It's sad to read all the hyped stories about cloning, including their sometimes catastrophic so-called forecasts. I'd like to see some more reflective discussions about the subject instead of the parrot-like announcements copied from non-authoritive sources; 'next they are cloning this and that etc...'. It looks like scientists are playing the role of priests 'explaining' scientific pseudo-truth, which a lot of people want to believe in. Fundamental problems are being discarded as technical hurdles, rrrrrright. Everybody making a living doing research will recognize this. Regarding the use of cloning to prevent species from becoming extinct: In my opinion the first thing responsible for extinction is loss of habitat (for example due to cultivation of land by humans). If one doesn't tackle that, you are only working on the symptoms. Second, for a specie to survive it needs a rich and diverse gene pool. Simply growing a bunch of clones won't do, even an idiot can understand that. Btw, has it occurred to less mentally impaired that mapping the genome is not equivalent to understanding the working mechanism (even if that is a sensible, although 19th century, paradigm)? Simply recording DNA sequences and associating them with functionality or form is not even close to grasping the syntax or symantics of the DNA 'languange' (my preferred paradigm), which complexity might be profound. It had a looooong time to evolve, ya know. Treat science with a bit more respect, and scientists with a bit less pleaze. Ivo
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It's sad to read all the hyped stories about cloning, including their sometimes catastrophic so-called forecasts. I'd like to see some more reflective discussions about the subject instead of the parrot-like announcements copied from non-authoritive sources; 'next they are cloning this and that etc...'. It looks like scientists are playing the role of priests 'explaining' scientific pseudo-truth, which a lot of people want to believe in. Fundamental problems are being discarded as technical hurdles, rrrrrright. Everybody making a living doing research will recognize this. Regarding the use of cloning to prevent species from becoming extinct: In my opinion the first thing responsible for extinction is loss of habitat (for example due to cultivation of land by humans). If one doesn't tackle that, you are only working on the symptoms. Second, for a specie to survive it needs a rich and diverse gene pool. Simply growing a bunch of clones won't do, even an idiot can understand that. Btw, has it occurred to less mentally impaired that mapping the genome is not equivalent to understanding the working mechanism (even if that is a sensible, although 19th century, paradigm)? Simply recording DNA sequences and associating them with functionality or form is not even close to grasping the syntax or symantics of the DNA 'languange' (my preferred paradigm), which complexity might be profound. It had a looooong time to evolve, ya know. Treat science with a bit more respect, and scientists with a bit less pleaze. Ivo