View Full Version : Human Cloning
Ready or not here it comes...
And we have no idea where it will lead either:confused: Maybe a Brave New World.
More likely to lead to Frankenstein's monster.
Leave it alone, we shouldn't be playing with it!
But they are so cunning Bee, first it will be cloning to produce replacement body parts, next it will be cloning to replace babies that died in childbirth, after that who knows. The thin end of the wedge analogy applies here.
I strongly believe cloning is here to stay and we had all better get used to the idea. There are a lot of positives to come out of this work, but there is a whole lot of danger too.
Now that they can, they will. Strict controls are all very well; they said that about nuclear weapons and now look who's got hold of them.. Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, etc.
Trouble is, integrity and honesty have to be involved and not everyone's got those.
Apart from the theoretical moral issues, ie playing God, having the power to create and destroy human life, using foetuses to "harvest" body parts, what other outcomes can you envisage? (I think the "creating another Hitler" scenario is a bit fanciful)
Pessimistic
27 Nov 2001, 13:02
Originally posted by Curly5
Now that they can, they will. Strict controls are all very well; they said that about nuclear weapons and now look who's got hold of them.. Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, etc.
Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Boris Yeltsin etc.
I think it is great that science has worked out how to clone, but i think there are way too many dangers involved in such a technology. The world is way too overpopulated as it is, and if you can clone yourself, what will the world come to??
The world's population is supposed to peak after the next century or so...and then begin to decrease.
eagleskickass
30 Nov 2001, 16:59
Originally posted by Nic
The world's population is supposed to peak after the next century or so...and then begin to decrease.
how is this known? there could be no solid evidence, yes they could extrapolate from graphs to find a pattern, but i doubt it will peak as such, it will steadily continue to grow. india itself is increasing dramatically, but China is slowing.
Longboysfan
30 Nov 2001, 22:41
Funny you should venture onto this subject.
I read a book about 10 years ago or so about this scientist who was working in one of the Russian republics - while there was still a Soviet Union book set in the 70's.
The upshoot of it was the scientist created a drug or such to make you live longer - about 70 years or so beyond your normal live span.
And the Russian leaders wanted this. So they could stay in power longer.
The scientist thought it would be great to keep alive smart people so they could help humanity. But the leaders wanted it for themselves. Not the common man or anyone but themselves.
Moral and end is the guy ended up killing himself over this.
Why because some people will do anything to be Immortal.
That is what cloning would lead to. Someone trying to be immortal and we know there are quite a few out there who would want that for themselves.
Asgardian
1 Dec 2001, 18:07
Originally posted by NYMets
can you clone a soul?
can you show me a soul?
can you show me where it goes in the human body?
I'm not trying to be smart, but ethereal arguments just don't cut the mustard when it's a matter of pragmatism versus blind fear and / or ignorance
Has anyone read the (Red/Green/Blue) Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson?
Someone should clone Katrina Warren. Everyone should have one of those!
Originally posted by danzy_rocks
what im posting is just my opinion (cept for the first paragraph)
cant you only clone the physical image and genetic makeup etc of a person, but not their personality? im not too sure if thats the case or what.
eg if hitler was cloned, and brought up in the same time as he lived in and by the same people, i think it would be highly likely he would turn out to be like he was, but what if he was brought up in a totally different time, and by people who taught him the difference between right and wrong, and urged him to do right? would he still be the tyrant he was?
im not saying his parents or whoever brought him up taught him to do wrong or anything, but i do think if your brought up in say two different places and by two different people, this would have an effect on your personality.
some people say that we should clone the greats like Einstein and Newton, so that they could work with and improve our current technology. but what if they were sucsessfully cloned, but were too busy doing things like watching tv and going out and other things that we do now days, so that they never made important discoveries which they were cloned to make?
also, what if they werent meant to be told that they were cloned, but found out anyway? and then just refused to use their brains?
once again... this is just my opinion.
just along those lines, even if you clone someone, isn't it by dna, and then the clone is implanted into a 'surrogate' mother?
i'm showing just how little i know here, but if that is the case, then the mother the clone is implanted in will be different from the original's mother, and thereby affect the clone throughout the pregnancy etc, so it will be in different circumstances from 'conception' so to speak.
so environment in those terms, would make things very different for the clone than from the original.
that is, if that's the way it all works.
just extending the whole nature vs. nurture thing i guess.