Cloning License for Dolly's Doc

Rollie Hawk writes "Ian Wilmut, leader of Dolly the sheep's team and Professor at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, has been given the green light by the British government's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority to start further cloning research. As a matter of fact, he is now a licensed human cloner. The license has a duration of one year and is the second of its kind given by Britain, the first country to officially sanction human cloning research. Research will be focusing on motor neurone disease (MND). The team hopes to perform cell nuclear replacement on the skin cells of MND victims in order to create stem cells, the jack-of-all-trades of the cell family and the supposed magic bullets for ailments ranging from Alzheimer's to paralysis.

Comments

Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[beh]

I am not sure, whether this is really such a grand idea -- yes, genetics
and cloning hold enormous potential, but I think with the current
knowledge of this subject there should be a moratorium on actual
experiments (especially on human cells) until we learn more of the
background of the whole thing - and especially, until we have some form
of agreement on ethical standards about what we want to achieve and how
far we are willing to go.

(Note: this is not the "we should leave this to god argument" -- simply
because I am agnostic. But somehow I think before we start "playing
god", we should at least get to know whatever we can on a theoretical
level, before we go about practical experiments on it and decide what
should be allowed and what should be off limits... )

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[lederhosen]

>...but I think with the current
>knowledge of this subject...

How can we gain knowledge if we don't do research?

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[DakotaK]

I'd be willing to bet that the U.S. military has already been doing human cloning research for quite some time now.
As far as ethical standards go, there's always going to be people who bitch and complain about almost every aspect, like the old lady across the street that thinks TV is evil.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[nuclear305]

" I am not sure, whether this is really such a grand idea -- yes, genetics
and cloning hold enormous potential, but I think with the current
knowledge of this subject there should be a moratorium on actual
experiments (especially on human cells) until we learn more of the
background of the whole thing - and especially, until we have some form
of agreement on ethical standards about what we want to achieve and how
far we are willing to go."

Ok, well the most obvious argument is "How do we learn without doing research?" We already know the "theoretical level" ...which is why people want to pursue research to begin with.

That aside, who decides on the ethical standards? Who decides when we've learned enough "background" to proceed with experiments? Historically speaking there is no way...there will always be people that disagree and there will always be those who think we should put something off until we have a better understanding.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[Datasage]

How do we know if a thoery is valid if we are not allowed to test it? Expirments are a part of the scientifc process, without them, all your theories are just hypothesis.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[prodangle]

with the current knowledge of this subject there should be a moratorium on actual experiments (especially on human cells) until we learn more of the background of the whole thing

The best way to improve our current knowledge is to continue with these experiments, otherwise we are just sitting in limbo.

until we have some form of agreement on ethical standards about what we want to achieve and how far we are willing to go.

Surely the terms of the government granted license are an agreement on the ethical standards to be met. According to the article "There will be no reproductive cloning [...] with eggs not being allowed to grow beyond 14 days and the remaining cells destroyed."

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[kevinx]

So basically what you are saying is that you don't have faith in the british gov to take precautions and develop ethical standards? Do you know if they haven't done so already? I'm not trying to be a troll or anything. I see your point, but I'm not entirely sure that it hasn't already been addressed in some type of fashion.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[UWC]

I agree with some of your sentiment, but without knowing much of the established knowledge base, I'm not sure how practical or realistic your advice is. How far are we able to go at a theoretical level before we're just treading water? Are we there already? How far are these researchers planning to go? From the sound of it, I doubt they'll be trying to clone a human, though even that might depend on one's definition of "human," I suppose. How much can be learned from non-human cloning experiments? Have we reached a barrier there, too? And I agree that some form of ethical standards would be a good idea, but who would be the arbiter of such a code? Would there be some international cloning council that would decide it, and who would appoint them or enforce their decrees?

This feels, to some degree, like a lot of the legal things going on with digital rights. It's something that people haven't really had to think about until now, so they really don't know where they stand, and may or may not even understand what's going on, but they feel that some kind of decision needs to be made.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[Swamii]

Nah. Moratoriums, conferences, public "should we or shouldn't we" questions like these seem to do little to promote science.

I'm software developer. When I'm unfamiliar with a subject, I tend to try things out, discover how they work, then get a basic working example built from scratch. To me, at least, I find this approach much more suitable then asking around, having other people tell me what is the best way, searching the web, and so on.

Are embryonic sciences that much different; do scientists really need to hear what other people have to say before poking around, discovering how it works, researching it, get a basic example working?

(Note: I am not a left wing amoralist by any means. On the contrary, I am a Bush supporter and a proud believer in Christ. So I, too, and saying this without regard to the "should we play god" argument; as far as I'm concerned, we aren't playing god until we can create life from scratch rather than manipulate or duplicate.)

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[lumpenprole]

I don't know. Why don't you ask those people with motor neuron disease he's trying to find a treatment for how they feel about the ethical implications.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[ckemp.org]

It's something that people haven't really had to think about until now, so they really don't know where they stand, and may or may not even understand what's going on, but they feel that some kind of decision needs to be made. You're absolutely right. Bioethics as a school of thought has only been around for one hundred years or so, and it has not come close to catching up with the advances of science. Certain "celebrity" issues like Dolly pop up now and then and grab the public's attention, but there is no system set up to handle these serious ethical questions. Before they can properly be answered, we need to have a public educated in the basics and law systems flexible enough to catch up.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[blueZhift]

Honestly, I'm not sure there is an ethical way to do human cloning research that everyone will agree upon. The main problem is that all scientific research entails failure upon failure. This is unavoidable and when coupled with human elements (or animals for that matter), the issue of suffering enters the picture. Now onto this overlay your favorite metaphysical viewpoint and you've got a real puzzle to work out.

These aren't always issues in the earliest stages of cloning research, but even here, if you start talking about working with human embryos for example, a firestorm begins. Even if said embryos were not created for the sole purpose of research, the ethical challenge is inescapable. Use your own vocabulary, but I'd say the karmic burden is very high for those who engage in such research. I'm not saying that this research should not be done, but I think that those who do it should act with the utmost respect and reverence for life which is probably what most in the life sciences do anyway.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

ethical standards about what we want to achieve and how far we are willing to go

It is ethical to engage in research which may heal people suffering from horrible diseases. It is unethical to throw up roadblocks to such research based on vague fears about Things Man Was Not Meant To Know.

Any questions?

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[lederhosen]

I have big problem with people fiddle around with genetics. But you do have to think about what is good and what is bad. I have *no* problem whatsoever with
cloning though I have serious problem with modifying genes that are inherited.

Go ahead and clone cells for cancer treatment, and deseases, but wait with messing with genes that will
be left for all comming generations (at least untill we really know what we are doing.

Sadly, it seams to be the other way around, mix genes of fish with potatoes, modify corn etc, things that *may* cause severe problems in the
future people seams to accept. But when you
*clone* something, everyone screams, think about our children, when it is realy totaly harmless

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[tgibbs]

Ever heard of "theoretical" research?

Strangely, astronomy is a science, though we've never created a supernova of ourselves, or travelled for a lightyear to get a feel for the distance.

I think there is a lot that can simply be learnt by studying and observing and THEN we can start thinking about how to change things.

We've been studying and observing for decades. The research is really at a point where it is impossible to carry it appreciably further without experimental results to test the theories, which we finally have the technology to do. There's really no reason to imagine that at some future time we'd be in a better position to decide how to do these experiments. At some point, you just have to try it and see if it works.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[UWC]

Science is based on observation. With astronomy, there's a limit to our abilities to observe, and we stay at the edge of that, stretching it with probes, new telescopes, etc. With cloning research, there's an increased ability to observe certain processes in what some apparently consider acceptable ways. Do you deny that if we actually could travel interstellar distances, we would? These scientists feel that it's within their ethical limits to be doing the experiments they are doing. Whether that fits with some universal standard of ethics I don't know, but I don't think that most of them are doing this just because they can. They want to learn from it, like the astronomers using revolutionary equipment to gain more knowledge about their own field of study. This isn't an endorsement of the cloning stuff, and I don't know where I would draw the line, either, but I don't think the comparison to astronomy is particularly valid, as astronomy is limited by the means of observation.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[johnnyb]

But first you have to decide the ethical standards for doing the tests, which seems to have been long overlooked.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[Spy der Mann]

How can we gain knowledge if we don't do research?

How can we learn nuclear physics if we don't test an atomic bomb?

To put this other way, there are millions of species in planet earth that we can test cloning and genetic engineering with (even for therapeutic purposes). Why do we have to start with our own species? Remember we're talking about our kin. A human embryo could be tomorrow's doctor, musician, writer...

If we don't care for human embryos now, what makes you think we will always care for other humans later?

This is a very delicate issue, because we're dealing with human life. Is human life invaluable? Or it has a price? When does human life start? When does it end? Are there any exceptions?

I'm more worried about the moral consequences of cloning, than the more tangible experimental failures. Because experiments can be controlled in a lab - but human morals? Once the public accepts something as "not bad" or "normal", there's no turning back.

What will happen next is what worries me. I don't want to see a world where already-born human babies are experimented with.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[tgibbs]

But first you have to decide the ethical standards for doing the tests, which seems to have been long overlooked.

I disagree. People have been thinking about the ethical standards for a long time. All relevant issues have been extensively debated. I haven't heard anybody with anything new to say on the topic for many years. Since there are no plans for creating organisms with a functioning nervous system capable of suffering, the experiments clearly meet established standards of scientific ethics. And the basic manipulations of human embryos in vitro have long been carried out for in vitro fertilization, so we have already decided as a society that this sort of manipulation is ethically acceptable.

Of course there are some people with religious objections to this, just as there are some people with religious objections to eating beef or pork. They will at some point have to decide whether their personal ethics permit them to take advantage of the benefits of this research.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[anagama]

Very succinct, very correct. People complain that a few cells devoid of sentience may suffer and so we have to put everything on hold? What about the suffering of untold millions of fully sentient humans? If suffering is to be the rallying point for the anti-research crowd, it should be subject to this test: if research-caused-suffering is less than suffering-alleviated-by-research, then do the research.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[tomhudson]

Strange how Blade Runner got it right about the limited lifespan of clones ... maybe they got more right too.

Maybe he'll just clone himself - then it's nobody else's business. If he does it right, he can be his own grandpa. [tt] Me, I think it would be more constructive at this juncture to put a dog collar around his neck and chain him in the corner and let him howl at the full moon. Safer than having a bunch of recombinants running around looking for some way to extend their pitiful existence.

I think I'll stick to the regular ways of reproducing:

1. more fun
2. kids less likely to age/die prematurely
3. a lot cheaper

I can see it now - "Your father is a cloning scientist and your mother is a petri dish - too bad you got your fathers looks and your mothers brains".

Besides, what sort of market can there possibly be for test-tube porn, anyway?

Post 4001 - fuck, I waste a lot of time on /. Well, time to leave work.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[lederhosen]

It firmly belive that we would not be where we
are today in nuclear physics without experiments.
Yes the atomic bomb is one of those "experiments".
CERN is another.

> Why do we have to start with our own species?
We don't, we have done it on all kinds of animals, but for curing some deseases that only exist on humans we have to do test on humans. Even if the
desease exist on other animals we must at one time
test it on humans ass well (AIDS humans/apes)

> if we don't care for human embryos now, what
> makes you think we will always care for other
> humans later?

I dont care for human embryos that are going
to die, many peoply do though, and I hope these
people will see what this kind of research can
do for mankind.

> What will happen next is what worries me. I
> don't want to see a world where already-born
> human babies are experimented with.

I think it is okey. I understand that most
people don't think its okey. But if a dead child
can cure someone, and the childs parents want,
I think its okey. I do belive that one thing
that is realy inportant is that no money can be
involved.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[beh]

So, what is the advantage of genetically modified food?

I see the following "advantages":

- genetically modified food increases revenue for the companies creating the genetically modified seeds... Farmers in the 3rd world won't be able to afford the seeds... (Especially bearing in mind that, like in Iraq, farmers will be forced to pay yearly royalties to the original manufacturers instead of being able to just keep back part of the seeds to bring out again next year) The amount of grains, milk, and other produce going to waste (because of over-manufacturing) in the EU alone are just plain obscene -- why aren't these shipped of to starving nations? This seems something we only consider in really bad droughts in those countries...

- genetically modified food increases crop yield. The advantage being that countries that already produce far more than they need can produce even more. (Which doesn't help people starving in the third world). Or - alternatively, fewer farmers will be able to manufacture the same amount of food - eventually contributing to more unemployment, especially among unskilled labour).

- genetically modified food doesn't offer nutrional advantages over regular non-GM food. (At least, no noteworthy ones - otherwise their virtues would be extolled by the manufacturers at every street corner). So the only thing left would be that it might actually pose risks in the long run -- (Why should only medicine carry risks?)

So, where are the advantages, except for the cashflow of the pharma companies manufacturing the seeds?

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[johnnyb]

"To me, at least, I find this approach much more suitable then asking around, having other people tell me what is the best way, searching the web, and so on."

But there's no ethical questions with that. That _is_ the best way to go from a research standpoint, but the question at issue is ethics.

"Are embryonic sciences that much different; do scientists really need to hear what other people have to say before poking around, discovering how it works, researching it, get a basic example working?"

Yes, because they are likely to accidentally kill whatever they are poking on in the early stages. When you are playing with your computer, noone is likely to die as a result of your tinkering.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[johnnyb]

My son would benefit greatly, but I think the ethical implications are more important. Why? Because if you fail to consider ethical questions, then things like using the disabled for experimentation becomes routine. One of our doctors tried to do that. It was clear that he wouldn't be able to survive the entrance criteria (required fasting for 48 hours), but the doctor wanted him to participate in the study.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[johnnyb]

The question is, is it ethical to kill life and intentionally create deformed life in order to save other life? Specifically, creating and killing human life? At what point is something human?

Remember the last time humanity did research on humans which were not considered "real" humans. I think we called it the holocaust.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[johnnyb]

"but I think that those who do it should act with the utmost respect and reverence for life which is probably what most in the life sciences do anyway."

If you've had any experience with medical doctors, this is definitely not the case. Your local pediatrician will have respect and reverance, but the specialists and researchers generally do not.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[Swamii]

Me personally? No, that would be too great a blanket statement. In general? Yes, I'd say about as much as the left believes the right to be a bunch of fundy moralists. :-)

The disclaimer was necessary so as to avoid flames by others on the right.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[Xyanth]

I say let 'em do the cloning. We would probably be ages ahead of ourselves if it weren't for all of the people and lobbying groups against advancing science and technology in various fields. Weather manipulation, underwater climate control, cross-breeding of plants, unharmful pesticides, new forms of energy generators... You name it, there's a group of individuals somewhere trying to fight it. Even political and economical concepts get that same treatment. At the rate it's going, America will be far behind all of the other countries due to the fact that American opinions matter too much. Even the really stupid opinions. Freedom of speech is nice sometimes, but it's very often one of our own handicaps.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[Swamii]

Good point, I concede that it isn't the same. I still wonder whether a public forum, where the public is mostly uninformed and politically motivated, is a good place to consider the question.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[johnnyb]

"All relevant issues have been extensively debated."

Not out in the open. Unfortunately, I think our present news system prevents a priori the possibility of open, public debates. The closest you get are shouting matches, or just summaries which completely miss the major points made by both sides.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[metlin]

> but I don't think that most of them are
> doing this just because they can.

And even if they *did* do it just because they can, what's wrong with that?

Atleast it's something that has potential benefits to humanity.

Artists have "artistic liberty" to go ahead and do any damn thing they want and call it art. Why not scientists, too?

Even morals are relative - and where the lines are drawn is largely contingent upon one's upbringing and culture, rather than some universal moral code.

In the end, it is progress for humanity. That's what counts.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[Gauchito]

vague fears about Things Man Was Not Meant To Know.

That's not the reason people object to this kind of research. The main question in this whole argument is the one that neither side can agree on: at what point do we start being a living human being, and the killing of that human being becomes murder? At conception or some arbitrary point later (e.g., brain is fully formed, a neuron grows, all fingers are there, etc.)? Every other point in this discussion stems from that one question, for which there seems to be no objective answer, because we don't have a clear, unanimous idea of what it actually means to be human.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[pgpckt]

By this logic, there is no need for impartial judges in the court system. We should just allow the victim to pronounce what sentence is warrented by the crime.

We need impartial people to make the ethical standards, because in the moment, it's pretty tough to do what is right over what is immediatly expediant.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[Omestes]

This is to say that you beleive that some concrete ethical standard can be developed. I doubt that this is the case, especailly in todays "intellectual" climate (especially in the US).

What we have is science vs. religion. Science coming from a rational direction. Religion screaming "God doesn't like it!" Same as in all the big ticket ethical questions, such as abortion. Compromise is impossible, both sides are fixed and dogmatic, even if their might be a silent minority with median views.

Science seems to lack some of the possible humanistic issues, while religion fails to take in account that some people really don't give a rats ass what their interpretation of their mythology tells them. I think the atheistic side might be capable of compromise, while the religious will never. Sadly the religious side is in control in the US.

I think what is needed is to censor the religious people. Only allow logical/scientific arguements, and resort to real ethiks, being that all issues are inevitable, and pointless to ban.

I personally can't only think of a handful of pragmatic ethical considerations against any form of cloning, and a plethera of positive humanistic benefits.

On the down side we have the fact that only the wealthy could afford genetic treatments. The unforseen effects of germ line therapies, and the fact that decendants have no choice. The trite sci-fi full human cloning, which would go under my first condition. And then the whole fetus issue, which is pretty much mute in a world without souls.

Perhaps banning certain aspects might be in the best interest, but not the full genetic horse.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[Omestes]

Exagerate much? A handful of replicating cells is much different than an aware individual. Your on a slippery slope, and soon you must admit that every sperm is indeed sacred, and that menstration is murder. We're dealing with cells, not conscious entities. An embryo is not conscious. A germ/stem cell is not conscious either.

The only leg you have left to stand on is potenciality, which is also a flawed arguement, since it leads down the same slippery slope.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[Omestes]

and the time tested answer is to throw metaphysics to the wind. Metaphysics are unprovable by nature, and are at best nothing but complicated logical structures with minimal functional value. At worse they are existant in the colloquial dogmatic or emotional sense, meaning purely subjective. We should dismiss metaphysics, and actually look at the humanistic and scientific values, as weighed against the possible negative consiquences.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[bubblewrapgrl]

Interestingly enough, there is discussion that it may not be possible to clone humans at this time. There have been "successful" clones of sheep, dogs, cats, and mice. I say "successful" because there is a very low percentage of living clones that come from current methods. However, as far as I know, no one has been able to clone a monkey or an ape even though many people have tried. We currently just don't seem to have the technology and the knowledge necessary to clone higher organisms.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[Dachannien]

It's not nearly as cut-and-dried as you believe. For example, a person could make the claim that by using embryonic stem cells to heal diseases caused by genetic defects, we are preventing natural selection from weeding out those genetic defects, causing more people to suffer from those diseases in the (very) long run.

Also, some people believe that human embryos are human lives (and they don't have to be Religious to feel that way), and feel that sacrificing some lives for the prolonging of other lives is unethical.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[nounderscores]

In blade runner, the limited lifespan was a design decision.

Our gene therapy technology already outstrips the fictional tyrell corporation's state of the art, because we can revise a person's genome after they've fully differentiated in to a complete mature human being.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[tomhudson]

If I understand correctly , this only affects the target cells - not the whole body, and not their germ cells, as opposed to their somatic cells.

So while the target cells may have a different genetic composition, the hosts' genome is still the same.

Of course, manmade teratogenic compounds have been altering the human genome at a faster pace than nature can remove the transcription errors, so we're in big doggie doo-doo anyway.

The "limited lifespan" problem, last I heard, may or may not be present in humans, and the only way to find out is to "send in the clones", I guess.

The other problem is that we've known for about 15 years that certain organisms (like bacteria) can exchange genetic material. We've got enough "super bugs" and immortal cancer cells w/o trying to make more.

Me, I just want to be able to upload myself when the time comes.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[shadowbearer]

In Bladerunner, it wasn't clones but humanoid androids who had the limited lifespans (by design, not a bug :) Clones weren't mentioned at all in the movie that I can remember.

Cheers,
SB

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[PakProtector]

The problem is not so simple as science vs. religion. The problem is science vs. certain religions.

The modern world is based on several thousand years of patriarchal society. Particularly with Christianity, where in the bible it specifically says that the Christian god, Yahweh (Iehovah) created man in his image, and then made man from woman, and then made woman subservient to man.

In religions where the chief diety is Male, the Male God is seen as the source of all life, and since God is a male, man must naturally be closer to perfection than woman. Man was believed to be the source of all life -- look at what the ancient greeks and romans and other societies thought about the roles of men and women in procreation -- consider how deeply ingrained into our society the metaphor of 'sowing wild oats' and similiar other seed metaphors are. In the Biblical Christian view of the world, man was solely responsible for the act of procreation: His 'seeds' were put in to the woman, who served as the 'soil' in which they grew. Woman was seen as providing nothing more than a good enviroment for the 'seed' to develop. Remember that the many of the first people to exampine male spermatozoa under microscope reported seeing homonculi -- minature, fully formed men. This view of the world, where men were sole creators of life, is what our modern world view is based in. The reason abortion is so abominable to so many Christians is not the fact that 'God' says it is wrong -- God says it is wrong because in a world view where man has sole creative power, something like abortion takes power away from the man, devaluing his role in the process of the creation of new life. Hell hath no fury like a man devalued.

Take as an example of this fact the 'Angry White Male,' who is Angry that men said to women, 'Sure, you can compete with us, but on our terms,' and lo and behold suddenly a good deal of those men are finding themselves displaced socially and economically by women. For the past several thousand years the male's role was as sole provider for the family. Our culture (atleast America -- the only culture I am able to give an opinion on, as it is the only one I know well enough to do so) is based upon several thousand years of the male role being defined as provider and protector, and now that role is being displaced because, when men forced women to compete on "men's" terms, it was suddenly foudn that women were not so helpless, stupid, or defenseless as had long been held.

These 'angry white males' are angry because their traditional societial safe-houses, first politics, then the 'masculine' job-force, and now the right to control reproduction, are slowly being chipped away at.

As society becomes closer to equality between the sexes, the men who are most insecure about their place in life will fight harder and harder. Many men find themselves asking, "What exactly is it that I do?" Men have no definate answer for this sort of question. Male identity is a precarious thing. It is almost impossible to shake the Female identity so throughly, because there is always a response to the question. "I can have children." Men have no definate roll, and they make up for their inability to do something by saying that women may not do something else.

Such as dress in a certain way. Or own things. Or have a job. Or have control over their own bodies.

And I forgot where I was going with this.

But mod me up, please?

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[dbc001]

If God didn't want us to make clones of humans, he wouldn't have invented science...

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[tgibbs]

Not out in the open. Unfortunately, I think our present news system prevents a priori the possibility of open, public debates. The closest you get are shouting matches, or just summaries which completely miss the major points made by both sides.

I've read and heard extensive debate on the ethics of this issue, from politicians and private citizens to professional ethicists. And I'm not privy to any secret, private debates. Everything has been out in the open. In this single, very public, forum, it has been debated dozens of times.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[tgibbs]

The question is, is it ethical to kill life and intentionally create deformed life in order to save other life? Specifically, creating and killing human life? At what point is something human?

Biologically, the answer is simple. Every single cell in your body is human or alive. As we normally shed cells every where we go, we are each surrounded by the deaths of thousands and thousands of human lives.

OK, so "human life" per se obviously is not so important. So what is? We don't regard it as murder to cut off a finger. The only thing that we count as murder is the destruction of a brain. The brain of course is where the personality resides. In other words, our society does not value human life, it values human personality. It follows, therefore, that anything, whether living or not or human or not, without a brain is not a person, and there are no particular ethical concerns with whether it lives or dies.

We also recognize the concept of cruelty. But that leads us to the same conclusion. Cruelty only exists when something suffers, and the ability to feel pain is a property of the brain. So once again, it is not cruel to injure or destroy something that lacks the neural capacity to feel pain.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[orfanotna]

Please.. Do you have any idea what natural selection is? It means that if you possess some genetic advantage, you will have a better chance to survive and procreate, and therefore pass your advantage to the next generation. Same thing applies to genetic disadvantages. Most diseases that stem cell research holds a promise to cure are either unrelated to genetic defects (paralysis) or don't usually show up until the carrier is in his/her 50s. By that time, chances are they've already had children if they wanted them.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[tgibbs]

It's not nearly as cut-and-dried as you believe. For example, a person could make the claim that by using embryonic stem cells to heal diseases caused by genetic defects, we are preventing natural selection from weeding out those genetic defects, causing more people to suffer from those diseases in the (very) long run.

Except that if the diseases are healed, nobody suffers. And eventually, it will be possible to correct such disorders at the genetic level far more effectively than selection can weed them out.

Also, some people believe that human embryos are human lives (and they don't have to be Religious to feel that way), and feel that sacrificing some lives for the prolonging of other lives is unethical.

You don't have to be religious. But to make sense, you do have to be consistent. After all, every single cell in your body is human and alive. So I'll listen to the people who moan about the "human life" of a zygote when they start holding funerals for every menstruation and amputation, and for the thousands of epithelial human lives that each of us sheds every day.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[johnnyb]

No, because its like cancer. Cancer is part of me, and I have the right to do whatever with me that I want to. Likewise, sperm is just part of me. However, when a sperm meets and egg, it forms a third entity, a new life.

When the abortion discussion took place in the capitol in the 80's, every doctor who took the stand agreed that (a) fetuses were alive, and (b) were unique individuals (as apposed to part of the parents). The only disagreement was to the value of that life.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[johnnyb]

Your biblical theology is incorrect. The bible regards the woman as having seed as well, as far back as Genesis 3.

In fact, the prophesy in Genesis 3 is actually linking Jesus to the seed of woman.

I think you are making up a straw man (quite literally) and foisting it upon a group of people you don't like.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[Kaki Nix Sain]

Artists have "artistic liberty" to go ahead and do any damn thing they want and call it art. Why not scientists, too?

Well, at least in my culture, the scientist caste realised that they had developed something which could lead to the destruction of their species, namely the nuclear age. Pugwash and others were the result of this. Coupled with the institutional and cultural self-regulation in things like informed consent before experiments, I think there is reason to believe that scientists are in the front of the movement to have public discussion and checking of scientific pursuits.

I.e. when you give scientists liberty, they use it to monitor and modify their own directions.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[uberdave]

I think he was calling for a ban on research involving human cloning, not cloning in general.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[TheWormThatFlies]

How can we learn nuclear physics if we don't test an atomic bomb?

The theoretical knowledge of nuclear physics which we have today is grounded in experimentation and the observation of physical phenomena. If Marie Curie had ever messed around with radioactive materials, and if nuclear tests had never been done, we would have less theory to work with today.

A human embryo could be tomorrow's doctor, musician, writer...

Embryos implanted in the womb regularly get reabsorbed through an entirely natural process. I consider embryos to be as disposable as sperm and ova. Just because an embryo is one step closer to becoming a human doesn't make it human now. Potential people are not people.

If we don't care for human embryos now, what makes you think we will always care for other humans later?

I don't want to see a world where already-born human babies are experimented with.

This is a ridiculous slippery-slope argument. Just because you consider human embryos to be as human and as deserving of protection as human babies doesn't mean that everyone else does - and thus that someone who thinks it's OK to kill embryos is likely to also think it's OK to kill babies.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[Tetsugaku-San]

if you HAD a genetic disease - believe me you'd change your mind about genetic engineering pretty damn quick.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[Omestes]

The abortion thing isn't something I'd really want to get in here, it is a certain flamewar.

And yes, a fetus is alive, and killing one is... well killing one. But before anything reaches the fetus state we might as well be killing a sea sponge. And I don't view it as new life, being that at that point it is completely dependent on its mothers body for survival, and lacks all of the function that entails higher order life (resperation, heartbeat, brain). So I guess we can say that they are alive in the same sense as a parasite, a REALLY stupid simple parasite. Like a colony of aemebas living in your womb.

Only when there is higher order functioning does i become wrong in my book. Once it has a brain, it is human. Once it is human, to terminate is the definition of murder.

But then I'm always guilty of the middle ground. The worlds only angry moderate!

flameon!

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[Xung]

Imagine a world where the common principle "there can't be two same persons at two different places at the same time" fails ? Isn't it chaos ?

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[Nicademous]

This is not a good idea at anytime. In fact, a draconian police force with instructions to crush science under their bootheels is the only sensible solution.

OK... I'm kidding, but only a little.

I love science, am completely fascinated by it, but its destructive potential is too great to be ignored. (For a nice little preview of the plethora of horrific possibilities read "Our Final Hour" by Martin J. Reese - a scientist) While I'm sure that we could all learn a lot from stem cell research and herds of cloned sheep and other assorted barnyard animals, are we really ready for what will follow once we have mastered gene manipulation?

First it's Dolly the sheep and curing muscular diseases, but next it's Dolly Parton and super models that stay thin by eating Big Macs and twinkies. Think what that would do to the all natural girls who have to barf to stay thin. Really, what happens to the human spirit when each generation is genetically superior to the one that came before it? For instance, what happens when you isolate the gene responsible for insulin resistance and create a person that can literally eat ANYTHING and stay thin? What happens when you mutate the myostatin gene and create a race of super-athletes who don't have to work out, but are still bigger, faster and stronger than the giants in the NFL? Or, even better, what happens when you identify the gene responsible for genius in problem solving? Why would an employer hire last year's model when this year's model thinks so much faster?

I know it sounds a little silly, but it's not. That's where science is headed if somebody doesn't apply the breaks. We will literally create a class system that is so brutally stratified that there is no way to move beyond the group you were born into. And if you are thinking that this is all too far-fetched, think about this: As reported in Discover magazine, scientists have already found a way to gene dope mice by placing altered DNA into a host virus and then injecting the mice with it. The injected mice grow something like 20 to 30 percent WITHOUT EXERCISE.

That's the science in its infancy. What happens when it grows up and we really figure some stuff out?

So, what do we do? I don't know. I feel just as bad about people suffering from diseases as the next guy, but handing out licenses to scientists to clone human embryos isn't the best answer.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[Dachannien]

Do you have any idea what natural selection is?

As a researcher in artificial evolution and genetic algorithms, I have a very good understanding of natural selection. Of course, I should have expected nothing less than an ad hominem attack on Slashdot.

It means that if you possess some genetic advantage, you will have a better chance to survive and procreate, and therefore pass your advantage to the next generation. Same thing applies to genetic disadvantages.

Exactly. If a genetic disadvantage is made to have a lesser detrimental effect on reproductive fitness, then that disadvantageous trait will appear more often in the future.

Most diseases that stem cell research holds a promise to cure are either unrelated to genetic defects (paralysis) or don't usually show up until the carrier is in his/her 50s. By that time, chances are they've already had children if they wanted them.

This is a dodge around my earlier example, as I mentioned specifically the use of embryonic stem cells to treat genetic abnormalities. Implied (though I suppose I should have been explicit) was the treatment of diseases which are apparent before or at reproductive age.

Perhaps I also should have provided the better example of cloning (with gene therapy) for organ harvest, rather than stem cell harvest, since congenital organ defects quite often do severely affect the health of younger people. The viewpoint I am mentioning here would indicate that this is unethical as well, regardless of whether the embryo is altered to make the resulting clone anencephalic.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[danila]

The main reason is that those who object usually are morons.

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[PakProtector]

Read a book called "Eve's Seed."

Re:Is this a good idea AT THIS TIME?

[johnnyb]

I'm probably not going to take the time to do it, but if it is going to say that seed for Eve was used differently than for other women, that is still bad theology because other instances in the Old Testament seed is used for women in the same way as it is used for man. See Genesis 16:7.

welcome

[kevinx]

I certainly welcome our new cloned human overlords..
as long as they all look like the olsen twins.

Re:welcome

[Jakhel]

how rude

Clones in the news again?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't this story a dupe?

Re:Clones in the news again?

[de1orean]

and mod this redundant while you're at it.

So.....

[Meostro]

The license has a duration of one year and is the second of its kind given by Britain, the first country to officially sanction human cloning research.

So who got the first one?

Re:So.....

[Dr Caleb]

So who got the first one?

Some guy who looks just like him.

Re:So.....

[jacob_jackson]

Last August, a team of scientists from Newcastle University in northern England was granted a license to clone human embryos to develop new treatments for diabetes and degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's (http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=hea lthNews&storyID=7569803&pageNumber=1)

Re:So.....

[Rollie Hawk]

They cut out part of the original article.

Re:So.....

[Darth_brooks]

Define Irony:

Ringo Starr had a hit song called "It don't come easy"

Re:So.....

[Grey Ninja]

Well thank you... I have rice in my nose now.

Re:So.....

[hawk]

>So who got the first one?

That's the whole point. He just copied it, thereby showing himself eminently qualified for the task at hand . . .

hawk

Re:Thank you Bush!

[stupidfoo]

Michael Sims, is that you?

Clone rights

[Spoonito]

Clones are people two.

10 print "clones are people" $d
20 let $d = pun
30 gosub hilarity

Re:Clone rights

[johnnyb]

Speaking of clone rights,there's a good sci-fi book called Clone Hunter which tells the story of a world where cloning is available but illegal, where clones become people without consciences. Anyway, it's a real interesting and exciting read (it's an action/adventure story), with a good political/moral commentary.

sure whatever

[Anonymous Coward]

just cure my fucking diabetes already.

License to copy

[saddino]

As a matter of fact, he is now a licensed human cloner.

Something tells me he wouldn't have a problem creating a fake ID if he really needed one.

Re:License to copy

[AndroidCat]

Or just wear a mask as the Clone Arranger, leaving behind a silver bullet against disease...

Re:Thank you Bush!

[TheMeuge]

As much as the parent can be considered a troll, he/she is right. The pressure of religious ethics of the right wing Christians, along with this administration's spite towards science, will result in rapid elimination of the slim lead that the US has been maintaining in medical and basic research.

Certainty

[ckemp.org]

How certain can they be that these embryos, grown to possess the characteristic genome of an MND victim, will effectively emulate the conditions they need? Dolly, in many respects, raised questions over how clones react to their existence: she died prematurely as if she had aged too fast. Who's to say that these embryos don't possess unknown characteristics simply as a function of being cloned?

Re:Certainty

[Zordok]

That's why it's important that doctors are legally allowed to do this kind of research; to answer these kinds of questions.

Re:Certainty

[tgibbs]

How certain can they be that these embryos, grown to possess the characteristic genome of an MND victim, will effectively emulate the conditions they need? Dolly, in many respects, raised questions over how clones react to their existence: she died prematurely as if she had aged too fast. Who's to say that these embryos don't possess unknown characteristics simply as a function of being cloned?

One cannot be sure until one does the experiment. but there are plenty of things that can be tested to determine whether the model of MND is a good one. And if they do possess "unknown characteristics," that make them different, that will provide important information about epigenetic factors that are relevant to MND.

Re:Certainty

[jackelfish]

They are not creating embryos, they are attempting to create pluripotent cells, from skin cells, in an attempt to replace malfunctioning neurons. There is not an entire organism involved here as they are not using gametes (eggs or sperm) in these experiments. This is where the term "cloning" becomes confused, in that many people think it always refers to the duplication of a whole organism (such as Dolly) where it simply means to insert foreign DNA into a cell.

Re:Certainty

[jackelfish]

Let me correct myself. It seems that in this case they will be actually inserting the DNA into an unfertilized egg in an attempt to study the development of the disease. That said, many of these diseases also have an autoimmune aspect that can be triggered later on in development and as with any science there are numerous factors that can not be controlled for. Therefore we have to take the results at face value and not read too much into them, as is quite often the case.

Re:Certainty

[dsanfte]

I'm really very tired with people acting like it's their great 'moral responsibilty' to prevent some type of fictional Frankenstein disaster in genetics by opposing everything groundbreaking on the grounds that we "don't know enough". Especially so when they have absolutely no knowledge of the subject matter, or even what's being proposed.

I almost want to say this attitude is a social fear rooted in the broken promises and disasterous side-effects of nuclear research in the US. Things like Three Mile Island and Chernobyl spawned countless Sci-Fi 'what-if' stories that got people incredibly scared of advanced science in any field.

There is probably also some kind of tie-in to the abortion debate, but I've never understood religion, so I won't get into it.

Anyway, in closing, what happened in other sciences does not mean all science is doomed to fail and kill us. It's simply non-sequitur. I would like to further state that most people should limit their criticism to things they have a hope in hell of actually understanding.

Re:Certainty

[ckemp.org]

Exactly what I was wondering: how many variables are still unaccounted for in these experiments? I am by no means arguing against the research - it's brilliant stuff and I hope it works - but how effectively can you study the development of a disease by inserting DNA into the embryo while it is still a new and relatively untested technique?

I feel like these guys parade their lofty goals for the sake of funding and publicity, long before their procedures adhere to the control standards of the research community.

Hence why so much about this topic remains.. sketchy.

Not human cloning.

[Anonymous Coward]

He has a license to clone human embreyos, not clone humans which would be an entirely different matter. The purpose being so he/his team can study diseases which effect motor neurons, by growing them from cloned embreyos using the material from a sufferor of motor neuron disease.

Re:Not human cloning.

[Anonymous Coward]

so human embryos do not grow to become humans?

Are you living on this planet or another one?

Oh noooo!!!

[ryanvm]

Oh crap! This is England's first step in building a clone army to conquer the world. I've had visions of this army and their teeth look like this.

Re:Oh noooo!!!

[Sesostris III]

Er, Scotland's first step!

Sesostris III

Re:Oh noooo!!!

[hellinterface]

Regardless of the fact that Edinburgh University is mostly over-run with upper class English fuckwits. Edinburgh remains part of Scotland, not England...

Re:should I write a novel?

[Thud457]

Just stick to the standard horror genre story with a twist -- healthy protagonist finds out on his 18th birtday that he's to be the donor for his older self.

Woah

[kypper]

Deja Vu.

Genetic material question

[AndroidCat]

Along with fellow applicant Professor Christopher Shaw, of the Department of Neurology, Institute of Psychiatry, at Kings College, London, Prof Wilmut now plans to take the DNA from the skin or blood of a person with motor neurone disease and implant it into a human egg from which the genetic material has been removed.

Won't the egg will have to retain the mitochondrial DNA? (Factory sub-cells) Aren't some of the motor neurone diseases connected with that?

Re:Genetic material question

[InternationalCow]

The egg contains mitochondria, and, indeed, some motor neuron diseases are indirectly linked to mitochondrial dysfunction. If bad mitochondria cause the disease, problem solved, as the mitochondria are not from the person with MND. However, most motor neuron diseases that we know of and are connected to mitochondrial dysfunction are actually caused by problems in nuclear genes - case in point being amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (aka Lou Gehrig's disease), which is related to mutations in superoxide dismutase. The dysfunctioning of this protein in turn affects mitochondrial function leading to increased apoptosis, etc.. Apart from that, tackling degenerative disease using stem cells is probably not going to work in many cases - many of those diseases may not be caused by cell-autonomous processes, which means that whatever is killing the motor neurons is going to kill the stem cells as well. Stem cells may however be very useful for repopulating purposes, if we can get them to differentiate in the right way in the right place.

Re:So tell me...

[darth_MALL]

T-Bone was taken.
I know, I know. The jerk store called...

What the US does well is...

[doublem]

We're better at starting wars we can't finish.

And condemning things to Hell.

Oh! And getting fat. We have more fat than the rest of the world combined.

Re:What the US does well is...

[Swamii]

Don't forget we pollute the air more than any other country, and output more physical garbage than most nations combined.

It's sad (being a US citizen myself) but true.

Re:What the US does well is...

[johnnyb]

And giving the rest of the world a taste of freedom.

Re:What the US does well is...

[Swamii]

I will happily recant my view if you could you point me to some facts proving otherwise.

Re:What the US does well is...

[doublem]

And giving the rest of the world a taste of freedom.

Dude, aside from the first Gulf War, the US hasn't managed THAT hat trick since liberating South Korea.

And reaching back to WWII, a war none of the current leaders were involved in, is a REAL stretch.

Re:What the US does well is...

[Colm Buckley]

But we're good at finishing other people's wars.

At least the wars we start are contained in small regions (Vietnam, Korea, Iraq), not like those large ones Europeans start.

Look... the "large European wars" I assume you're referring to were started NINETY-ONE and SIXTY-SIX years ago respectively. Europe was (and remains) extremely grateful for the assistance of the United States in ending those wars, but they have nothing to do with the current situation. In case you haven't noticed, Western Europe hasn't been involved in any substantial wars since 1945. How many "actions" has the U.S. taken in the same period?

And I'm sure the victims of U.S. aggression in Vietnam and Iraq are deeply grateful that your wars are contained in a small area.

Can't we settle for a happy medium here?

[Rooked_One]

maybe the Coors twins perhaps? I'm of the age where the olsen twins (anorexic or not) still look like jailbait.

Re:Thank you Bush!

[carl@mindless.com]

risque half time sho.... Oh, right we don't even do entertainment better anymore.

Re:should I write a novel?

[eyeye]

are you a clone of CrazyJim0 ?

I'm against cloning

[flyingsquid]

I for one am against cloning. Imagine what would happen if it resulted in something like "Attack of the Clones" being played out all over the world.

(Shudder). Just imagine the horror: a world in the grips of stale dialogue, bad acting, the lack of real suspense or characters you can care about...

Re:I'm against cloning

[UWC]

Yeah, but Cheney's lightsaber fight would look awesome.

Re:I'm against cloning

[docbombay]

Or if James Bond had a "License To Clone".

copyright issues?

[de1orean]

the RIAA is watching these developments closely.

Re:copyright issues?

[AndroidCat]

Darn right! If someone clones that dead granny copyright-terrorist, they want to be ready!

Re:should I write a novel?

[doublem]

Been Done

Of course, the movie is only intersting if you see the MST3K version.

Re:should I write a novel?

[theGreater]

I seem to recall reading a very similar story in the sciFi channel archives (http://www.scifi.com/scifiction/archive.html).

The story was actually about "organ drafting" wherein the older politicians legislated themselves new organs as necessary from prime young candidates. A neat crossover between cloning, the draft, and Social Security.

-theGreater.

You guys think way too small..

[AHarrison]

Just think, if we can get some liscenced geeks into the cloning scene, we can produce an army.

It was as if a thousand jocks cried out in terror, and then were suddenly silenced.

Re:You guys think way too small..

[jacen_sunstrider]

There already is a complete army of geeks. The fact of the matter is, we're too scared of being shoved in our lockers. And if there were millions of us being cloned...those lockers would get mighty crowded.

I can only think of two concerns

[the_skywise]

That somehow these embryos are grown beyond their cellular stage into an actual fetus or beyond... and then cut up for testing. (Hey, it's just a clone, it doesn't feel nuthin...) But I don't see this happening here.

Second that this research ends up developing some sort of "clone virus". (IE We engineer enhanced immune systems for cancer. The antibodies are so good that they go airborne and start attacking other humans who can't defend the attack unless they too have the enhanced systems... I think this was a Star Trek: Next Gen episode too). That's possible, but not very probable.

Yeah, there's always the chance that we'll unleash bio-armageddon upon our species. But the military has had that power for decades now and we haven't blown ourselves up... yet...

Re:Thank you Bush!

[sirwnstn]

Ummm... this is NOT an example of doctors/researcher going overseas to play with cloning. This guy was the one who cloned the sheep, Dolly. I commend him for trying to find a cure for this neurological disease, but not his methods.

I'm still of the persuasion that in the end, cloning = slavery.

Re:Thank you Bush!

[AndroidCat]

That leaves pizza deliveration then.

Cloning Lic. seems like a good compromise

[Anonymous Coward]

between[a] "if you or your institution have the money, anything goes" which hasn't happened yet because [1] its still damn hard to do anything in cloning and [2] if some body with money like Gates and mind like Jacko wants himself copied to live forever, don't you suppose that would get secrecy that would make NSA look like a bunch of blabbermouths?
and [b] "God told me and all of my friends that could find a polling booth that every sperm is sacred and science should be put to good uses like weapons research...don't you touch a f**king embryo or we'll kill you." which HAS happened since separation of church and state has broken down pretty badly in the country that first implemented the concept.

Wilmut. Ian Wilmut.

[Garg]

License to clone.

Garg

Olsen Twins?

[game kid]

First of all they're not the Olsen Twins, they're now the Olsens you insensitive clod!

Seriously, they should really look like...just check my sig. I won't change it anytime soon. I hope.

Re:DR Mengele

[tgibbs]

If we de-humanize full clones and experiment on them are we really any different?

Nobody is proposing to create full adult clones, or even embryonic clones with a nervous system capable of feeling pain or suffering.

They've been doing it for millenia...

[Short Circuit]

...breeding dogs and crops. More recently in developing the modern laboratory rodent. Gregor Mendel dabbled in it with flowers. And the biggest genetic engineering disaster known? The mule, because it can't breed. (Disaster from the perspective of the mule species, not necessarily of the environment.)

The biggest difference I see today, for a mostly lay perspective, is that we don't wait for the female animal to be in heat, then throw a male of the species we want to cross with her in the room. We use artificial means.

However, I don't think anyone would take kindly to the thought of breeding humans. (And that's been covered in lots of horror/science-fiction books.

Re:They've been doing it for millenia...

[pclminion]

They've been doing it for millenia... ...breeding dogs and crops.

That is NOT AT ALL the same thing. Breeding is just mixing up pre-existing genes into new combinations. By breeding, we can achieve some gene combinations that might have been extremely unlikely in nature, but we haven't created anything really new in a genetic sense.

It may surprise you to learn that the genetics of domesticated dogs are nearly indistinguishable from that of wolves -- the genes for "dog-like" appearance and traits are present in the wolf genome but do not naturally occur in the right combinations to produce "dog-like" animals.

No matter how much breeding you do, you will never create a new gene -- only natural mutation (and recently, human genetic engineering) can do that.

So no, we do NOT have historical data to guide us as we enter the realm of genetic engineering. The human race has NOT manipulated genes in this way before. Extreme caution is prudent.

Re:They've been doing it for millenia...

[Woody77]

It may surprise you to learn that the genetics of domesticated dogs are nearly indistinguishable from that of wolves

They've supposedly been declared the same species as well (also including coyotes, IIRC).

However, with breeding dogs they have been essentially cloning, and many dog breeders are proud of the fact that they can produce a line of dogs that are almost identical from a genetic point of view. Which scares me to death because instead of cloning, theyre reinforcing recessives, and bad stuff like hip dysplasia is the result. Cloning would be safer.

Re:They've been doing it for millenia...

[jericho4.0]

When did they start breeding goats with spiders?

Awesome or Horrifying?

[CMF Risk]

We're only one lab 'accident' away from unleashing the zombie hordes.

Popcorn anyone?

Rather than banning it

[KalvinB]

I really don't like the idea of harvesting stem cells from embryos (but I'm not going to fight tooth and nail to stop the inevitable, we don't reject what the Nazis learned simply because of their methods, but we certainly don't condon their actions either) so what I'd like to see is science looking for ways to get stem cells by other means. We used to scratch the scalps on people with headaches to let the blood out to make the headache go away. Now we use Aspirine.

Rather than trying to solve these problems by going directly for the (quite possibly misguided) "magic bullet" I'd like to see science spending more time trying to cure these things with "not so magic" bullets which I don't think anyone has a problem with. The problem is this idea that embyonic stem cells are an inevitable success. Which, it's not. But this idea is thrown out there and so less controversial sources of stem cells are quickly dismissed.

Like it or not, at least in the US, scientists need government funds to do these experiments and in the US we have a president and a large vocal population who isn't going to let government funds support these types of experiments. If private funds could do the job then there wouldn't be a problem. But even the wealthy private sector isn't too keen on this stuff either.

As a result, science needs to find ways to solve problems that stick to the ethical guidlines dictated by the people whether they happen to like them or not.

The UK rushing to this magic bullet without considering alternatives is a bad idea.

I'd be more inclinded to be happy about this if challenged, conclusive studies existed that alternate sources of stem cells were 100% unviable to cure various problems.

Those studies currently do not exist.

Re:Thank you Bush!

[dsanfte]

Can you enslave a machine? That's all cells are. They're not talking about growing real humans with brains for organ harvesting, they're cloning stem cells.

Just a friendly reminder

[bluefoxlucid]

The poster is referring to embreyonic stem cells, which still haven't been proven to be any useful. I still say more adult stem cell research is needed, especially since I've heard things about experimental methods to cure Type1 diabetese using adult stem cells, and things about people pushing states (Mass. in particular) to fund embreyonic stem cell research to try and cure diabetese.

Point is, of course, that I'm bitterly opposed to embreyonic research for the pure and simple reason that it's going nowhere while adult stem cell research is over 100 diseases and thousands of successful treatments into its life cycle, and holds all the same potentials. Both flavors have been getting something like 300 million greenbacks per year from NIH.

Re:Just a friendly reminder

[Anonymous Coward]

The only reason embryonic stem-cell research hasn't yet been as successful as adult stem-cell research is because it's controversial and thus hasn't been pursued nearly as aggressively by the world's research community in general. Embryonic stem-cells are far more flexible than adult stem-cells and, in my opinion, show far more promise. Every avenue of research should be pursued. If you close yourself off to a particular area of research, then it's likely that you're only prolonging a breakthrough.

Re:Just a friendly reminder

[FleaPlus]

And of course, you are much more informed regarding which method is more promising than the actual scientists performing the research.

Re:Just a friendly reminder

[arkhan_jg]

You are aware that new embryonic stem cell lines in the US cannot be researched by any organisation receiving federal funding right? (which is virtually all of them in this field)

Since the existing lines are contaminated embryonic stem cell research has slowed badly in the US.

Embyronic stem cells are far simpler to manipulate than adult stem cells into the type of cells you want, but effective research into them has slowed to a trickle in many countries, including the US, because of religious and political reasons, not scientific ones.

Also, adult stem cells theoretically age faster than embryonic ones. That's not to say adult cells aren't useful; they're easier to create without culturing and have many useful applications that embryonic cells may not be suitable for.

In the end, one is a hammer, the other is a screwdriver. Since the US government has effectively outlawed screwdrivers, it's not surprising that more uses have been found for hammers.

Personally, I'm glad my government is funding investigation into both types of stem cells, rather than letting uninformed moral police dictate science.

Re:Just a friendly reminder

[malsdavis]

I think a lot of genetic reasearchers would disagree. I think most would point out that embreyonic stem cells have far more potential for the future than the limited functionality adult stems cells can provide. Using the fact that no cures have yet been made using them is like saying in the 50's that DNA is useless as no advances had yet been made using that either (as it hadn't been properly researched yet either).

Sure, most religous organisations will preach to the cows come home that embryonic stem cells are evil and therefore make up a whole heap of lies based on incorrect figures only they can locate and interperate in such a way.

But at the end of the day, a quick glance at the pages of university websites shows that most serious researchers count embryonic stem cells as probably the greatest chance for real medical breakthroughs over previously incurable genetic diseases.

Virtually no-one (apart from the religous organisations, who arn't generally known for their knowledge of genetics) think that adult stem cells have the potential of embryonic ones.

Re:Just a friendly reminder

[bluefoxlucid]

Remember it's not controversial to experiment on rats. And as I said, NIH has been donating ~$300M to each per year for some time.

Re:Just a friendly reminder

[bluefoxlucid]

Well, the actual scientists performing adult stem cell research have cured over a hundred different problems in thousands of patients; and the ones doing embreyonic stem cell research haven't cured squat. Both areas get a good heavy subsidy from NIH, about $300M a piece, and damnit why can't I find quotes when I need them >:( Besides, we should be experimenting on rats to find out if this theory holds water anyway.

Re:Just a friendly reminder

[bluefoxlucid]

To my knowledge, embreyonic stem cells tend to A) do nothing, or B) become tumors when used in treatment. And again, religious issues don't matter when you're experimenting on rats. We haven't proved anything on animal tests, and controversy exists around human tests, so this BS with embreyonic stem cell research is all political crap anyway, whether you want to attack its merit or its research angle.

Re:Just a friendly reminder

[bluefoxlucid]

All kinds of road blocks are "invented" to prevent embryonic stem cell research

. . . using fresh human stem cells harvested from fresh embryos. Nobody said anything about killing baby rats (which btw nobody cares about), so why not research on animals? We have nothing to show for lab tests yet, except some tumors. People have this misconception that we're on a breakthrough and being held back, and it's simply not true. We're as much on a breakthrough as me opening VI for the first time puts me on the virge of compiling a 5.7M line OS I just wrote.

Flip side of the argument...

[Gordonjcp]

One of my best friends died three years ago, at the age of 28, of Motor Neurone Disease. Ironically enough he lived about a five-minute walk from the Roslin Institute - I used to drive past it on the way to his house.

Go and ask his parents if they think research into MND is worth it.

Re:Thank you Bush!

[dsanfte]

It's politically risky for private US firms to dabble in embryonic stem cell research and theraputic cloning. That's why they're abstaining, not because the results wouldn't be profitable.

Re:Thank you Bush!

[meringuoid]

Don't worry...we can always rely on our skilled manufacturing wor....oh. Umm..what is it we do better than everyone else again?

Music, movies, microcode, high-speed pizza delivery. Now, come on, this is pretty basic stuff from your introductory-level geek courses...

Why not adult stem cells?

[solafide]

They work better, and we don't have to destroy human tissue. Now Joel Salatin thinks that saying that chickens fed dead cows is safe is like an abortionist grabbing a wiggling baby and saying it's just tissue. I thought so too, but had not found such a funny way of putting it. See some of the non-embryonic stem cell work to see how ridiculous it is.

I dont like this.

[Nomadic_Z]

What fun would life be if it were not random. I mean playing God might sound like fun and all. But I disagree with it becuase I think that it would just take away from the greatness of life. Make better computers, make most stable OSs, make cleaner-fuel, but lets not take away from the value of human life.

Re:I dont like this.

[agm]

How does research that uses cloning techniques take away from the value of life?

Re:I dont like this.

[Nomadic_Z]

" How does research that uses cloning techniques take away from the value of life?" It takes away the value of life, from taking away the mystery, anticipation, or dare i say decency of human life. I mean how would that person deal with all the aspects of not having a family, or anything else that takes place with a normal baby. I will never agree to this for that reason. There are so many better things in which we can be using our resources to fix.

Re:I dont like this.

[agm]

Cloning research is not necessarily about actually cloning a human being, just about using techniques to clone body parts or for actuals clones to not survive past a few days.

How does cloning a person take away from the decency of life? What is indecent about cloning?
I agree there are ethical and/or moral issues to deal with, but halting all research (would hope to prevent/cure diabetes/MNS) because of this seems rediculous to me.

Not human cloning. Worse.

[zippthorne]

so.. if an embryo starts to become too much like a human is he obligated to kill it?

The problem i have with theraputic cloning is that it's exactly the kind of cloning we shouldn't allow, being the microscopic (or in a particularly ghoulish world, full-size) equilvalent of having a baby to harvest its heart.

I really don't understand why people opposed to reproductive cloning on some kind of moral argument can turn around and support theraputic cloning. I mean, so what if people want to have vanity babies that are nearly copies of themselves?

I'd be pissed.

[Mao]

I don't care what ethical/philosophical arguments anyone employs regarding cloning.

I for one would be pissed if I realized that I am the cloned version of someone else.

(It's probably impossible to create an EXACT clone; but still, I'd kick my original's ass, for he would likely be older than I am, and I enjoy beating up old people. Ok that last part was a joke.)

Re:I'd be pissed.

[pgpckt]

So you'd be pissed to be someone's twin?

There seem to be a lot of those around. Seems to be working out ok so far.

Re:I'd be pissed.

[chochos]

But you got more to lose. Sure, you can kick his ass, but he can kick your FIVE asses.

Re:should I write a novel?

[evolutionaryLawyer]

There was an MST3K episode, 811- "PARTS": THE CLONUS HORROR, (www.mst3kinfo.com). The movie was horrible, but great episode for Mike and the Bots.

Better questions at this time

[Doc Ruby]

It's happening. A better question, and actually germane to this story itself, is "will licensing cloning researchers help control abuses of the industry?". It's probably more effective than merely banning the abuses, or banning the practice altogether. It gives an outlet and encouragement to the very attractive cloning practices that are very clearly use of the technique, and not abuse. But I'd bet that Bill Gates has several clones growing somewhere - he knows they only get them right by version 3.0.

Not so fast Einstein

[KarmaBlackballed]

But when you *clone* something, everyone screams, think about our children, when it is really totally harmless

I don't have any answers, but feel compelled to point out that so far cloning is not known to be harmless. Specifically, as far as I know all cloned mammals have a cell age equivalent to that of the cell donor. The cell age is measured by the length of the cell telemers. (When the telemers become too short, the cell dies. Telemers get shorter with every cell division.)

Re:Thank you Bush!

[mtrupe]

So I guess you think human life is nothing worth respect?

Re:Thank you Bush!

[Dachannien]

You don't have to be a Christian - or, for that matter, a non-atheist - to believe that an embryo is a human life.

Does the time matter?

[Trejkaz]

What if the particular gene you're trying to screw with is the one which you need to screw with in order to cure something like cancer? Is that still bad?

No permission yet

[Bifurcati]

Note that the HFEA authority is only expected to provide permission - it hasn't been authorised for certain yet. Seems like they really wanted to be the first people to write a story about it and decided just to jump in anyway, and beat the rush.

Reminds me of a line from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (cartoon) "[Angry voice] Who's idea was it to put the 6pm news on at 1:00?! [Changes to happy voice] It's brilliant - we'll get the jump on all the other networks!"

Re:Thank you Bush!

[Lord Kano]

They're abstaining because it's financially risky.

LK

Re:should I write a novel?

[SammyJ]

CrazyJim,

I've been a fan of yours for some time (everyone else should be too). And I have to say, I want to see you write this book. I think, if properly written, "Human Farm In It" could be the next great sci fi epic. I found out that it could make you many thousands of dollars, if properly marketed. Please Jim, write this book.

"she trains them to be sick martial arts trainers" - Brilliant! Not just martial arts experts, but _trainers_! Kick Ass! I want to read it already! And, who trained her? I'm already excited to hear the whole story. :D

Re:Thank you Bush!

[Dirtside]

The pressure of religious ethics of the right wing Christians, along with this administration's spite towards science,

The administration is spending a lot of money on scientific research, specifically the trips to the moon and mars.

*TWEET* Conflation of terms! Five yard penalty!

Just because the Bush administration pushes one particular kind of science (manned spaceflight) does not mean they are in general friendly toward science, or that they are friendly toward the particular kind of genetic science at issue here.

you can extend telomeres

[nounderscores]

using telomerase - it's an enzyme discovered by accident in cancer research. Cancer cells express it atopically and have infinite lifespans (killing you). Telomerase is supposed to be active in the cells that give rise to your sperm and egg to keep them forever young.

Identical twins

[FleaPlus]

I for one would be pissed if I realized that I am the cloned version of someone else.

I've been friends with several pairs of identical twins, and they didn't seem particularly pissed off.

Diabetes cures being worked on

[tepples]

just cure my [intercoursing] diabetes already.

Which type are you? Go on a restricted-carb diet such as the Atkins plan and your cells will slowly recover from the insulin resistance of Type II diabetes mellitus. Type I, on the other hand, is an autoimmune disease. Research continues on immunosuppressant treatments that will give the islet cells of the pancreas a chance to rebuild themselves. Detect it in kids when they're young enough and they won't even need a pancreatic transplant.

Re:Diabetes cures being worked on

[mongbot]

Please explain why Asian countries have the lowest rate of diabetes in the world but they eat proportionally much more carbohydrates than we do and much less fat and protein.

The simple fact is that fatty junk food and dairy food is to explain for the high rates of type 2 diabetes in the West, not the consumption of healthy foods like grains and vegetables.

Re:should I write a novel?

[pegasustonans]

Well, sure either write it or don't write it. Though, I have to say there are already a ton of novels like this out there.

"Spares," in particular, comes to mind.

But, by all means, write your novel. If it sucks, then at least you'll have enough knowledge to make the second one better.

Go Britain!

[serutan]

I applaud Britain being the first country to officially sanction this research. Here in the United States of Christian Fundamentalism we won't be seeing that happen for a while. Just don't get too far along with it before our corporations buy all your patents, or you might be added to our fearless leader's must-conquer list.

Re:Go Britain!

[Bill Walker]

How about we trade them the results for some of the GM technology that Europe has banned?

Environmentalists can be just as wacky as fundamentalists.

I'm think I'm going to clone myself

[sl4shd0rk]

And then send the little bastard to work while I take the first flight to jamaica to plant my pasty white ass on the beach for ... how long do clones live anyway?

Re:I'm think I'm going to clone myself

[arkhan_jg]

Then the clone drains your bank accounts, steals your wife, and commits a few crimes before pretending to flee to jamaica...

Penalty?

[fabu10u$]

So what is the penalty for being an unlicensed clone?

Re:Thank you Bush!

[arkhan_jg]

Reproductive cloning, i.e. creating a human child using cloning technology is still illegal in the UK, and will remain that way for a very long time, probably permanently. This is about cloning cells that will never have even the potential to be someone that could be enslaved.

Re:Thank you Bush!

[arkhan_jg]

Well, once the RIAA and MPAA make enough money suing all their customers for ludicrous sums so they don't even have to pretend they fund new talent...

software patents finish crippling any US-based innovation...

and oil becomes too expensive to burn delivering pizzas, you'll need a new list :)

I'm going to clone myself, then...

[rdwald]

...I'll teach my clones about the scientific method and make sure they vote (and post on Slashdot) with their brains and not their Bibles. Seriously, people, no one will attempt to clone a human baby until we've made damn sure that we know what we're doing. All genetic research != cloning a human baby.

Irrelevant as Usual

[Master of Transhuman]

In twenty or thirty years, nanotech will be shuffling genes like a deck of cards in Maverick's hands...

And also shuffling human cells the same way...

You ain't seen nothing yet.

Cancer will be history, the common cold a memory, and in a few decades every female will be able to look as good as one of the Corrs and every male look as good as...well, maybe not Jim...:-)

And cloning? Who cares about that? There is virtually NO advantage to cloning a human in terms of the end result as an adult human. There obviously are useful research results to be gained by doing human cloning research, but as a practical matter, no one has yet brought up a reason to actually clone a human with the express purpose of producing a cloned adult - other than to prove it can be done - which is a fairly lame reason to do it.

Wait until nanotech allows the EXACT DUPLICATION of a human being from the molecules on up. That's when things will get interesting. However, that probably won't be on the agenda for another fifty years or so, at least. And by then, it might be made irrelevant by other nanotech applications of farther reaching importance.

No, all of this hand-wringing comes from the usual group of philosophically-challenged "ethicists" whose sole function is to prove themselves more "ethical" (and by implication, therefore, "better") than other people.

BINGO!!!

[the_skywise]

"And then the whole fetus issue, which is pretty much mute in a world without souls."

Ergo, fetuses don't have souls so killing them for medical experimentation isn't a problem.

Yeah, that's a real "humanistic" attitude right there.

It's not a "God doesn't like it argument" Your statement right there is a perfect example as to why people have ethical problems about the whole issue.

Soylent Green anyone? I mean, c'mon it's only dead human flesh... It's not like you're eating someone's soul!

Re:BINGO!!!

[Coulson]

I mean, c'mon, it's only dead human flesh.

Funerals are not held for the dead, they are for the living. The dead don't care. Either they are incapable of caring, or they've gone to a place where it doesn't matter anymore. The ceremony exists to bring us some comfort and closure.

It's all about ceremony. Nature doesn't care what happens to that flesh. The dead person doesn't care. What happens to the flesh is immaterial to everything outside of our minds.

However, being human, ceremonies and beliefs are very powerful. Funerals are important. Belief in the soul is important. It's a deep and abiding part of our who we are. Just don't go thinking there's anything extrinsically true about any of those beliefs.

Once the light in the eyes goes out, it's just carbon. What made them who they are is gone. We should love and cherish our memories, and honor them for the sake of the love we bore them. But we're really just doing it for ourselves and for each other. Other cultures may have other ways of doing the same thing (e.g. cannibalistic cultures who believe that eating the flesh of dead relatives continues their spirit in you). And that's okay, that's just their way of dealing with the same feelings of grief and loss.

That's the humanistic attitude. Nature doesn't care about us. The world will continue to exist without us. But while we're alive, we think and feel as humans do, and we must respect that!

Re:BINGO!!!

[Omestes]

Perhaps I summed that up to rashly. The real question here is embryos, which are just a collection of replicating cells, with no finer structure. With embryos I have no qualms in the slightest of using/cloning, being that we are not dealing with a feeling individual, but an undifferenciated mass of cells. When we can feel is about as sticky as the fundies asking when the soul hit the body, though, but not quite as bad in the fact that we can have a measurable metric of 'life'. I prefer to take when the brain is operating as the operational definition of human life. Though some go for the heart, some go for some other structual cue.

I'm sorry for mistyping.

As for Soylent Green, we're not (fictionally) dealing with murder, we're dealing with people who choose to die in an over populated dystopia. Whats wrong with it? It feeds the masses, and it's source helps overpopulation, and all but the lack of disclosure of ingredients is completely willing.

Re:Thank you Bush!

[TheMeuge]

No you don't... You have to be an absolutist, with no grasp of basic concepts of Biology.

Re:Thank you Bush!

[TheMeuge]

I think you'll find that there are a lot of people whose lives could potentially be lengthened or improved with research that involves cloning and ES cells. It seems to me that you do not respect their lives.

Known stem cell difficulties not well publicized

[CactusCritter]

For starters, at every conception, a almost-always unique MHC (Major Histocompatibility Complex) comes into existence. This is the celluar identifier for all of the organism's cells, including stem cells.

Thus, for stem cell therapy, there is an initial problem of not being able to use stem cells for any other individual without suppressing the immune system of that indiviudal. Doing that suppresses any ability of the indivduals immune system being able to suppress any random cancer cells tht might appear in the individual.

The only workaround seems to be to cultivate stem cells from the individual to be treated therapeutically and modify the resultant stem cells as the basis for some therapy.

Secondly, there is a rapidly evolving area in molecular genetics called "epigenetics" whose potential impact on stem cell therapies is still under study.

Epigenetics deals with the function of some chunks of RNA (called micro RNA)in what used to be called "junk DNA" that functions genetically by attaching methyl groups to certain regions of genes to, generally, silence those genes. Micro RNA is a part of the genome passed to offspring, but I don't remember offhand the female-male contribution roles or even if they are already determined.

Just more stuff to make it apparent that stem cell therapies are not a slam-dunk type of certainty.

The real irony

[Martin Spamer]

is that the religious anti-cloning campaigns have shot themselves in the foot on this issue. They argued that scientific cloning is playing god and should not be allowed to create humans in labs because these clones wouldn't have souls. The response was since they don't have souls, they are by definition not people, just a bunch of cells, they therefore have no human rights, and science can do as it pleases with the clones. They should have argued that all clones ARE humans, they have human rights, and it would have stopped this in its tracks.

Wont work in this case.

[Martin Spamer]

Ian Wilmut was interviewed on the BBC Today Programme yesterday, and was asked about this very issue, and he uneqivically stated that this approach will not work for MND, and they where researching this area with this approach because adult stem cell research had failed.

Re:Thank you Bush!

[Coulson]

Yes, it certainly is financially risky. Long-term R&D always is, unless you're talking about an evolutionary improvement to an existing product.

Its going to stay financially risky until some successful experiments are done, either in a private lab or a publicly-funded one. So bring on the public funding! Once they find something that looks promising, and it looks like a profit could be made from it, private industry will snap it up.

3rd world countries DO get GM seed...

[Firethorn]

Given that they're a market, the GM companies will market the seeds for less than they do in the United States. The problem comes in that they want the money every year, the farmer can't reseed. So it's a tough financial decision.

As for starving nations, it's been said that in most cases they're starving not because of lack of food or transportation to get it there, but because of the political/war situation in the area. Usually those people are starving because the government/opposing faction in the area wants them to be starving, and are willing to back that up with weapons.

eventually contributing to more unemployment, especially among unskilled labour).

Uh, farming isn't exactly unskilled labour anymore. And if you're talking about hands to harvest, GM crops don't magically elminate that need.

genetically modified food doesn't offer nutrional advantages over regular non-GM food.

Well, there's "golden rice" that contains a nutrient not found in natural rice, but as I understand it, that was done by a non-profit group or something. But yes, most of it isn't any better nutriciously than the other mass market large-production crop types. There are usually other breeds that don't produce as much, but have better nutricion/taste.

Re:3rd world countries DO get GM seed...

[6th time lucky]

Golden rice was not actually done by a non-profit group as such, but in hind sight decided that they should give it away. *Then* they discovered that they had infringed on 50 odd patents and they needed everyone to agree. Luckily there is a non-profit org that wanted to organise this (ISAAA).

But the short of the story is this. A *lot* of children in developing countries either die or are maimed for life from malnutrition. the availability of golden rice (no need for terminator seed, just re-sow) and the vitamin A and iron in it would save tens of thousands of children a year from blindess and other disabilaties.

"Wont somebody *please* think of the children", and just let them grow it already.

We can talk about it as much as we want, but...

[skilef]

...in the end, cloning will find its way, no matter of the ethics involved. Of course, the ethics are important, but if we look at the discussion, we can see how legislations already circumvent (or deny) ethical consideration while they can (theoretically) maintain they ethically have considered the matter. There are two different discussions important here: 1) how much suffering can we force upon a certain group to 'please' the masses and 2) when do the beings of the first group become entities that can experience suffering as a human being? The first is a dodgy one and generally, utilitarian views are proliferating here: as long as the sum of 'happiness' is bigger than the sum of suffering (ie happiness increases through the emergence of new technologies), we should be allowed to pursue these goals. Benthamian thinking, as it has been dubbed by some, would for instance allow a judge to hang an innocent man, as long as the net positive result of that hanging (preventing riots for example, Jeremy Bentham was an 18th century philosopher) eventually supercedes the unhappiness of the man sentenced to death. Pleasing the public one might say. The second point of discussion is indeed about the distinction between a bunch of cells and a human being. Although ethicists have come up with 24 stages of embryo development to make pondering about the acceptability of several techniques more straightforward, many people active within ethics have decided to stay clear of this lengthy discussion and focus on the parents and scientists intentions instead. It is said we are not allowed to solely create embryo's for research purposes, but when an embryo has already 'come into being' it is another case. By law, it is illegal (at least in most European countries) to culture embryos strictly for research ends. However, the thousands of surplus embryo's that come available through in-vitro fertilization and similar assisted reproductive technologies can be wielded for research. So it seems law-makers already decided to skip the discussion on what is human and what's not and already found ways to please the public, despite of any negative consequences. We can talk about disputable business in the public and private sector, but the fact remains that there are always some loopholes (especially in medical research) to circumvent ethical enquiry. And while these loopholes are mere legislative, commerce eventually promotes the loopholes to loop-black-holes. With suction, you know...? I hate philosophy.

Start the clock

[Jivecat]

If the first human clone is born less than nine months from now, it'll make this the first "shotgun" cloning license.

It IS the same thing!

[lucason]

All we do now is take existing sets and mix them with other existing sets. And that IS very much the same as breeding. Just a tad faster and more efficient. We HAVE been manipulating genes from before we could write. And modern genetic engineering isn't all that different. I'm puzzled on why you think it is.

Re:It IS the same thing!

[pclminion]

All we do now is take existing sets and mix them with other existing sets.

No, we can actually rewrite the DNA so that it encodes new proteins which have never existed before. This has nothing to do with mixing genes.

We HAVE been manipulating genes from before we could write.

It is the combinations of genes we have been manipulating, not the genes themselves.

A licence to clone...

[salec]

New 007 movie ?

"Playing God"

[Jonti]

James Watson is usually quoted in answer to that question ...

"If we don't play god... who will?"

As good as the Corrs??

[serutan]

I guess it's just a matter of taste. At least you didn't say the Olsens.

Re:Thank you Bush!

[Dachannien]

with no grasp of basic concepts of Biology

Care to expound upon that? I have a feeling that I can make reasonable refutations to any argument you might present while still remaining well within the bounds of biology.

Re:Thank you Bush!

[demachina]

"The administration is spending a lot of money on scientific research, specifically the trips to the moon and mars."

The Bush administration is spending next to nothing in going to the Moon and in reality nothing at all on going to Mars. When he proposed the new initiative he said NASA would get a 5% increase in spending in the 2006 budget, they are getting 2.5% in the document released this week.

CEV funding is up to $1 billion in the 2006 budget from $500 million this year, and much of that money is probably going to be split between Boeing and Lockheed in duplicated effort so you get half as much as you would if there were one team.

By comparison missile defense gets something like $8 billion a year. Tsunami aid is going to see about as much money as CEV. The War in Iraq spends a billion dollars in a few days. No don't con anyone in to think Bush is a champion of the sciences or space explanation. He is throwing crumbs at it, most probably as payoffs to Boeing and Lockheed more than any interest in space exploration.

Project Prometheus is cancelled in the 2006 budget, which may or may not be a good thing, it is bad if you are a fan of nuclear propulsion.

So the only thing new Bush is funding while he is actually in office are the two unmanned prototype CEV launches presumably in to LEO by Boeing and Lockheed in 2008 at the end of his term if they don't slip. They are likely to be exceptionally lame tin cans sitting on top of existing expendable launchers. Its unlikely there will be anything new or leading edge about them. Boeing is pushing its Titan Heavy Lifter apparently and it ain't no Saturn V. In 2008, assuming one or both prototypes actually work they pick a winner and then there are no launches for another 6 years, if they stay on schedule, so there MAY be a manned CEV in 2014, 6 years after Bush is out of office. Boeing and Lockheed are going to make a lot of money for doing relatively little on CEV for a long time.

By contrast the Russian Space Agency is taking a full scale model of their Kliper reusable capsule to the Paris Air show in June. It will carry 6 astronauts to the ISS or possibly the moon. There schedule is vague, "a few years" but it would be really hard for it to take longer than the ridiculously slow CEV schedule. In the second race to the Moon by money is on Russia to win this time. It appears a near certainty that they are going to achieve something NASA has completely failed to do and get the ISS up to six people so they can do some science instead of just barely keeping up on maintainance. With Kliper it also appears likely they will be ready to go it alone resupplying the ISS after NASA abandons it and the shuttle.

NASA went from Kennedy's speech, and a nearly standing start to the moon in much less than 10 years. This time around it appears it will take 10 years just to get the first manned capsule in to LEO and just get back to where we were around 1965, 50 years later.

Re:Thank you Bush!

[demachina]

Just curious what you base your assertion on, since I doubt you have a clue what their position really is on the subject.

It would seem to me like stem cell based therapies are an exceptionally poor fit for drug companies, since I don't think they are going to be mass producing any drugs using stem cells anytime soon. I almost wish they would just to see how ballistic you and your fellow pro life fanatics would go if Eli Lily or Pfizer were to start grinding up embryos from abortions to mass produce some stem cell based miracle drug.

The techniques that seem most likely initially would probably be a better fit for research hospitals which will use stems cells implants to treat things like Parkinson's or to repair spinal cord injuries. They are medical procedures, probably involving surgery, not drugs.

You can be sure that the first person or institution who does use embryonic stem cells to treat humans is going to be pummeled by the religious right who've decided that they run this country, and can dictate their morality to everyone else, and thanks to the New Republican party pretty much can. Any U.S. institution which does attempt an embryonic stem cell treatment will almost certainly regret it and I doubt the business people who run it will even allow it due to the probable backlash.

Its likely that this field will be added to a growing list where the breakthroughs happen outside the U.S. because fundementalist Christians are pushing the U.S. back in to the Dark Ages.