To clone or not to clone, that is the question
 

The two most frequent ideas put forth in science-fiction are upon us; we are capable of space travel, and we have the ability to clone human beings. I would like to talk about the latter. There has been great debate about the future of cloning; one side argues that it is man tinkering with nature and that we should drop it all together; the other side believes that it is man's right as scientific and intellectual beings to go forth with our study, regardless of the results.

I have always supported scientific study. The fact that we have evolved to understand the fabrication of the human body is a huge step towards understanding ourselves. However questions of ethical and lawful proportions are upon us and we have great responsibility at hand. Should we continue with the experimentation of cloning?

I for one think that we should, for it can garnish too many benifits to be ignore. The possibility of gaining insight into how diseases function and the potential of curing those diseases seems like only one important benifit. However, I also believe that if humans can be cloned (assuming that they are not conscious), an army of cheap and insensible labor can be created. Assuming that they can be trained- we could perform work and study where otherwise we couldn't (e.i. in volcanoes, deep water investigation, perhaps even in space). Also the idea of growing spare organs for people who desparately need them is very uplifting.

Do you think that cloning can have benifits, if so how? What are some ethical, lawful, and religious reasons why we shouldn't? What other purpose(s) can cloning take? In general, what do you think are the ramifications of embarking on such an endeavor?

clone me and make this place a better world :p ;)

I'm pro-clone!
I think that by the time I've completely worn this body out they will be able to grow a new copy of me under accelerated growth conditions in sensory deprivation, insert my brain chemistry *(just like swapping a hard drive) and TADA!!!
A new me!
Of course I will need that re-cyclers drivers license to prove I'm really 90 and not the 12 year old I'll look like so I can buy beer.

You bring up an interesting possibility Jon- But the transfer of the mind isn't so easy; if at all possible.

the brain cells die after a time.. they dont love forever.. so i dont think its possible.. unless you would clone the brain too, but you could never clone the memories in them.. and the feelings in them

if you raise clones in different enviroments, they would become 2 different persons

Sorry Linx, I edited my earlier post- I thought it out it out a bit, but I do agree with you. Unless there is a way to keep the brain fresh from decay- and we someday discover where our mind inhabits, maybe then....

you sneaky bastard boplicity :p hehehe

Again, sorry- i edited, then saw your post.
btw: I didn't know brain cells, loved.

I think that cloning for medical purposes are ok.
organs and so on.
If someone should be sick and need an organ transplant then it would be so much easier to get their own organs then wait for some match.
but i guess you would have to catch it before the clone got sick too?
i mean whats to say if your oneself was sick wouldnt the other one get sick too? with the same disease or illness?
after all its your clone.
what clones could be good for is the research to prevent such diseases.

but with everything there will be downfalls with this because its not natural it would be made in a lab and it could result in major havoc i think.
as for sending the clones out in war??
no i dont think thats a good idea i dont think war is a good idea at all.
for developmental research if they are capable of learning like we are sure why not..

well those are my thoughts on this
have a great day everyone :)

i also dont think its good to "design" your own kid...

and boplicity, what did you mean? brain cells, loved?

Review your posts.

sorry typo.. i is close to o, so i acidentally typed it

I do not really like cloning, but there are some good advantages. Examples already listed by bop.

I don't like cloning for several reasons

1. Would this person (maybe even machine) have the same rights as any other person does? Of course yes, because it's a human to. It would have the same feelings and thoughts on everything. And if he discovers that he was created just for war or as a plant for energy (like in the matrix ;)) or for spare organs, what then? He would freak out, at least I would.

2. This person would be discriminated, because people will feel better then this "machine", yes it's the same, but not made by nature.

3. I have read in the news of that sheep called dolly, who is a clone to, she wasnt 100% the same as normal sheep (longer young or something not sure) so you would have 2 sorts of humans, now who wants that?

Hiya Bop & LynX
I sort of have an idea that personality resides in a chemical "memory".
There has long been a debate in medical circles about whether the mind is made up of the grey matter generaly, or if it is recorded in the folds and twists of the brain tissues.
Since some people have had substatial amounts of brain tissue removed due to trauma or disease, and their personalities remained essentialy the same, my understanding of the matter tends towards a chemical memory hypothesis.
The chemmem hypothesis would take into consideration the fact that sometimes transplant patients evidence parts of the personalities of the organ donor.
Exactly what we are, and where we are as regards personality and the brain cannot be said to be fully understood at this point in time.
I'm depending on you whippersnappers to figure it out in time for me to live forever, so get to it!

If what you say is some what true John then that is a scary thought because.
if an insane person by genetics donates some organs thru whatever means
his genes will pass on to someone thru his cells?
i dont think that would be a good thing at all

I know what ya mean LiL ViXen.
I know of cases where a person who never cared for a particular food, absolutely craved it after a transplant, it turned out the food had been a favorite of the organ donor.
Similar things have happened with preferences in music, and colors.
That I know of no axe murderers entertainment preferences have been passed on to an organ recipient, but who's to say it couldn't happen?
There was some old literature concerning blood transfusions of various types of psychotics where persons who got the psychotics blood had some similar problems, though only temporarily.

that's a very scary thought i think.

we have enough madmen in the world we don't need to clone them or pass on there cells.

if cloning humans should happen this should be taken into account

/me hasn't read the whole thread, so doesnt't know what he is saying

The only problem with cloning that I see is that because the ethical hangups people have with "playing God", scientists would only be able to clone people if they weren't people. In other words, clones would be given a nonhuman status under the law. This way, we can clone folks, but still have a clear conscience because we didn't create a "real" person. It's just a clone, not a human. The problem with this is that if something is not human, then we have no ethical problems at all with doing terrible things to them, such as forced labor, medical testing, and so on.

You get the problem of age. Like Dolly the sheep, the clone started life at age four - the age of the cells from which she was cloned. Thus if you cloned a 30 year old, the clone would start off with 30 years less to live.

and dolly already has health complications....

back on subject: cloning people for what reason? to make a perfect race (hitler and genecide) or for spare body parts? i feel it's depressing enough that there's murder in the world, but when people kill to extend their life than it becomes sick and selfish.
i see no problem in cloning individual cells for treatment but not entire beings.


any other ways we can cheapen life in the name of science?

Cloning is good and bad.
Good because:
It provides organs for those who need them in dire necessity
Can fix health problems for the future of the clone victim

Bad because:
A life is lost at the expense of the current, and original person
Is there a soul/spirit of that life that's cloned?

I think cloning people is a bad idea. I am in favor of cloning organs and such. We can't do that yet, but I think we will eventually.

Cloning a race of inferior people is an extremely unethical. That's like saying you want to intentionaly inflict mental dysabilities onto millions of people. Would you put people with Down Syndrome into mines and volcanoes?

The study of cloning is a great step, but cloning people brings up too many problems. It also bears no more scientific value than cloning sheep and rats. Cloning humans is no different, scientifically, so why bring up these issues at all?

/me searches his memory, exploring the dim and distant past and recalls a similar thread a few months ago

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread....threadid=56777


Repeating what I said here, I beleive the cloning is ok to a certain extent. Dr's should be allowed to replicate individual parts of your body, so that old and failing ones can be replaced. But to go as far as creating complete replicas is a very bad idea - the film gattaca springs to mind with respect to the discrimination.

On the topic of cheap labour - imho a stupid idea - they would be human, and what right do we have to surpress our own people? How would they stand for it? Clones would be no different from us, so it would be just a small step towards surpression of our own "non-cloned" people

Clones are like twins but one's older, one's younger.
It wouldn't be right to create a human that is specific for certain things. Nature's evolution would cease to exist because of doctors creating the perfect human baby, no health problems, high achievement scholar, long life. Who's job is is it to make everyone unique in their own way?...GOD. Are doctors becoming GOD now, and creating specific people for the future?

Not everything is genetic, Henry. Adaptation still continues today among human populations behaviourly, even though our physical bodies need not ever change.

This is true. Supposing you had two non-cloned identical twins. Suppose they grew up in different 'neighborhoods'; one in an affluent area and one in a poor area. They would almost certainly have different personalities, although there appearance would be the same.

It would theoretically be possible to create a pathological murderer from Mother Theresa's hair samples.

I am definitely against cloning just from the ethical standpoint on because that "person" would not have a soul. I do not think that it is wise to try to create new life, it just doesn't seem like something that humans should do. I personally believe that there probably already are human clones in existence, but that they will not be presented to the world until this debate is brought to an end.

I was heading for genetics, but you are right. About the human mind, and thinking, they do that on their own, nothing we can control about it. They can grow up to become the president, to being a bum, to owning everything, to being the oldest person alive. It depends on how they think of life as it is, what their philosophy is. You wouldn't be able to tell the clone if you saw them out there, its 1 out of 6 billion. They're normal human beings, just created differently, than naturally. But who gives them the right to live? There could be clones of everyone, like the president, Bill Gates, Mike the Llama, and you wouldn't be able to tell the genuine apart from the clones. Its like stealing personality traits of someone to commit an impersonation of somebody.

You can't say that. Assuming that souls are real (I believe so), why would clones not have souls?

going on to the clone have or not have souls.
you have to believe in god,
god made humans.
he gave us souls
humans made clones we can not give them souls.
but this is awhole nother topic ...
so i will shut up.
because my views on this are different then most

Given that the floowing statements are true:
God gives humans souls
Clones are humans

The following must be true:
God gives souls to clones

:p

When IQ tests attack. :D

but god didnt make them
humans did
so where does it all fit in?

Wrong Curious George! we are not gods, merely made in the likeness of Him, Her, It They. (I believe it is Him because I'm Catholic, but I don't want to offend others.) Just read through the part of Bible that deals with creation and it says just that.

PS Religion is the most illogical thing in existence so you cant prove it with logic.:D

Clones will never be exactly like the original in personality, because all souls are unique as humans are. So, a different soul is put into the clone. They might look the same, but inside they're not. You can't clone souls.

You two missed the entire point of my post. I never said that we could give souls. I said that if God gives souls to all humans, then he will/must give souls to all human clones, because human clones are humans, too.

We can't even create life, technically. We can tap into natural processes, and alter them, but that's all. So, who is to say that during the creation of a life, the soul is not created? God gives life. God gives souls.

Look, I'm not arguing religion here. i'm simply saying that you cannot say that clones could not have souls. We can't give souls. Big deal. If God can give souls, then he could give them to clones just as well.

point well taken.

Yes, but my point was that the clones were not created by God, but by a "God clone" if you will. That would actually make the human clones second generation clones and I don't feel that they would receive souls because of this. This also makes me wonder whether or not, like us, that the clones would recieve souls from their creator. God gave us souls so we give clones souls. Then of course their is still the matter of whether or not souls or God even exist. It kind of makes my head hurt.:D

We can't really "create" clones. We can only change the natural process somewhat. Once again, if God gives life, God gives souls (or could). :)

:D

No one can answer this definitively, of course. I just wanted to put out another view. The correct one. ;)

Just to participate on several of the discussions.

Here goes.

1st - The issue of cloning.

Well the difinition of cloning is by itself duplicating or copying. now people can say a thousand different things about this the word is that it is not recreating or inventing, it is just taking the blue print and making a copy of it.

2nd - The issue of souls.

Well just to let you guys know, that "LIFE" in a baby starts only like a certain period after the sperm and ovum conbines and cell multiplication starts. The exact time in which "LIFE" comes in is not specific but doctors used the pumping of the heart as a starting point. Now the so call "SOUL" of human is the LIFE FORCE of us. If we loose that force of life, we loose the soul in which allows us to be us.

This might become a full fledge flamming thread but I hope you guys can be open minded about this as it is a discussion. Because as far as I am concern any living being has a soul. And when I say living, I mean living. Anything that shows sentient properties. That will include the virus. It is a bit broad but it is valid if you take a close look at it.

3rd - The issue of a clone with a soul.

Now based on my previous two issues, I would say one thing, and one thing only. When man COPIES natures work, it coppies its magic as well, so to say.

We did not give life or soul to the clone, nature did. Even if we were the one that tampered with it, it is still natures word. Or GOD's work if you like.

Man did not create the DNA in us, GOD did, and we copied that. Nature will take care of itself no matter what man does to it. we are but space dust compared to the vastness of the entire universe. Why do we pride ourself that we can be GOD. We can try and we will learn. But in reality when we reach GODHOOD, we will not be MAN anymore, so where is the relevance of it, the day that we are still man, we will never be GOD. Take that into consideration.

you can argue about what GOD is but in your heart you all know. We don't create Nature, Nature creates us. Untill we are NATURE we will never be IT. The principle applies to everything else.

Man has never invented anything in life, we have only discovered and found ways in which nature allows us to work. Show me a single thing that is truly invented and not natures by default.

4th - Final issue
When we clone, we will only recreate what it is already reality. If you make a heart, you get a heart. If you make a man you will get a MAN. Making it inferior will not stop the evolution process. Nature takes care of all its creation, even if it was a copied version. Whatever we clone will be us, either now or later. Do not make the mistake of thinking that we are GOD, because we are not. So for every actions that we do, think in a proper perspective.

Don't dillusion yourself thinking otherwise.

If you clone life, you will get life, and life will live on, whether we like it or not.

Note: Don't flame me for this, for it is just another point of view.
Thanks for listening.