Cloning

How do you see cloning ?

  • Favourably

    Votes: 22 23.7%
  • It could be a good thing

    Votes: 29 31.2%
  • I don't like it too much

    Votes: 23 24.7%
  • Dead against

    Votes: 9 9.7%
  • Don't know

    Votes: 5 5.4%
  • Don't care

    Votes: 5 5.4%

  • Total voters
    93
howabe said:
We're on the way though. Scientists in South Korea have successfully created cloned blastocysts, ...

But those two papers (2004/5) were the ones repudiated recently as using fraudulent data. So it's still to be seen if it can truly been done (though Dr. Hwang is currently pleaing to try and prove that some of the cultures were successful).
 
Mac said:
I have just seen that my comment has been selected (with plenty of others) and highlighted by the BBC on its Talking Point section. Always make you feel like you exist. ;)

You've just proved the anti-cloning point there.

To clone someone is to violate their existance, every human is unique, by taking their DNA you not only steal their existance from the donor, you cause alot of issue for the clone, how would the clone feel knowing they were created in a laboratory, having the genetic material harvested from someone else? how would they feel knowing they are just a copy?.

I understand your point of view Mac, your a very uber-liberal "progressive" minded individual, but, as you made my point for me, you like to feel you exist, despite your opinion humans are intelligent animals (true as it is) as a sentient being you still value your identity, how would you cope if there were 10-30 or even hundreds of copies of Mac walking about belgium?.

Im not a religious nut so this isnt based on the its playing god argument, its based on the basic rules of humanity and core ethics (which different from christian propaganga, isnt based on christian dogma, its based on the fact some things are just wrong. period).

Scientific progress just has to accept the confines and limits of universal ethics, if it doesnt humanity would soon enough degenerate into something not worthy of being called human, and i would happily see it whiped off of the face of the universe.

I dont mnid cloning research entirely, but fully grown clones must never be allowed to become common-place, or even not so common-place, otherwise we start ourselves on a slippery slope which can only lead to darker things.
 
I know it's 'only a movie' but I think 'Bladerunner' raises questions about artificially created people, although the Replicants in Bladerunner are not clones (they are 'built' by genetic designers)
They give the Replicants fake 'memories' to pacify their curiosity about where they came from.
A creature with a mind as sophisticated and emotional as a human is going to have a lot of questions and problems with it's existance.

Think of the issues created by adoption, people become curious about their origins - imagine finding out you had no mother or father at all.
I'm no Luddite, but I think the pro-cloning brigade need to think long and hard about the human difficulties that clones might encounter.
There's enough troubled people in this world as it is.
 
I wouldn't know from experience, but I imagine identical twins sometimes have what you might call 'identity issues'... I don't suppose it's all roses. :clueless:
 
The identical twin issue brings up a good point, in my opinion. That is, even if I were to have a clone made of myself, that new person still would not be me. Ignoring whether the "self" is only an illusion or not, that clone would have an identity of his own, distinct from mine. He would have different experiences to define his character, and therefore he would be different.

It seems to me that a number of people in society seem to overlook this fact.
 
It's a good point though, I know I could have turned out completely differently if certain things had been different in my life.

This all puts me in mind of an old science fiction story about a colony on the moon where people downloaded their memories to these "data cubes" and if you got killed they just cloned a new body and put the memories back in.

The main character kept getting murdered, and couldn't figure out who was doing it since their memory cube data was only as recent as their last trip to the doctor's.

Good story--great suprise ending too--but I digress.

For me, the issue is really one of escalation. If we have this technology, people are going to misuse it, it's just that simple--everything we have get's misused sooner or later. So the real question is whether we want something as major as human clonning to get thrown into the mix. I mean, you misuse a can opener, no big deal--at worst you might be able to kill somebody with one if you really tried. But misuse human cloning?

Man, the possibilities are staggering.

Do we really want to have to deal with the kind of problems that could cause? I mean, we've already got nukes and spacecraft and supercolliders to misuse, isn't that enough?

On the other hand, can you really stop it?

All it takes is one genious or a lot of idiots with generous funding.
 
Foxtrot Uniform said:
Wow, there are some real thinkers in this forum, and sadly some real "un-thinkers." I know some of you are joking or speaking hypothetically when discussing the sci-fi stuff, but I'm surprised at the level of ignorance found in some people. Quite incredible...


Fair point, but none of us are experts. This thread is about speculation.
Also, there are some sci-fi authors who are practicing scientists, or at least conduct a lot of scientific research, so sci-fi is not always nonsense. A lot of it is informed speculation.
 
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Mikawa Ossan said:
The identical twin issue brings up a good point, in my opinion. That is, even if I were to have a clone made of myself, that new person still would not be me. Ignoring whether the "self" is only an illusion or not, that clone would have an identity of his own, distinct from mine. He would have different experiences to define his character, and therefore he would be different.
It seems to me that a number of people in society seem to overlook this fact.

Exactly. Just look at the movie Multiplicity. While the movie itself is almost completely absurd, they make this exact point.

Even if a clone retains all past memories of the original up to the point of cloning, that clone is going to have it's own experiences from that point on, and therefore end up different.
 
Personally I don?t really care if there is another "me" anywhere on this planet I?d rather have to share my "genetical Id" with someone else if the possibility of replacing malfunctioning parts of your body in case you are in need of them. The possibilities on the medical sector would be huge just imagine having your own personal stash of parts your body to replace them if you need to.
 
For those who are against cloning, reflect about this : a Canadian woman gave birth to rare identical quadruplets.

I didn't know that there were natural identical triplets or quadruplets. If the four survive, their life will be just like the same person cloned 3 times. Identical siblings share exactly the same DNA, so that when one of them has a child, it could be the one of any of them. A great way not too worry too much about not having children, as long as your identical twin does, as it will be yours too (genetically). Yet identical twins, triplets or quadruplets are natural. Those against cloning are against one of the wonders of Nature (and against the work of God, if they believe in God).

Some primitive civilisations thought of identical twins are evil, so that always killed one of them after birth. Others, like the Romans, found it was a gift of the gods. Make your choice where you stand.
 

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