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EU Parliament Votes To Ban Cloning of Farm Animals
sciencehabit writes: The European Parliament today voted to ban the cloning of all farm animals as well as the sale of cloned livestock, their offspring, and products derived from them. The measure, which passed by a large margin, goes beyond a directive proposed by the European Commission in 2013, which would have implemented a provisional ban on the cloning of just five species: cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, and horses. The supporters of the ban cited animal welfare concerns, claiming that only a small percentage of cloned offspring survive to term, and many die shortly after birth. The ban does not cover cloning for research purposes, nor does it prevent efforts to clone endangered species.
Is the govt going to tell us we can do that? WTF did they get the rights to tell us we can't have a clone of our pets?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Research on humans has found that personality is somewhat heritable, so I suspect this would also be true of animals. It's already generally accepted that certain breeds express certain personality traits more so than others, so an exact replica raised in a similar environment should theoretically be similar in temperament to the previous incarnation.
Also why not do it if for no other reason than attempting to determine how well it works or to improve techniques for carrying out cloning? If someone wants to pay to advance science, why stand in their way?
You know, that's always bothered me in science fiction, when they duplicate people. There's an assumption on the part of the character duplicating himself that the other iterations will do what he wants them to do or will otherwise see him as a leader. The most egregious example was an episode of the modern Doctor Who series where The Master duplicated himself over nearly everyone on earth, and despite them all being him they all followed orders, when he wouldn't be inclined to follow orders of anyone, arguably even himself. It was also a bit of an issue in the second and third Matrix films, but Smith's more singular purpose seemed to be better at not having the clones fight against each other, and possibly even simply be parallel processes of the same intelligence instead of truly forked, independent processes.
The only time I've seen it done well was in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, where a long-ago duplicated Riker was discovered living in an abandoned outpost, where the issues of who could and should claim what aspects of life were debated. Both Rikers were indeed individual people at that point even if they started out as one.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
LOL ... only someone who isn't a parent, has never encountered children, was raised in a lab, AND was a single child could ask that question.
Animals don't develop personalities like that.
Hell, even human twins can have wildly different personalities. Animals born years apart are simply not going to have the same personalities.
It really doesn't work like that.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
These are pets. As long as the basic behavior traits are mostly the same, the owner will just project the details.
There is a research exception. So doing it to see how it works (which has been done...) or to improve techniques is allowed.
What this law really is preventing is another situation like the collapse of the banana production in the 1950's: Bananas are seedless, so are grown from cuttings - essentially clones of single plant. In the 50's, there was a disease that spread that the then-popular type of banana was very susceptible to, which almost wiped out the entire industry. The industry switched to a different variety, but it's still just a vegetative clone, ready to be hit by one disease and wiped out again. Imagine that happening to chickens or cows, wiping out their respective industries, even for a year or two. It would be chaos.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
You're right of course, but I wanted to add that a decent example of this was in a Michael Keaton comedy, of all places, called Multiplicity. The basic premise was he had too much to do, got a clone of himself to handle his job (architect or something), while he spent time with the wife and kids and still did some household chores.
Eventually, the original wanted more leisure time and created a second clone for the household chores. Ultimately, the architect copy became more manly (grunting, drank beer, roughhoused, deeper voice) and the household cleaner became more feminine. After a while, neither clone wanted to do the grunt work and they made a clone of a clone...which turned out to be less intelligent than the others.
Long story short, it showed how a clone (even though it had the same memories of the original up to the point of cloning) would eventually branch off and have their own experiences that shaped their needs and wants.
For fuck sake this isn't about some Luddite scaremongering.
If all of your livestock share the same genetic makeup they will all share the same strengths.. And weaknesses. A disease could wipe out a country's entire cattle/pig/chicken/whatever population in a week.
Industrial ranching already creates the perfect storm of disease selection pressure and communicability. We pen those four legged meatbags in to the tightest, smallest possible space, stress them out, let them wallow in their own filth, feed them garbage (including the chopped up entrails of their brothers), and hope that throwing antibiotics at them keeps them alive long enough to meet slaughter maturity/weight.
Remove what little genetic diversity that already exists by cloning? Fuck me. It's a wonder we're not all vegetarians by now.
Not by choice, but by necessity.
It's a very clever and forward thinking bit of legislation that will head off predictable problems down the line.
Eventually someone will figure out how to clone animals reliably and cost effectively. Commercial animal farmers will want to use the technology to reproduce the best milk giving and meat giving specimens. The problem is that if you have a large population of genetically identical animals they are vulnerable to disease. Genetic diversity is what protects populations from minor genetic defects becoming serious, and from diseases that affect individuals with particular genes wiping out the entire group.
It's happened before with bananas. There is a constant worry that it could happen with other fruits, such as mandarins in Japan (every tree in the entire country is a clone, made from a cutting of a single original plant). The EU is ensuring that it doesn't happen with livestock, at least until the research has been done to ensure there is minimal risk.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC