really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Actually, if you're not a reactionary idiot bent on finding any possible reason to oppose human cloning that won't require you to engage your brain, it makes perfect sense.

    Your analogy with murder, however, makes no sense to anyone who doesn't require a power winch to correct their rectal/cranial inversion issues.

    Since you seem to have comprehension problems, let me spell it out for you: the only reason it doesn't make sense to you is that you're an complete idiot.

  152. geopgaphically ironic possibilty by electryc_monkie · · Score: 1

    as the article references an Islamic -medically friendly country.... hmmm, makes me amused at the irony of possible location of research being in the "[in]furtil[ity] cresent."

    --
    electryc monk(ie)
  153. social effects by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... but there is no real public discussion about the long-term social and biological consequences of the use of technologies ...

    As is often the case, there is little, if any, discussion about the long-term effects of new technologies. However, if a discussion about the long-term social effects of a technology takes place, then we would be stopping progress based on whether the vast majority find the technology or progress socially acceptable. This would obviously hold back important advances. Take for example darwinism - should a discussion have taken place about the long-term social effects of allowing Darwin to continue his work?
  154. this is just HumanClone (c) v. 1.0 by themusicgod1 · · Score: 1

    wait till version 3.1, most of the aging problems and DNA problems will be solved and all we will be stuck with is a tendancy to loose track of what they are doing and a strange blue skin colour when they get tired and need to sleep for awhile / reboot :).

    seriously though, this is just the first stages of the human cloning process...and sooner or later the problem rate will go down low enough to be standable
    Do i support this? not really...i think we have enough humans being produced we do not need more creative ways of making children. people...there are 6 fucking billion of us!

    --
    GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
  155. Re:Anybody care to comment on involuntary cloning? by Aexia · · Score: 2

    Star Trek the Next Generation had an episode featuring a society of clones. They use DNA from Riker and Pulaski to create clones of them. Riker feels violated and kills the clones while they're still developing.

    It was an abortion rights metaphor originally but now, it's becoming a frightening take on an actual issue.

  156. Re:Anybody care to comment on involuntary cloning? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Since I had no say so about my conception can I sue my parents for conceiving me? What if I had wanted to be a different sex?. Can I sue for that too? I have to wear glasses and I have artifical dentures - another suit??
    What next? Do we sue God for creating mankind, which resulted in our birth?

    Just how STUPID is this world going to get before we finally wipe ourselves out??
    /rant

  157. OT: Ariel Sharon = Adolf Hitler by Jagasian · · Score: 2

    If you are talking to most Americans, then no, they haven't seen Ariel Sharon for what he is, the latest Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, Joseph Stalin, Slobodan Milosevic, or Saddam Hussein.

    Sharon is guilty of mass genocide. Outside of the USA, where the media and government aren't so heavily Israeli biased, Sharon is known as the butcher of Beirut - because back in 1982 he had 1000s of innocent civilian women and chilren rounded up into a camp and brutally killed. Not only that, but international committees have recognized that Sharon has committed crimes against humantiy... however, for some reason, Israel is above the law... Sharon is never going to appear in a War Crimes Tribunal, even though he should. Not only that, but Israel has continued to neglect to respect a decades old UN ruling that it must allow the Palestinians to return to their homes. What is a people supposed to do when the legal avenues are all blocked?

    Need I remind you what "sparked" this latest conflict? You can even found this out on CNN, a very biased news source in this entire conflict. It started when Sharon visited a Muslim holy place. Again, in case you don't get it, this would be the equivalent of Hitler visiting the wailing wall.

    And all the while, this Israel v Palestine conflict is shown on TV (in my home, the USA)... Arafat is the bad guy and Sharon is the good guy. Black, white. My side, your side. Alpha, Omega. True, False. Tit, tat. Eye for an eye. Life for a life. War for peace?

    He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword.

    1. Re:OT: Ariel Sharon = Adolf Hitler by smaug195 · · Score: 1

      A) It was 600 people B) It was not by Ariel Sharon, and far from being ordered by Ariel Sharon. Christian paramilitaries operating under Israeli command in lebanon went into a settlement with around 200 suspected terrorists, the bad blood between these 2 groups ensued and they killed 600 civilians. A commision out to get blood found Ariel Sharon partially responsible because he did not forsee this happening. So please, go spread your FUD elsewhere. And might I add, he has every right to visit muslim holy places. Just like Israel allows anyone to visit the wailing wall.

    2. Re:OT: Ariel Sharon = Adolf Hitler by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      A commision out to get blood found Ariel Sharon partially responsible because he did not forsee this happening.
      As top dog of the Israeli military he was found to be indirectly responsible because:

      1. He knew full well it was going to happen

      2. Israeli troops ignored the pleas from palestinian women rushing out of the camp to save those inside

      3. A watchtower had Israeli troops stationed at a perfect vantage point to see everything as it was happening and yet did nothing

      There are probably lots of other reasons which I can't remember right now.

      The belgians are after Sharon right now. If he sets foot in Belgium he will most likely be arrested.

  158. ...and then, and then and then... by Jagasian · · Score: 2

    The next logical step would be to run around having gay anal sex! After that, it would be with animals! And of course, this is all a gateway into hardcore drug abuse of crack-cocaine. Oh, what about the children, the poor children?

    Seriously for a second, if anything is going to go wrong with society, with regards to cloning, it will be all of these weirdo anti-cloning people who will not treat clones as real humans with the same rights of sperms.

  159. Well... this is stupid. by autopr0n · · Score: 2

    Great, this is just what we need. I'm a proponent of cloning. I say if you can do with with the same or lower error rate as naturual reproduction, great. But as far as I know, we can't (am I wrong). There are a lot of bugs to be worked out before we should be trying this on humans.

    This girl is going to be fucked up, no doubt about it, and it's going to set back the feild of cloning by decades. (maybe that was his plan all a long?)

    --
    autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
    1. Re:Well... this is stupid. by BRUTICUS · · Score: 1

      you have an interesting view on this but I think they have to start somewhere. Perhaps you're right, maybe they have too many questions that need answers to be trying on humans. I would think they would test it to no end until the only way to find out more information was to test on a human. This is what I would hope from scientists of today.

  160. Pull your head out of your arse by ossammaa · · Score: 1

    Religion is only useful for one thing: War. Isn't it obvious that religion is a total load of horse shit, as there's no evidence to back their claims? For instance, the bible said the earth, the sun, and all the lifeforms on earth were created in one week in the year 4,000 BC but this has been proven to be one bag of shit.
    Why should science be held back by deeply religious people who believe in something that was made up by some fwit who needed to give his people a reason to go to war. That's ALL religion is; something made up with absolutely no reason behind it so people can go to war over it.
    Now why is there so much controversy about human cloning and stem cell research if religious groups can't back their claims?

    1. Re:Pull your head out of your arse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      first, i think you bias towards religon is a crock myself, but i wont touch that- you cannot hope to overcome ignorance in a single post. My only reply will be: read the book Brave New world.
      the first 3 chapters should be enough for you, but then you probably wouldn't get the point anyways.

      mmm 96 identical twins.

  161. Re:It's worse than that - Re:That'll be nice for t by 0x0d0a · · Score: 1

    What if you are illegal

    Then the establishment will probably have to change. Being religious was illegal in the USSR at one point, too.

    ...you could be deformed, mentally incapacitated, or worse

    Yup, all of which could happen without to a non-cloned person as well.

    What if you are just one of a string of a successful clones, all from the same genetic source?

    Well, then I guess he'd be a clone. So?

    One of the givens of being human, that we are all unique, will not apply to you...

    (I'm going to modify your sentence to be "genetically unique", since otherwise your sentence would be quite biased). At one point, being vulnerable to smallpox was a given of being human. That's changed. This can as well.

    Not to mention that, depending on the country, you may be alive simply as a tissue harvesting candidate for the original genetic donor

    Yeah, as opposed to a genetic vessel for your parents to carry on their genes?

    Cloning may be a bit different, but it's hardly some hideous, awful thing. I don't see why everyone gets so worked up about it.

  162. Late addition but by aztektum · · Score: 1

    At this rate at least we still have time to prepare before the Clone War

    --
    :: aztek ::
    No sig for you!!
  163. I shall call him... by Snover · · Score: 1

    ...minime.

    --

    [insert witty comment here]
  164. ack life is stranger than fiction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    i regret that i did not catch these original posts (on thursday) because i was busily reading 1984 and Brave New World, I came out of my hole today saturday and see this and the id chips, and have decided that I will climb back into my hole now

  165. In related news.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Now official, Netcraft confirms: *BSD is dying

    Yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered *BSD community when recently IDC confirmed that *BSD accounts for less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of the latest Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as further exemplified by failing dead last [samag.com] in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

    You don't need to be a Kreskin [amdest.com] to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood. FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers.

    Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

    OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.

    Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

    All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS hobbyist dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.

    Fact: *BSD is dying

  166. Security, DNA, and Fingerprints by Ciberous · · Score: 1

    Does a clone have the same fingerprints as the original copy?

    If it was possible to close a person with identical fingerprints what kind of security problems would this cause?

    As we get into the future with biometrics and DNA scans, how will clones "fit in". If you make 20 clones, should there be a law to make them genetically and biometrically different? If so, how do you do that, should you do that, or would that be against their constitutional rights?

  167. Re:Cleansing the race? Bring it on! by jcast · · Score: 1

    I also think that the parent should have the final veto.

    Please bear in mind most children have two (biological) parents. Should they both get a say?
    --
    There are reasons why democracy does not work nearly as well as capitalism.
    -- David D. Friedman
  168. Re:Are you a palestinean? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So your a jew??

  169. Re:Cleansing the race? Bring it on! by DahGhostfacedFiddlah · · Score: 1

    Right - and there are more than one parent in the the world. By saying "the parent", I was referring to a set of people, not to a single, over-riding Parent. Specifically, I was referring to anyone who could be referred to as a parent of the child in question. Of course, that brings up the question of sperm donors, etc. They could be considered a "parent", but probably shouldn't have any say in the outcome of a child they'll never meet. IANAL, I was just outlining one of the *many* guidelines that would be required in a gene-manipulating world.

    And now look at me - I thought your sig was part of the comment, and got all defensive. Ah well.

  170. Re:Cleansing the race? Bring it on! by jcast · · Score: 1

    My thought exactly {well, almost.}

    --
    There are reasons why democracy does not work nearly as well as capitalism.
    -- David D. Friedman
  171. You're an idiot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    You're an idiot. While I agree it is not politically correct to say that a child is better off raised in a nuclear family, simply throwing out words that may be too complicated for you to spell correctly fails to prove your case.

    For that to be ethnocentric, he would have to be delaring that his own ethnicity (race) is superior to another ethnicity (race) simply because his race has a different view on nuclear families. In fact, he never brought race into the discussion. Furthermore, the concept of a nuclear family is aligned with only one race or subset of races, so he can definitely not be declared ethnocentric based on what we have read.

    Likewise, one cannot call the nuclear family an anthropo[lo]gical aberration without first establishing that the vast majority of humans were born outside of the nuclear family. Since we already know that the majority of humans are in fact raised within a nuclear family, we also know the concept of a nuclear family is not an aberration.

    Looks like it's back to the drawing board for you. Time to find a new cause -- this time, pick one that doesn't require the use of such big words -- stick with ones that are shorter than, let's say, 4 letters.