POLL: Cloning ... Has it Happened?!?

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Actually I think cloning is pretty cool. It would be nice to have another one of me running around and doing my homework and stuff. But something is probably guna go wrong with that "Eve". She's guna like mutate into some sort of freak and start killing people.

 

Griffin, it would not be another you. It would be another person, who looks like you. And I really don't think that he would do your homework.

 

Lokken you are not really correct there, cloning is a kind of genetic engineering. Not something else. As the science for them both are more or less the same it is hard to have a discussion on one and not the other.

 

that's true Joa, but I'm tired of seeing people referring to cloning as genetic engineering, it's not. It's only a small part of it.

 

All I was trying to say is that no matter what happenes with cloning the military will take something from the research and development going on in the field. While it may be a litle costly for them at the moment for cloning a single foot soldier as you put it, wasn't the same true of every invention at one point anyway?
But that is not what I meant in the previous post. There will be something in there that will help humans kill other humans more quickly, or efficiently blah blah (you all get the point) and this redical step forward in science will someday be the basis of the potential of thousands of deaths .

 

First of all I have to say that I think that sect has seen a certain starwars movie a time to many

Cloning? sounds more like a publicity stunt to me, I thought the first one should be arriving in january somewhere in italy.

Oh, what's wrong with our perfectly good kids that come out the old fashion way?

I for one don't see the reason for cloning human beings.

 

Right, I thought I better chip in before this gets out of hand.

Look, cloning a mammal is not a simple thing to do. With Dolly it took more than 200 aborted pregnancies (some early, some late) before 1 survived. Since then several other mammals have been cloned (most recently a cat) but all have had a similar sort of success rate (some also produced animals with severe genetic defects). If this sect indeed managed to clone a human that would either mean: 1) they discovered some major technical advance to help them increase the success rate OR 2) they found enough eggs and willing surrogate mothers to induce about 200 (probably more) pregnancies most of which will abort.

Now, as I said cloning is difficult. On the other hand checking whether this baby is the clone is supremely easy - I could do it in my lab in a day (provided I have the baby's and the "original's" blood (or any other source of DNA) samples. My guess is that this will prove to be a hoax.

On the other hand the Italian group is led by expert (if not exactly reputable) embryologists. I can believe that they could do it - but I'd still like to see the evidence either way.

 

Blackthorne, you mentioned we have been conducting genetic engineering for thousands of years. You're right, we have. But look at the problems it has caused.
Let's take dogs for instance. Most breeders now do something called line breeding, they breed grandparent to grandchild. Over the generations this causes a lot of genetic problems. Case in point is my collie. She has "collie eye anomaly" which means her eyes are not fully developed. This is a genetic defect as a result of line breeding. Other breeds have genetic problems too. I grew up with English Springer Spaniels. At the time we got our first dog, the life expectancy was 17-18 years. Now it is only twelve years. Some dogs are now less than 10 years.
If we start cloning humans and say let them live normal lives, i.e. don't harvest them for body parts, look at what we are doing to the gene pool. It will start becoming smaller and smaller. We'll see more genetic problems than we do now.
Not to mention how cloning adds to the problem of overcrowding. (You can read my rant on that here http://www.sorcerers.net/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=20;t=000073 in this post)
I for one hope this is just a hoax. Both for the moral reasons and because of the problems it can create.

 

Look, as things are at the moment cloning a human still hasn't even been successfull (no evidence of it at least) and in order to do it you certainly need a trained team, lots of money and a supply of surrogate mothers (no, clones can't be grown in vats). Cloning is hardly to have a significant impact on the size of our gene pool anytime soon (no more then say twins) and as far as overcrowding is concerned - you can produce a hell of a lot more babies the traditional way (costs far less and even untrained personnel can do it )

 

Whether or not this is truly a cloned baby or not is rather a moot point since there will allegedly be born another 4 cloned babies in the next few months. Proof that Eve is indeed cloned will allegedly be available via DNA samples in the next week or so.

Is it good or bad? Well to an extent it's progress. Progress is not always good, but it IS unavoidable. If something can be done it generally will be regardless of how we view the moral or legal implications.

I have no real problem with it, since it advances science in an area that can benefit The human race greatly. It would, however, be better to deal with this openly rather than effectively underground which it is at the moment. It would at least grant some semblance of control over what is attempted. Also, with more open research, perhaps we could at least establish the problems and limitations with this without having to actually give life to a clone with no real idea if the process will cause sever problems.

I'm fairly certain though that a lot of similar objections were voiced when the first test-tube baby was born in the late 70's, a certain Ms Brown. I'm also certain that the procedure has been used very succesfully to give people with fertility difficulties a chance to have a baby since then.

Overall my vote would be to allow research in this area, but until it's limitations are established, we should perhaps refrain from actually cloning humans.

 

It's the Raelians who are a hoax.

IIRC, the group sprang up very soon after Dolly was cloned. IMO they are a collection of people who want to clone a human for reasons of their own (personal longevity, lust for scientific progress, whatever) and are using religion to shield them from the legal restrictions that they see coming their way. Since the US Government can't seem to detemine what a real religion is and what is just an bunch of cult idiots (I so envy Germany in this regard), it might work.

It makes no sense to claim that the religious fear the loss of their identity and/or uniqueness to cloning. The religious are the ones who believe in a unique, immortal soul. So, to us, not only would we have different experiences and environments than the clone, but we'd also have a different soul.

The objection for the religious people is not that it denies uniqueness. The objection is that it monkeys with the process God created for human reproduction. When you clone (or use in vitro fertilization, or engage in extra-marital sex, or any number of things that are immoral) you remove the requirement for a two-parent family, which is necessary for the optimum care of a child. You inject technology into an area in which it doesn't belong.

Believe it or not -- there really are such areas.

[ December 30, 2002, 23:06: Message edited by: Shralp ]

 

The problem with cloning, is what can go wrong? Look at the sheep that was cloned, it died not too long afterwards and was also somewhat sickly. Now, the stuff being cloned now is living longer, less problems, but humans are so much more complex! I guess it should not be illegal if all parties involved consent, but what about the life being cloned, what if they hate knowing they are clones and spazz out like malavons proxy(it is a game, but it makes sense). It is immoral, so long as the process is iffy, it is immoral.

 

Some of you seem to establish your stand towards cloning as you type. I'll try and seperate the different cloning "problems" from eachother to help you in your search for your truth, instead of a search for asparins in your medicine box for your moral headache

Thx for Chipping in Vukodlak

Cloning adults:
will always cause problems, since the Telomer shortening problem keeps bugging us. Environment has a lot more influence on a personality than Genes do(I am not saying genes don't have an influence ). Think of The Gene Vs. Environment importance towards behaviour as a small circle surrounded by a bigger circle. The inner circle is housing genes and the outer is housing environment. Genes are the basis of the human house. The environment forms it with time.
Applying those two facts, logic dictates that Cloning adults will never be as popular as Sperm and Egg banks. Morally, it is harmless. Morally, let the freaks clone themselves. They end up with a less healthy clone, who likely acts divergingly to the parents behavior as they grow up.

Cloned babies;
Ever heard of one egged twins? Its the same 100%.

Reduced gene pool?
Rediculous. Look in Vukodlak's post.

Army of darkness?
Baah. As Vukodlak said. The traditional way of birth is way more cheap and efficient. Ok Doctor Evil down at Antarctic is scaring me though. All this dreaded hype about his secret army project. in 30 years it will be ready. in one second they'll be dead. Bush Jr. Jr. Jr. Nuked them. Ok fiction aside, sure it is a way to raise an army, but the traditional way of birth pose a danger equal to a clone army. The equipment they wear and training they receive is far more important. Not their bodies.
Be afraid of this instead, TheBlackRose. You are shooting the wrong Sparrows with Cannons.

Cloning for stem cells;
The real topic for discussion. I am leaning towards a scientific yes. A humanitarian yes. But I'll never do it. The moral no wins. After all I'll get lynched by the Christians, resulting in healthier, but not happier world. It is not us geneticist who most make this call. It is the religious societies who must decide. As long as stemcell growth for body parts is not accepted by a vast majority of Earth's population, We are better of without it. If we get a religous go for it, I'll chime in on a moral yes too.

PS
@Shralp.
Two parents = happy child is a false statement.
As is one parent= miserable child. Sometimes we wish that life is that simple. I do it too. But it isn't though. Nevertheless you raise a very insteresting topic for debate but it hardly belongs in this thread. This forum tends to get out of hand and off topic at each possible whim. Lets not speed that process

[ January 02, 2003, 00:18: Message edited by: Nobleman ]

 

@Jorgon

Not really. I'd imagine we're at the very least 90-95% genetically identical to about all of the mammals we've cloned. Since we're of course using human hosts to incubate them, the process should not be that much different.

Anyway.

The idea is not to clone full humans, as there is really no point. There are already far too many of us as it is. Nor is it to clone so called 'headless humans' or whatnot for organ harvesting as that is incredibly inhumane and one would have to be pretty sadistic to see otherwise. The idea is to simply clone individual organs as we get closer and closer to achieving clinical immortality. However many problems still remain, and cloning the entire being so far has turned out to be easier than all but the simplest organs so we therefore start there.

Now in the far future the idea will be cloning full humans minus nervous systems which will be transplanted as an easier way to live forever however that is still pretty far off.

Sadly I doubt this Eve will live much longer than her the difference between her donor's lifespan and her current age if lucky. Even if she survives the myriad of problems and complications that have so far plauged all other cloned beings, she'll still have to deal with her 'cellular clock' so to speak being several decades ahead of schedule.

Now should we be doing this to humans yet? No. Eve and the various other clones soon to come will probably live short and miserable lives. This is not yet an exact science. We need to slow down just a bit.

[ January 03, 2003, 01:18: Message edited by: Alex ]

 

Okay, here we go:

Now, I want to rectify a few things you guys keep saying or have mentioned individually. Every single cloned being has had severe health problems. Dolly is still alive, though through intense medical treatment. The spokespersons at Clonaid said that Eve is their first successfull cloning experiment. It is also their very first experiment with humans. This is not possible. The odds for sucessfully cloning any sort of life the first try are about 1,000,000,000 to 1. Their clames are, to be frank, lies. They are a bunch of ignorant fools who think that by saying "OOOhhh, WE DID IT FIIIIIRRRSSTTT!!!! NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH!" they can go into history as some sort of pioneers.

Next issue, we would not create these "headless clones" and hack them to pieces for their organs. Organs would be grown in a seperate place, the most obvious are those fertility tanks mentionted earlier. You can take DNA samples from said organ or organs and clone them out of a human body(this technique wouldn't be successful the first time around, but we'd do it after a few tries).

Next issue (this was touched upon earlier), we would not have hundreds of Hitlers running around. While these clones of him have the same flesh and blood as the man, they would not end up the same, even if in the same environment. The same things that happened at the same time would have to take the same effect on his brain for this little tyke to go taking over most of Europe. It is all based on the experiences one has in life that determines one's conciousness later.

Lastly, cloning is not the key to eternal life. Though one day we WILL(I am serious, the human race will do this eventually) have the ability to copy one's experiences and memories and insert them into another brain. This does not mean we will have eternal life. It would not be YOU, rather, it would be the same as you, and have the same thoughts, opinions etc. etc. Only by extracting our brain and inserting them into another other body would this be possible, then it would be us. However, the human brain would not survive this process, it just wouldn't work out correctly. Maybe this could happen in 2500, but it is not possible now or in the near future.

Well, that about sums it up, so thanks for readin' y'all!

 

commentary on cloning from the woman who invented the pink gay shark (read: she's a moron)

http://www.cloninginformation.org/commentary/cartoon1.htm

 

First of all, I think cloning humans is a complete waste of time. Second, I think that the whole 'Eve' thing is a scam for attention, since AFAIK, Clonaid has yet to provide proof of their 'great accomplishment.'

This is genetic engineering, and it is one of the major reason why I disapprove of human cloning/genetic engineering (tampering).

Besides, why would anyone *want* to be cloned? What's the point? I'm sure it's a lot more fun making kids the natural way. Even invitro fertilization, which is in no way 'immoral', is a better solution than cloning.

I have no problem with cloning organs, since this would be a great help and would prevent the need for organ donation. But there is no way that harvesting organs from clones could be remotely alright, though I realize that very few people would actually try this latter method.

I also don't see why human adults are cloned. Wouldn't cloning fetuses be a little more effective, since then you could have something like unnatural twins (triplets, etc)?

 

It seems the "parents" are refusing a DNA test. Surprise.

 

Could someone please explain to me how you "clone" an organ? As I recall, cloning involves producing a live cell and replacing its DNA with the DNA of the creature you want to clone. But every cell contains a DNA blueprint of the entire body, not just its individual organ or whatever, so it seems to me that producing a specific organ is impossible without some tricky genetic engineering -- which certain people here wish to separate from cloning.