clones as kids

I think that humans are beginning to be too clever for their own good. We are not ready to alter the genetic make-up of an individual (future individual). There is still so much we do not understand about the science of genetics. We cannot possibly begin to play with the fabric of DNA. Dolly the sheep (the first life animal of cloning) died prematurely with the signs of aging....and scientists thought it had been a success before everything went wrong. Humans are not here to experiment with....Frankenstein is fiction, it should not be a reality.

 

I agree that Humans are getting too smart, maybe Disease and things are a way to keep population from overflowing any more than it already has. and going ahead and "playing God" (I already know many of you won't like that phrase ) is a bit much? Imagine if this same thing happened to humans or another "intelligent" life form that "controlled" the earth millions of years ago that we don't know about because they got too smart and wiped themselves out somehow? like sorta a cycle repeating? now i'm rambling lol.

 

No! You make a very good point. Although cloning will hopefully be an issue of my kids generation and not mine. lol I don't wanna live through the Star Wars: Clone Wars....and if the President gets assassinated I don't want a clone. Then you'd have to deal with Clone rights as a human being, IF they could be called such and that'd be a bigger debate than with the churches "God hates fags!" debacle. But I also thought maybe disease and cancer is the Earth's way of stopping overpopulation. Though, for it to be effective, they would have to be many more cases...though, the Earth is relatively still young!

I once seen this in a show called Blue Gender where the Earth creates a special new cell and human kind splices it with animals that eventually turn into monstrosities and the Earth just perpetuates their evolution until almost all of mankind is wiped from the face of the Earth only to have the beasts wiped out next. It was in order to reset the population. We are a cancer, and there's no refuting that. This is a case where our good does not even out the bad.

 

I would agree if our population was a little lower and we were more enviromentally friendly.
a clone=another child=more C02=more population=less animals and plants

 

not to sound conceited but I'd love to have another me around, it'd make the world 2x as good

 

-_-

 

Dolly died of lung disease, had nothing to do with her being a clone.
And people seem to be a bit confused about clones, a clone is NOT an another "you". Genetically, it can be argued that they are, they have all the same genes. However, what makes you "you" is all the experiences and memories that you have gained through life. The clone will have none of that, at most, all they can be is an identical twin.

 

This means I can have a clone army and take over the world!! We don't need clones theres enough kids in the ophanage.

 

clones are a bad idea, period.

 

Clones are a good idea in my book. We talk about the next frontier being space and space colony and such but that is the walt disney point of view. The next frontier is the human body. Cloning is just another obstical in the road to understanding ourselves. We talk abour finding cures for desieases and making life better for other people yet when the time comes to man up and accept the corse offerd to look for those solutions... it is the public (not scienist) who shy's away from it and play into the whole religion side (sound fimilar) chanting "its not normal", "Stop playing/defying god". Either all of science is ok or none of it is. Vote yes on cloning...everything....even the spider you killed last week so you can kill it again next year and maybe make a ritual out of it and who wouldnt want more gay people around we make the world a better place.

 

I really don't think it's that black and white. Going with your comparison/juxtaposition of science with religion, I'm sure nearly everyone in the forum would agree that the verses in the bible that talk about bringing ones unruly children to the gates of the city and stoning them to death are unreasonable in todays society but that those verses that talk about loving and demonstrating kindness toward others are extremely relevant and a good idea. Science is the same way, there are many things that are great, like insulin, but there are things that push the qualification of "good" into something more negative.

 

But then again if we were a population of clones diseases would probably find it easier to wipe us out because there would be more then one person with the same genetic make up so they would be susceptible to exactly the same disease and instead of killing of only those who are not immune to the disease twice as many if not more would die if all those people had been cloned. It is variation in DNA which makes a species less likely to die out due to disease because it is the variations and mutation which provide immunity.

 

Science is neither good nor bad , it is the people who have the knowledge that make it either depending on the way they choose to use it.

 

I wasnt going to go into the technicalities of Dolly, because I didnt think it was relevant. It is true that Dolly died of a lung disease which affects sheep of all ages, however she also died with the stigmata of old age, and many scientists believe that she died prematurely for that reason. There is so much we still dont understand about the genetics of aging and , but its evident that although Dolly was a clone....her cells were the same biological age as her donor.
The second part about experiences making you the person you are is absolutely right. Depending on your upbringing you could become a completely different person and I agree wholeheartedly with that statement.xx

 

First of all, religion should play no part in whats right and wrong in todays world. Most religious material is so outdated its barely relevant.


On the cloning..............wait, are we talking about cloning? or gay people having kids?

If were talking about cloning, I'm all for it. Obviously not to have 2 of people running around, but for instance, if your kid dies when they are young. I think they deserve to still be alive. The 6th Day is a good reference point here, there were 2 of him at the same time, obviously in real life cloning would be policed alot more tightly than it was in the movie. Along with that, all previous memories were 'implanted' in the 'clone' which would make them basically the same 'you'.

The gay people having kids is not really limited to gay people. I've read a few things about people wanting to choose their kids se, eye colour/hair colour etc, which i don't see any problem with (most people would choose to have a kid as close to them as possible)


Some people seem to be completely against science. Without it, we wouldn't have cures/treatment for diseases, you wouldn't have a robot that can tie a knot inside your body whilst being operated on. Some people don't like change, which is fair enough, but just by being here and using the intrantz, you've accepted that change. Similar theory, there wouldn't be a chipboard if people didn't push the boundary.

 

Taking the DNA from haploid cells and putting them into one egg to make a baby is not cloning.

 

I second that. It's genomics or at least genetic engineering.

 

You are very right littledinosaurs...I hadnt read the first post very well. I was under the impression the whole thread was about cloning. Using the genetic information from the gametes of both parents will not result in a clone. This technique has not been successfully engineered yet and I do not believe we are anywhere ready to start "experimenting" on humans. There are many genes which are turned on in female gametes and off in male and visa versa (imprinted genes). We do not yet know what the consequences would be of merging haploid cells from the same sex....especially on imprinted genes. There are genetic conditions which involve deletions of certain imprinted genes (including Prader Willi, Angelmans, etc.) and these may be the result of merging two same sex gametes.

I'm not sure I completely agree with you on this. As a scientist myself, I believe the advancement of the genetic understanding is monumental. However we need to be so careful with destroying the actual fabric of our existance (literally). The medicine of the past involved experimentation on humans. Look at Edward Jenner and his small pox vaccine for example. His actions resulted in the invention of immunisation and the eradication of a deadly disease. However his methods were completely unethical. He injected a child with the small pox virus, without any knowledge that the child would survive the experiment. In todays medicine, that would never and should never occur. We have no right to treat human beings as subjects.....that was the ploy of the Nazis. Their methods of eugenics, may have saved many lives, but as a result of innocent people suffering during experimentation. Cloning and the merger of same sex gametes in human beings is a step too far for me. We are not ready for that. We do not understand genetics yet, how can we possibly fathom creating an experimental being!

 

Would you sacrifice 1 childs life if it found a complete cure for all cancers?


Whilst i don't agree with that part of it, theres plenty of volunteers willing to risk it, in return for monetry compensation!