Cloning....Why clone anyway?
 

I posted this in the Medical Thread I started, but I thought it would be a good topic to chit chat about so I thought I would start a whole thread about it.:)

So what do you think? Is it a good thing or a bad thing? How far can we go with it? Given the problems associated with animal cloning, why would anyone want to do it at all?

Personally, I think it can be a good thing, if people don't over do it. I mean, apart from making human medicines, I think cloning could help boost the numbers of some endangered animal species. I think it would really be amazing to clone extinct animals. Of course doing this would be a much greater challenge than cloning endangered animals, because unfortunately the egg needed to create the cloned embryo has to be from a different species. Kind of like Jurassic Park. They used DNA from frogs to fill in the missing links in order to make dinosaurs.

I think bringing back the extinct animals would be taking things a bit too far, but I do think the good thing about cloning, is we would be able to bring back a lost pet. If it died, we could bring it back and it would more than likely have the same personality as the original. I know this wouldn't be true for all cloned animals though.

I don't know about bring back extinct or endangered species, but I do think that cloning can serve a valuable purpose. I'd like to see cloning done specifically for the cloning of organs to serve those that need transplants. You can either clone their healthy organ or a healthy organ from another person that would be a donor match. I think if we get to the point that we can clone a healthy kidney for an individiual in need, or (and I don't know the feasibility of this) a healthy brainstem or spinal nerves for an individual that had injuried them, than we'd be well served to explore those options.

Kitso
KS 361

Actually, it would be very unlikely that a cloned pet would have the same personality traits as the original. If you do your research, you will find that many traits are developed by one's environment. Look at identical twins - nature's clones. Even though both may have certain proclivities, whether they are raised in the same household or not, they invariably have many differences.

For examples, my sisters, identical twins, took different roles on as children and thus as adults. One was two minutes older, and as a result was always called the "oldest". They competed over everything, yet one or the other would do better in practically everything they did: grades, sports, etc. One loved math, the other loved enlgish. One is a CEO, the other is a Social Worker.

An example about pets: You kitty might be a lap cat, but maybe that's because it was raised with lots of mommy and human contact. Your cloned kitty could likely be raised for the first month or so alone, with no mommy to teach her to do "cat things". She may not like to jump on your lap because perhaps she fell off something and is afraid of heights.

There are easily hundreds of falacies about cloning and genetics. Though most people think that it is a simple process, it's an extremely complicated theory with too many variables to imagine. Even with animals.


ETA: The ability to clone organs would theoretically be quite beneficial for humans, since there are already so many on transplant lists, and the potential and incidence of organ rejection is a huge risk. Having one's own genetic organ available could potentially solve a crisis that loses thousands of people a year to organ failure.

I'm surprised to find how many GC threads there are about human cloning over the years.

Have there been any huge developments or advancements since the debate began years ago? I would only support cloning for finding cures to diseases or someting like that. Cloning pets and humans for random replication is dumb and a waste of humanity and science.

All seemingly good and interesting things can have a turn for the worse if they are misused. Random: I remember The Mist and how those aliens or whatever were able to demolish that town. It wasn't cloning but it was science gone bad. :eek: :)

The plans for cloning organs do not include cloning an entire human to give up those organs. Your thinking of people "cloning" a new child to give bone marrow to their first sick child. That does happen and does open a big can of worms with regard to the new child's right not to be a bone marrow farm for their sibling.

That's scary. :(

Let the record show that NOW I think cheerfulgreek is being picked on just for the helluvit. :p She was on an "it's because it's me" trip and folks are giving her what she paid for.

The lack of humility before nature that's being displayed here, uh... staggers me. God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs...

http://www.solarnavigator.net/films_...f_goldblum.jpg

I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you're talking about here: it doesn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others have done and you want to take next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourself, so you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could and before you even knew what you had you patented it and packaged it and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you're selling it, you want to sell it!!!!!!

Thanks for terrifying me, macallan. Thanks.

hahaha

Pure awesome. Well fucking played.