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First Human Clone Born?
slantyyz writes "A religious cult, the Raelians, has claimed that the birth of first human clone is one of theirs. While this hasn't been corroborated yet, it's making headlines in Canada, where the cult is based. There's supposed to be a press conference on Friday in Hollywood. This story just may have legs."
Don't bother, they're already here....
Hopefully the clone will have legs too!
This is news? Come on, who among us didn't expect the first cloned baby to come from a Canadian religious cult? Duh People!
the first human clone has probably already been walking around for a while. I have a hard time believing that the experts would sit by not doing it because people are afraid. As many people as are looking at cloning, surely someone had already done it before this.
It's easy to stand out when the general level of competence is so low.
Let's assume this is just PR by a cult sect. But still, it is worrying - that here we have people who are willing to perform what amounts to human experimentation *despite* the defects shown in many of the cloned animals. Doing this to a human being is in my eyes not any better than the medical experiments conducted by the Nazis.
We need to regulate this type of research and deal with rogue 'scientists' and 'doctors' who are willing to do such acts. Please note that I think an outright ban on human cloning is not a good idea, there is too much promise in the technology - just, we need to be very, very careful what we're doing with it.
Saw this earlier today. Probably based on the same news feed, but what the hey. Here you go.
Constitutionally Correct
I wouldn't put too much weight on what they Raelians say, this is a publicity stunt and I wouldn't be surprised if the Scientologists were saying the same. There definition of a cloned human probably follows their guidelines too and not scientifically sound.
In my neighorhood for quite some time the Raelians have been trying to recruit ppl. They drive around in this van with sparkling stickers - kind of like a moving target. I got one of their fliers one day and had quite chuckle. I don't think they are too far off Scientologists either. There is some info on the Raelians here.
Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
Just what we need, a bunch of cloned Canadiens... Why didn't they choose to clone some Swedish chicks?
I travel through Canada regulrly, enroute to the more western portions of the US.
It appears that they have finally invented a way to overcome boredom up there.
C|N>K
Cloning has the potential to really help some couples with fertility issues - it's too bad that the popular discussion of cloning has obscured that point. Certainly nuts like these Raelians don't help matters much!
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
has been verified through any other party. I really think this is irresponsible, it took 20-30 attempts (can't remeber the exact number) to clone Dolly.
SO how many attempts will it take to get a human right? Reminds me of all those failed Ripleys in Aliens 3 (alright a bit dramatic).
Also what scientific knowledge has been gained by these ppl who are based at
The group's headquarters, called UFO Land,
Without empirical evidence, this is just fringe cultists making a radical, unsubstantiated claim. I'm frankly surpirised how much attention mainstream news sources have given this. It's a sad state of affairs when anyone can make wild claims and without showing any evidence, they can grab headlines.
By the way, did I mention I performed successful cold fusion experiments?
I'm a friend of a friend of the working class.
As per the article:
Other experts say that even if cloning were possible, the babies would likely be born with defects. Cloning research has produced many deformed and dead animals. The first mammal to be cloned -- in 1997 -- was a sheep named Dolly, who later developed arthritis at an abnormally young age.
If the clones are supposed to be exact replicas, why do the clones have defects? This suggests we're missing something...Perhaps they're not exact after all?
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
"I've missed a period" - girl ... are you sure?" - cult leader ... this could be bad. Uh... I know! We'll send you away for a while!" - cult leader
"Shit!
"Well, yes, dammit. I told you to use protection! What do you care, you've gotten half the women in this cult pregnant." - girl
"Yeah, but they're not 15
"What about the kid? What do we do when he comes back?" - girl
"We'll put out a press release saying he's really a clone, we'll even post it on slashdot! I'm sure everyone will believe us!" - cult leader
Yes, but how many?
A woman gives birth to an exact clone of herself. A couple years down the road, the child learns to speak and its first word is a cuss word. It turns out that the child is an EXACT replica of the mother except for the fact that it can only speak swear words. This drives the mother crazy and eventually she drives to a large canyon and pushes the child in. When she returns home, the police arrest her...
For making obscene clone falls! Ba dum ching!
<a href="http://www.joblessjimmy.com">Work is dumb and so is Jobless Jimmy.</a>
Some basic exposition is missing from this story. We get the words "religious cult" and then no explanation other than that they want to clone people.
So, um, what about this "cult" is "religious"? You read a story like that, and the labels get used, but what exactly are the "religious" aspects of the cultism, here? 'Cause I'm kinda curious.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Raelism is a cool religion. Rael was actually abducted by aliens and came back with all this knowledge about how life on earth was created in alien laboratories.
;) And as far as plausibility of what the religion says, I think that it is more likely that we have been engineered by aliens than by a misterious god somewhere that is supposed to know and see everything. ;)
One nice thing I like about this cult is that sexe is good and evryone can have sex with any one. They even set up big picnics in nature where everybody have sex.
Also, Rael is a car racer. Unfortunatly, when he was engineered by the aliens, he was not implemented with the good racing dna.
There was a controversy lately with them trying to recruit student from secondary school, which is, in my opinion, not worst than Catholic religion trying to recruit in primary schools
Still, I suppose we have to try and slow down some of these changes to the human race. The nuclear bomb came before we were ready for it, and we are still struggling to catch up to it politically and morally. Cloning has the potential to change the world even more, so the more lead time we have for legislators and philosophers to work on this, the better.
But I will be shocked if the first legal and widely advertised cloning clinic is not openned in 2003 or 2004.
I'd heard that a disproportionate number of Ralians come from the exotic-dance community.
Hey, we want these people to clone themselves!
I looked into the abyss, and the abyss looked into me--and we both winked.
To put it simply(and maybe inaccurately) Telomeres are strands of "junk" DNA that show the age of an organism. It is also thought that the length of the telomeres act as an aging trigger. As you age your telomere strands get shorter and shorter. During normal reproduction the telomeres are regenerated to full length. Dolly's shorten telomeres have been documented. Now, you could conceivable get around this problem if your donor cell was from a child.
As far as other defects are concerned, you must remember that you are moving delicate strands of DNA from one place and putting it somewhere else. There is no guarantee that the DNA you pinched is viable to begin with, though it may function well enough for that differentiated cell to work properly.
The story just hit CNN. Click Here.
-Lokatana
Identical twins are genetic duplicates. A mistake is made during the first couple of cell divides and two cellular masses are formed. These two cellular masses then form to gentically alike individuals. Often minor phenotypic differences will come up, and sometimes under divergent environmental forces, extreme phenotypic can result. Then we get to see the results of Nature vs. Nurture.
Fraternal twins are simply siblings born at the same time. They have no more chance of being gentic duplicats than any other set of siblings.
And yes there is an extremely rare chance that a set of siblings could receive the exact same set of chromosomes from thier parents, making them genetic duplicates. I know of no known cases of this having actually happened though.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
You may find the following article article very interesting.
Most cloning experiments done to date have resulted in abnormalities that manifested themselves later in the cloned animals life. Well, an animal can be put down pretty quickly, and the ethics behind doing so are mostly cut and dried. Not so with a human life, cloned or otherwise. If there is a life threatening condition down the road, the cloned person may have to endure a lot of pain and suffering that would have been avoided had they been a normal conception and birth. Bottom line, there is too much we don't know about cloning to rush to create a cloned human for the purposes of prestige only. This is not responsible or ethical science.
The religious and alien science stuff aside, this has huge potential.
Basic questions of existance are going to be answered, and argued. Nature vs. Nurture comes to mind first.
Is it true or a publicity stunt? According to the press conference we should know in 9 days.
The assumption I'll have to make until then based on the technical process used in animals and the care that can be taken in a lab, the previous efforts that resulted in test tube babies is that is is likely, and all it really took was someone with the resources and the will to do it.
As the project leader said in the news conference I hopr the press, governments, and the rest of the world give the girl, and the family some kindness.
As unlikely as that is, I hope they do, or we may have to wait decades for the child to reach an age where she can come forword on her own.
There's a good chance that the world changed again today, this time with a birth, not with a bomb.
Let's hope the child(ren) is/are healthy.
1. Found obscure cult involving aliens.
2. Ask "tithes" for support and basic nescecities. (6 acres of land, 4 million USD villa, heated swimming pool, turkish sauna, botanic garden, 4 wives, 4^n children, 3 Mercedes', 2 BMWs, 2 Cessnas, 1 Learjet, 1 converted Boeing 727 and a division of lawyers to keep the 4 wives from running away with all aforementioned "nescecities".)
3. Profit!
Hate me!
Raëlians are followers of Raël, a French-born former race-car driver who has said he met a four-foot space alien atop a volcano in southern France in 1973 and went aboard his ship, where he was entertained by voluptuous female robots and learned that the first humans were created 25,000 years ago by space travelers called Elohim, who cloned themselves.
Too bad. If they were located in NASCAR Country, we could expect cloned version of Dale Earnhardt, Sr, surrounded by a bevy of beauties from Winner's Circle.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
If there is a life threatening condition down the road, the cloned person may have to endure a lot of pain and suffering that would have been avoided had they been a normal conception and birth.
I do believe it's important to point out that the "normal conception and birth" isn't an option for this person -- either they're born as a clone, or they live and die their entire life as but a single cell from the "superior original".
How supremely odd...a ban on cloning is, literally, a denial of a right to life -- one that extends before even conception.
--Dan
I'm surprised that over the past year or two, in all the furor over real cloning, that nobody has looked a decade or two into the past.
There was a claim and book, "In His Image" written by someone who claimed to have performed human cloning. Don't remember the year, but the name "David Rorvik" was attached to it. Don't know if it was the father, son, or author.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Actually - I find it kind of interesting you attribute IM shorthand with "nerd" behavior. I always considered shorthand a crutch for those who couldn't type fast enough to use regular words. Someone new to a keyboard. More mundane and less nerd, if you will.
Ironically, out of the adult population, its usually business types that I see using this. And an over-abundance of emoticons. They get some little IM dictionary with their two-way text pager and go hog-wild. They're now part of the "in" wired crowd and want to show it. Right before going back to some email full of terms like synergy and paradigm.
Having said that, to each their own. For me, it does interfere with communication. And it might be worth noting that. After all, its up to the writer to convey their message - even if it carries baggage they didn't intend. But I'm more than happy to let the author have their way.
I suppose spelling (your / you're) and other rules apply here too. But then, I'm pretty bad when it comes to that stuff. So I'll refrain from comment.
.. probably not just a coincidence that Eve was born on Christmas. Probably also not a coincidence that she was named Eve...
I wonder if the birth date and name were a part of the contract that the parents had to sign?
Live web cams
> The Canadians are gonna invade with there army of clones. Let's nuke'm
Jeez, don't you know *anything* about military stuff? When your going to get invaded by an army of clones, you send out your Jedi. *Everybody* knows that...
Chris Mattern
I'm sure as hell this post will be "cloned" quite soon, too.
From the articles that I have read on this very suspect claim it hints that they used the same method as was used with Dolly. I did my Senior Thesis on Geron, the company that purchased the rights to the methode that cloned Dolly; therefore, I have a fare understanding of what is involved with Nuclear Transfer. Although I am not an expert and have never attempted the process in a lab, I have read enough to know that it is a terrible idea to try this on humans at this point.
There is a easy to understand FAQ on the Roslin Institute web site written by the people that actually cloned Dolly. Here are some interesting highlights:
Are clone embryos like IVF and normal pregnancies?
Not so far. The scientists at the Roslin Institute, who pioneered this work, have repeatedly found that the clone foetuses grow much larger than normal ones, and there is a much higher chance of the pregnancy failing, of stillbirth, or of forced Caesarean sections. Dolly was the one successful pregnancy of more than 277 embryos.
What do the experts think? "I think you are always going to run the risk of having aging DNA," says Professor Lord Robert Winston, an IVF pioneer. "I would hate to think of a child of mine being cloned because I think it would be very likely he would have an accelerated aging process." Dr Jamie Grifo, director of the division of reproductive endocrinology at New York University, says: "Cloning is no better than any of the other treatments that are out there. A biological child is the husband's sperm, the wife's egg. A clone is not a biological child." Dr David Stevens, of the Christian Medical and Dental Society, asks: "Are we really willing to sacrifice hundreds of embryos - developing human beings - to make one baby who may suffer monstrous consequences?"
So, there are two very important points that must be stressed. The first is that there is a high percentage probability of genetic defect supported by further experiments. Think of the threat of genetic abnormalities in a fetus that managed to survive as much higher than if you had children with immediate family members.
The second is that each cell has an "age" that is determined by the number of times that a cell has divided. If you use DNA from adult cells that have divided many times, than all of the cells cloned from that DNA will be older. A cell can only dived around 50 times before it dies at which point you reach the Hayflick Limit. Although there are ways to prolong the life of cell lines similar to the way cancer spreads through a body, I doubt that this group of individuals thought of adding telomeres back to the end of the chromosomes that would be used to clone a human baby.
This is incredibly hard to prove, because of "ethical" and "privacy" reasons there is going to be no way to prove this. We don't know where the baby is born, there's no picture, there's no video tape or any other details.
So now, the cloners are allowing a freelance journalist to get together a group of scientists and they're going to take samples of DNA from the mother and the child and send them back. How much do you want to bet that they won't let the scientists take the actual samples?
For example, I could give you two samples of my own DNA and tell you I have a clone. The microchondial DNA would of course be identical.
There's going to be more to this story once these journalists and scientists get to the location.
1) Their leader is French.
2) He calls himself "Rael," moved to Canada, and started a cult.
3) This cult believes that aliens created humans from DNA they brought to Earth.
4) The cult's headquarters is called "UFO Land."
5) They claim to have cloned a human.
Now, why the hell should I believe 5 if 1-4 serve to discredit any idea that intelligence and legitimacy may be present here?
Natural parthenogenesis in mammalian species is considerably more common than most people think, and is considered normal in certain breeds of mice, cattle, and camels, occuring as a result of defective egg cells. In the vast majority of cases, mammalian parthenogenesis fails to produce offspring and results in noncancerous ovarian tumors.
However, such parthenogenic ova can produce clones of their mother when (A) they are simultaniously ovulated into a receptive womb, e.g., shortly after an ordinary egg which became fertilized, and (B) contain a diploid nucleus. Although ova are supposed to be haploid some human haploid cells are naturally diploid. Presumably this is an ordinary kind of haploid mutation.
Although it is difficult to estimate the rate of occurance of natural human parthenogenic offspring, it is probably more common than one in a billion over the course of a modern human female lifespan, meaning that there are probably already a handful of clones on the planet. ["Wow, you really do look like your mother."]
Here is the news from CNN HOLLYWOOD, Florida (CNN) -- The controversial group Clonaid on Friday said a newborn girl called Eve is a clone.
The group's scientific director said the child was born Thursday in an unnamed country. Clonaid was founded by a religious movement called the Raelians, the doctrine of which believes that life on Earth was created by extraterrestrials.
If the cloning assertion is true, the birth would be the first ever human clone. Brigitte Boisselier, scientific director of Clonaid, made her statement at a news conference and has arranged for a physicist named Michael Guillen, former science correspondent for ABC News, to independently verify the claim.
Boisselier offered no immediate proof of her claim -- or photographs of the baby. She said the baby is healthy, and that the whole family is "very happy." She also said the baby's grandmother thinks she looks just like her mother.
She says the baby will go home in three days, and an independent expert will take DNA samples from the baby to prove she had been cloned. Those results are expected within a week after the testing.
Boisselier had told a congressional committee last year that she believed she had the knowledge to produce a human clone in the near future.
Clonaid, which calls itself the "first human cloning company," was founded in 1997. Boisselier is a bishop in the Raelian movement.
Claude Vorilhon, who founded the Raelians, told CNN in July 2001 that the long-term goal for human cloning is to live forever. Vorilhon says cloning a baby is only the first step: Eventually the group wants to learn how to clone an adult, then "transfer the brain to the clone."
Boisselier says the immediate purpose for cloning is to help infertile couples. Last November, she told CNN she was "indeed doing human cloned embryos and we have many cell divisions," but she wouldn't confirm any pregnancies.
No data released
To make a clone, scientists first take an egg and remove all of its genetic material. Then the nucleus of a cell -- any cell in the body -- is taken from the individual to be cloned and inserted into the hollowed-out egg.
The cell is then given a jolt of electricity or put in a chemical bath to activate cell division -- essentially tricking the cell into doing what a fertilized egg would normally do. Then the embryo is implanted into a woman's uterus to be carried to term.
It is unknown which exact procedure -- if any -- Clonaid used, because it has not published or released any data about its research.
Boisselier has not revealed the location of her current lab, only to say it is no longer in the United States. She used to have a lab in West Virginia, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration visited the lab and shut it down.
Scientists so far have successfully cloned sheep, cows, goats, mice, pigs and a rare wild ox. But human cloning is controversial, because the experience with animal cloning has shown a lot of potential for things to go wrong.
'One shouldn't do this'
Many animal cloners -- including Ian Wilmut, the Scottish researcher who successfully cloned the first animal, Dolly the sheep, in 1997 -- disapprove of human cloning. Wilmut has said it took 276 failed attempts before Dolly was successfully cloned.
"It is not responsible at this stage to even consider the cloning of humans, " said Rudolf Jaenisch, a biologist at MIT's Whitehead Institute for Biological Research, which clones mice.
Janeisch said that even if a human clone appears healthy, it may not be once it gets older. Cloning a human at this point, he said, without knowing more about why things go wrong, is "essentially using humans as guinea pigs, and one shouldn't do this."
According to Dr. Jon Hill, a veterinarian who successfully cloned cows at Texas A&M University, even clones who appear normal at birth often develop problems afterward.
"Their livers, their lungs, their heart, their blood vessels are often abnormal after birth," Hill said.
Few legal prohibitions The Raelians are not the only group claiming to actively try to clone a human.
Italian doctor Severino Antinori made several announcements in recent months, claiming that a woman was carrying a human clone that would be born in January 2003. And former University of Kentucky professor Panos Zavos has also announced plans to clone a human, but he told CNN earlier this year he had not successfully created an embryo yet.
Scientists and bioethicists have questioned whether any of these groups have the ability to clone a human. Art Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, has said in the past that "we don't know how" to accomplish human cloning.
Legally, there's very little to stop scientists from cloning. In January, the National Academy of Sciences recommended a ban on human cloning, but only four states -- California, Michigan, Louisiana and Rhode Island -- ban any type of cloning research.
The FDA claims it has jurisdiction over human cloning based on the Public Health Service and Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. It says it would regulate the cloning process like a drug.
What, me Tweet?
By that reasoning, nothing can be unethical. Ethical thought is by nature subjective, and if "Because Jesus said so" is an invalid reason, I think you'd be hard pressed to find some kind of "real reason" that wasn't, somehow, first determined by a human.
--sdem
"A religious cult, the Raelians..."
Funny how when fifty-thousand people think earth was settled by aliens they are a cult, but when a billion people believe that earth was created by an invisible man in the sky, that group is a religion.
Your goals are too modest--I think the deep thought, humane empathy, and tolerance expressed by this AC deserve not only to be imitated in the US but all over the globe.
In fact, I think in a lot of places they already are quite standard.
Making trouble today for a better tomorrow...
Can't find anyone who posted it, so I'll point out th eCBC story as well. Doubt it has anything the others don't, but I'm in the middle of making breakfast so I'm not going to check quite yet.
--Dan
Begun this Clone War is!
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
Actually, there's nothing wrong with the word "cult".
In French, any religious stream is called a "culte", and any church or temple is called a "lieu de culte" which literally means "cult location".
Unfortunately the word cult in the English language has had a rather painful encounter with the ACME Word Twister (TM).
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
To err is human, to moo bovine
shut up with your bigotry.Will you assholes ever learn to respect other religions or do you need a few more 9/11s to get it through your thik skulls.
So if I make up a new religion right now completely from scratch, does that mean the world has to immediately respect it under your moral system? What if I use my powers of persuasion to convince 5 people that it is true; does that change things? What does it take: 5 believers, 50, 500, 5000?
We (really are) the world.
Actually, they have tried that, but it always resulted in death by various kinds of cancers.
The system that causes aging causes cells to not be able to divide more than a certain amount of times. This system does not exist to cause aging. Actually, aging is a side effect. Most probably, the real reason for this cell aging system is to prevent cancer. In cancers, cells will divide uncontrollably. Thus, eventually, they will reach their maximum number of divisions and die off.
Take away the aging system, and cancers can roam free...
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
To err is human, to moo bovine
for one successful Dolly sheep clone there were several (maybe 200) failures. I think human cloning has been tried out in secret in many labs round the world, but hasnt been made public due to some defects. But cloning like this is nothing.
wait for tutankhaman or borgias (first such post) or... adolf to be cloned. There was a book on adolf clones some years ago. soon there may be mammoth ---or neanderthal clones too.
hmm. this just keeps reminding me of the movie Gatica.
As seen on a /. sig...
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Actually, cloning is the worste possible solution. You end up with a time-delayed twin of one "parent" that shares zero DNA with the other "parent.
No, a better way to deal with fertility issues (at least with male infertility) is an interesting technology being developed by a group of Australians that can use any cell in the body as an erzats sperm cell that can be used in traditional artificiial insemination techniques. They expose the doner cell to a particular hormone that causes it to spit out half of every chromozome pair, resulting in an erzats sperm cell. One unanticipated aspect of this research is that becuase ANY cell (with a nucleus) can be used the "father" cell can come from a female body just as easily as from a male. Making it possible for lesbian couples to have children with BOTH women being genetic parents of the resulting daughter.
I don't have the link to the article I read all this in anymore. A bit of searching and you might find it.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
An idea that would make Hitler puke.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
healyourchurchwebsite.com - WWJB?
Oh, and by the way, the stupid lameness filter isn't letting me put linebreaks in the lyrics - anyone know a way around this? If you want it with the linebreaks, I found the lyrics here.
The first ever Ultimate Frisbee video game: here (now
The "free sex" angle just gets young men hooked and young girls broken before they realize that the only ones getting free sex are the cult leaders.
I think you are stuck in the Victorian world of maternal purity. 10,000 years of human civilization has condemned women for their grotesque sexual nature, but the British decided it was the exact opposite because they had to defend their foolish choice to have a female dictator. They are wrong. It is men who are enslaved by female sexuality, and it is young girls who torture men as they perfect their art of manipulation.
Your error is you presume sexuality has any relevence in our humanity. Maybe it is for women, as their entire self image is dependent upon the level of desire they can provoke in men. But that means they should have sex as often as possible, thus reaffirming them that they are sexually desirable.
If there is any cult which is more destructive to human happiness, its the constant assertion that sex has some intrinsic value far greater than the other bodily urges such as eating or defacating. The worst part about this neurotic focus on sexuality is that it is, at its heart, animalistic. It is the believe that humans (and men in particular) are like cattle, who desire nothing more than to eat and fuck. The creative qualities which make us human and differentiate us from cattle are completely ignored by the do-gooder obssessed with sex.
The reality is sex is cheap. Its easy to get laid, but prostitution would make a lot of geeks much healthier and happier people. Free sex does sell, but only because we live in a restrictive matriarchy which uses sex as a tool of control over men. 200 years ago, young men learned at an early age what sex was all about and cheap and plentiful prostitutes made sure that no female would dominate a man with her pussy. There were no pussy whipped men in the 18th century. You wanted sex, you got. Sex was an urge to be satisified at will, not parceled out on like carrot on a stick.
You, friend, are someone who has bought into this sick system of slavery. You need to get laid, and often. Otherwise you are going to turn 40 and realize what a fool you have been.
Maasculinity is the driving force behind human civilization. Male sexuality is one aspect of the male creative spirit. It is minor in comparison to our rational and imaginitive abilities, but it is a necessary part.
Any group that actively recruits is dangerous because it inevitably puts the welfare of the group ahead that of its members.
Do you really believe that? Any group which active recruits members is inherently dangerous? What about a company which needs employees? What about the military? Hell, governments ALWAYS put the welfare of the group ahead of its members.
Recruiting school children into a cult ranks around the same as giving them free heroine.
Its spelled "Heroin" btw. That was the trademark diacetylmorphine was sold as by the Bayer corporation. Its a common analogy to abuse these days. Instead saying that human beings make many decisions not through rational deliberation, but due to biochemical conditioning many say something like is Heroin. Yeah, we have all heard it before. Any time someone seems to do something irrational, it because they were a foolish addict. The only problem is cult members don't break out with goosebumps, have uncontrolable muscle spasms, sneeze incessantly, or any other manifestation of physical withdrawal when they are abruptly removed from their cult. I think you really need to experience some narcotic withdrawal before you make that comment. Drug withdrawal is a radically different thing that not belong to a group any longer.
Post Scriptum
I am an atheist, but I believe it is human nature to form groups around a similar ideology. We are a social species, and the political correct world we have today that demands conformity in all mannerisms has left many feeling lost and confused. They cling to these groups to provide some reassurance that they really aren't just one worthless prick out of six billion. These cults are not drugs, but are manifestations of the isolation caused by these modern times. Your simplistic condemnation of these folks neglects their own freedom and humanity. They don't think like you, but that does not mean they have lost their free will like a rat on a cocaine IV.
For more interesting reading on how masculinity is superior to femininity I highly suggest reading these excerpts from the fabulous comic Cerebus.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
There's some professor of medical ethics from UPenn that always shows up as a pundit on news shows about this kind of thing. I heard him on NPR sometime about two weeks ago, and he predicted that exactly this would happen.
Someone would announce that they had cloned a child, and then not give enough evidence for the world to verify the claims. They would act as if they were protecting the child and the family from the ravenous world media. Which would be true. He'd get to look like a hero. He'd get to be all over the news. A quick look shows that they've got more than headlines in Canada.
Of course, this being a cult, it might be more like the Scientologists when they had their first "clear". They might believe themselves too much, and allow world media access to the clone/clear and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is not a clone/perfect human being/whatever.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Coward.
Hate me!
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/021227/16 1/2xrjp.html
Anyone else think that, that lady is exactly what you would picture the person that would announce such a feat to be.
She just looks so damn...fanatical
forget it.
I come from Quebec, where that bozo does a lot of his recruiting. I can't believe this jackass could come up with a clone. This man is a lunatic, has been the farce of the entire province for years and no one takes his seriously, except for his followers.
They believe that aliens colonized earth with germs and created humans in their labarotories. They promote masturbation as a way of life, sex with multiple women at a time (especially for the leader of the cult, Rael) and are in favor of fixing the legal age to 16 years old.
And now they claim that they have made a clone? Gimme a break!
slightly different usage is the more commonly known Biblical Hebrew word "Yahweh"
More specifically, the name of God is written in the Torah/Old Testament as YHVH (Hebrew: "Yud-hey-vahv-hey) AKA the Tetragrammaton, which many scholars believe was pronounced "Yahweh." No one can be really sure about that unless a way is found to travel back in time before 70 CE though =).
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
If they don't let the scientists take the actual samples, then everyone'll pack up and the whole thing'll be put down as a hoax. Regardless of whether it's true or not. A lot of people are just looking for an excuse to call these people a bunch of idiots and dump them on their ass.
These Raelian folks have apparently put a lot of money and effort into this project, whatever it is, and I get the distinct impression that a primary goal is self-publicizing. If the Raelians come across as anything less than above-board, all that money and effort goes down the drain, and nobody'll ever give them a second thought.
The end result will be that we read about the first verified case of human cloning five years from now instead of five months.
Unless you've been through the struggle of working through these issues, I wouldn't casually toss out the recommendation of adoption. That's a slap in the face to those who want a child of their own flesh and blood more than anything.
It's a "slap in the face" to suggest adoption to an infertile couple? Consider this: There are currently thousands of healthy children around the world who need loving parents. An infertile couple who chooses not to adopt (but instead invests the thousands of dollars usually required to come up with a way for them to have "one of their own") is a couple that says to these children, "I won't love you as my child unless you share my genetic material." Does that sound like any less a "slap in the face" to those children who need and deserve loving parents? Parents' need for children is dwarfed by an parentless child's need for parents. In my opinion, those infertile couples who would actively forego adopting a child so that they can have "one of their own" don't even deserve to have children.
I am an adoptive parent, by the way.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Who cares? Human clones have been around for centuries -- they're called identical twins. I have yet to hear a reasonable argument for why human cloning should be banned.
Well, according to ussearch.com there's a Valentine M. Smith living in Fairfield, ME. The free search doesn't give gender or place of birth, though. ;-)
utter rubbish
interpol or some such needs to stop this group of fanatics.
i don't know a hell of a lot about cloning, but from what little i know the child is destined to live a short, painful, terrifying life.
it's a crime that these monsters are allowed to continue their insane work.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
The submitter writes: "There's supposed to be a press conference on Friday in Hollywood."
... at least they seem like happy people. One called in to the NPR program on the story this evening. Their principles of free love and such probably mesh quite nicely with the aspirations of their founder Rael. I liked the bit in his alien abduction story about being attended to by a half-dozen "voluptuous robots." Pity he didn't have a camera. Or maybe it didn't translate right.
Now, do we need to know anything else? Hollywood?
The Raelians are interesting
I'd rather the Raelian be obsessed with sex and clones than, say, guns and armageddon.
What I don't understand is why didn't this woman clone herself some teeth! Yech!
2 12 27/i/1041007082.537870376.jpg
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http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/200
http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/200
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
On the contrary, please correct me if I'm wrong, but you are referring to a problem with the YY genotype, not the XX that would occur from a parthenogenic diploid ovum, as well as an ordinary female zygote.
The question is, how often do human diploid ova ovulate and parthenogenerate simultaneously into a receptive womb? I'm sure it's better than one in a billion over a 30 year fertility span.
of the clone baby here
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
A lot of people who are interested in cults have some heuristics for differentiating cults from "regular" religions.
Question "What's the difference between a cult. . . and my church, my service club, or, say, Alcoholics Anonymous?"
There are lots of differences, but the major difference is that of ultimate goal. Established religions and altruistic movements are focused outward--they attempt to better the lives of members and often, nonmembers. They make altruistic contributions. Cults serve their own purposes, which are the purposes of the cult leader; their energies are focused inward rather than outward (Singer, 1995).
The following website discusses cults, why people join them and stay in them, and the methods used by the leaders of cults to manipulate their members...
http://www.workingpsychology.com/cult.html
Rael: No DNA test for baby Evem s/
http://www.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/01/03/clone.clai
Sect leader vows to guard identity of alleged human clone
SHERBROOKE, Quebec (CNN) --A company founded by members of a sect that believes mankind was created by extraterrestrials says what it calls the first human clone will not undergo testing to verify her genetic makeup.
The head of the Raelian movement, who calls himself "Rael," said Thursday that he has told Clonaid's leader not to perform DNA tests on the infant girl, nicknamed "Eve."
Appearing on CNN's "Crossfire," Rael said he had spoken with Clonaid CEO Brigitte Boisselier and told her, "If there is any risk that this baby is taken away from the family, it is better to lose your credibility; don't do the testing."
He added: "I think she agrees with me."
Boisselier, a bishop in the Raelians, has claimed that a second cloned baby is expected to be born in Europe before Sunday, but she declined to name the country.
Clonaid had previously said Eve was to undergo DNA testing this week. Such a test would prove or disprove the company's claim that Eve is a genetic duplicate of her mother. Clonaid did not return calls seeking comment late Thursday.
Rael said he made the decision after a "judge in Florida signed a paper saying that the baby Eve should be taken from the family, from her mother."
However, no Florida judge has made such a ruling. A hearing date has been set in Broward County Circuit Court for January 22 on a lawsuit filed by attorney Bernard Siegel, who wants a legal guardian appointed for the baby girl.
If the child's mother does not appear for the hearing, the court could conceivably order that the baby be taken away. The court could also delay any decision or rule that it doesn't have jurisdiction over the case.
Clonaid, the company founded by members of the Raelian movement, had announced that the baby was born outside the United States on December 26, and said she would be brought to the United States on Monday. However, it is not known if that ever took place.
The baby's whereabouts have not been revealed, nor has the birth been independently confirmed. Clonaid has said Eve was born to a 31-year-old American woman.
'A rogue organization'
Siegel said Rael's comments seemed to indicate the Raelians think "that they don't have to answer to the law, which says to me that this is a rogue organization."
"I want the whereabouts of this alleged child to be made public," he said.
Noting that there has been no ruling yet, Siegel said, "I guess [Rael is] a better space alien than he is a lawyer. If my lawsuit has in fact called their bluff, then so be it."
Rael, former French journalist Claude Vorilhon, contends human life resulted from extraterrestrial genetic engineering and argues that cloning is the key to eternal life.
Will the public get a chance to see the baby soon?
"I don't think so," Rael said in the "Crossfire" interview.
At another point, he was asked if his group had simply gotten away with a great publicity stunt. Rael, speaking from Canada via satellite, said his earpiece was having technical difficulties.
"I am so sorry, but the sound is so bad. I cannot hear anything," he said.
He also said his Raelian movement is "completely separate" from Clonaid.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
Of course, there are children out there who deserve adoption - regardless of whether the adoptive parents are fertile or not.
Yes, those children deserve adoption, and you've said to them, "You don't deserve my love because you don't share my genetic material."
But as the proud father of happy, healthy twins that are the result of a successful in-vitro fertilization, I can only say &*%! you very much.
I do not intend to slander your beautiful and innocent children or your ability to parent them. My criticism lies elsewhere:
There are thousands of helpless children around the world who need loving parents. When you were faced with infertility, you told them that they weren't worthy of a parent like you because they did not share your genetic material. I'm not offended by your "&*%! you very much" which you gave me; instead, I am saddened. The ones who truly deserve to be offended are the children that you passed up so you could have "one of your own." I think you have chosen the most self-indulgent path to parenthood that you could afford.
I understand your angry reaction. I'm telling you that you've done an unethical thing, and people tend to have hurt feelings when they are told that. The feelings of adults are usually the first casuality when I start discussing the welfare of children.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.