I feel your pain. I understand the foam at the corner of your mouth and the flash of anger in your eyes. You make several good points about a lot more than this topic but let me raise an objection.

When it comes to the subject of technology less knowledge is more dangerous. If it is possible to do this (clone a human being or any being) then the process must be fully explored and understood as quickly as possible by as many people as possible and that knowledge must be as public as possible. Transparency is key. Many of the things you are angry about would not be possible in a fully transparent world.

The fact that atomic weapons were perfected in America likely saved the world from atomic war. We can only imagine what might have happened if the Nazi's or the Japanese of that era had beat us to it. I would also add that the timing of the development was ideal. If it was developed earlier, I cannot deny that America might have used them to much worse effect than the horror we already know.

Nuclear proliferation is a horror,the end of civilization is far worse, but thanks to the limited example, the entire planet regards the possibility of a nuclear war with terror and that alone keeps the potential in check. Only a complete nutbag would ever choose the nuclear option. It may happen. It may not, that is the price of the technology.

Turning this example to cloning; you are right, there are potential horrors here. If we drive the development of this tech underground we will almost certainly look back and say it was a mistake. Someone somewhere will turn the hidden tech into hidden weapons and unleash it on an ignorant world probably while making millions.

The open and complete development of this tech will at least give us the ability to understand what horrors are actually possible and real.It will also let us reap what ever benefits this tech makes possible.

Now that humans are aware that cloning is possible, it WILL be developed. It MUST be developed in the open where keen eyes like yours can see exactly what's going on and guard against misuse.

I'm not saying it won't be misused if we do things this way. It almost certainly will be and the results will be terrible. That is the price of technology. I, for one, prefer to live in a world with technology than in one without after all, controlling fire is the first and most basic of all technologies. Fire will burn down the house, but do you want to live without it?

Thanks
Dawn

Dear Dawn,

Do you believe that we should continue the present status quo? Corporations deciding what products we have? And IF we can invent and produce something, we MUST invent and produce it? If you think clones and all their uses are inevitable, then there is really no point to this clone forum. We are gathered here to discuss the pros and cons of clones. Bush and Obama are giving money to clone research. If this forum, and other forums (on internet, in bars, coffee houses, and street corners) can illuminate the problem/windfall of clones, then hopefully laws can be passed either hampering or helping clone development, production, and sale.

Thomas Jefferson said that unless people regularly come together to discuss the issues of the day, there is no hope for democracy. Thus there is value in your saying that we should go ahead with cloning because only by doing so can we see the evils of cloning. And I hope it does some good for me to reply that if the gov't allows the big corporations to spend billions on research & development, and production facilities, that it will probably then be too late to put the toothpaste back in the tube. If clones and other ill-advised technological breakthroughs have a PRICE (as you put it), we needn't just blindly pay that price, if it is too high for what we are getting.

We are not here to "win" the arguments with each other, but rather to find the solutions together. That is what civilization is all about.

So, what would we be getting if we allow cloning?!?

Do I think we should keep going as we are? No.There is no transparency in the way we do things now. That is very bad. The answer is not to stop research into scary, potentially bad things. The answer is to fix the system.

After reading what you wrote I realized fixing the system is what I really want to talk about, not cloning. I responded to your other post because it was interesting in that respect.

I apologize to those on this thread. My comments were NOT on cloning per say but on other issues and there are better places for me to discuss them.

thank you for the mental check
Dawn

What Arni movie?
I think that cloning could definitely work and is a good idea. But it could have an identity crisis and the personality could go very very wrong. But other than that, the army could benefit and every day people could use the idea of cloning to being in more places at once when u need to be.

I think that cloning humans would be rather deleterious to our world. Sure we wouldn't be able to die(well atleast not completly) but who's to say it will even work? We would have to test it a million times...on humans. So if it doesn't work we are loosing valueable people to our society. It's not just an animal that we have too many of anyhow it is a PERSON! Yes, it does have it's pros such as, if the world were to end we would be able to clone some of the most important people in the world today(president's, scientists, doctors, teachers, etc.) to put in our new world.

Heheh. You think so but Mother Nature may not think likewise
I don't believe in overpopulation but cloning is not one of the ways to prove overpopulation wrong
Leave creation to God and a married couple

You say that if the world were to end we would be able to clone some of the most important people in the world today.

Don't you think we better keep those people out of the new world? They are the one's destroying the old world.

If you are going to put clones somewhere, put them on the Las Vegas Strip. That is a corporate-made facsimile of European cities (Paris, Monte Carlo, Venice...) It's a fake place built for profit, just like the clones.

Dear Hannum,
Thank you for taking lots of time to type a 4 page(when put in times new roman font 12 in word) essay replying to my post. I dearly enjoyed it-even though it seemed intimidating at first (you see, i am a sixth grader in Texas).
Your essay has convinced me to see ethics instead of potential, and i believe that neither of us is wrong or right.
No new revolutionary invention has been devoid of pro's and con's (the 2-edged sword metaphor refers more to cons and cons). The cars? Pollution, accidents, faster way to travel. The telephone? Less social intimacy, more convenience.
Cloning may go the same way. We can make it work.
I did not like how you said that i was 'deluding' members of the forum. I am not convincing them that they are retarded jerks and they should become anorexic. This forum is for free conversation.
By the way, the atomic bomb was launched in a time of great panic (i happen to be at World War 2 in Social Studies Class) because the Americans needed to make use of it before the Germans got in control of it.
In a way, you swayed me (the least your 4 pager should do) with telling me how we should pay attention to the people on earth right now instead of making new ones.
Thank you for your response. I would appreciate a reply. Thank you...... And for the record, my name is:

Shizzle-me-buff

Yes, it was a long winded comment. One might even start to think he has nothing better to do....

Shizzle-me-buff

Cloning is a dreadfful idea. Humanity should abandon any intention of using clones. It only adds problems to Human society, well MORE problems than solutions better said.

All you do is keep the clone in chains, then if one day you need a kidney or something, you know exactly where to get it from. Dig?

regards,

It would be an interesting experiment to see if Albert Einstein was cloned, if the clone would also be a brilliant scientist. Then again, the clone would have a different mother and could grow up to be the most successful white collar criminal on record. Then we would know if childhood experience has any bearing on the success of people.

regards,

Yes! true identity stays in one spacial individual. no need to clone or copy !

I vote we clone you. You seem to be the best of the evolutionary effort, so why not...they we can see if the way you were raised had anything to do with your ego

Dawn

Yeah but you can't handle one of me never mind two.

regards,

::::snort:::::

I wasn't aware I had to handle you...I was enjoying the version of you without handles...

tell me, do I have to super glue the handles on or do you have them built in already?

LOL
Dawn

I agree man kind should use his intelligence and knowledge to live and learn. Yet we should never go beyond the natural law or else other things will become unbalanced. Man is not the ruler of the world - Man cannot control nature though we may act like we do. Man does not know everything. Like you said, it is better to understand something rather than play in the fire next to Gasoline without knowing what Gasoline is.
Yet how far is too far? At one point do we draw the line to, "keeping mankind alive" and just living up to our selfish desire of immorality because we are afraid of death, or extermination. All life has a beginning as well as an end. Prolonging it with the expense of the unknown and experiments with Cloning may lead to worse consequences than death.

Fear is the little death...

DAwn

But fear is made to be conquered.
Fear is not death.
The knowledge of what has been done in the name of science, the weighed down conscience, the irretrievable decisions, and the consequences of one's action is the "little" death.

Humans are part of nature.

Cloning is actually a form of reproduction. It takes an existing nucleus and adds it to the mitochondrial DNA of another cell, and triggers generation of a new individual organism. It occurs in nature with simple organisms, as does genetic modification. The transfer of genes of between different species occurs throughout nature, even in humans.

What is new and awesome is that human knowledge has reached the point where we are beginning to understand the haphazardness and inefficiency of evolution. Our genomes have accumulated a lot of potentially lethal junk, which tragically affects most people. Cloning is not an end in itself: merely a route to further understanding and better health. Maybe we can direct our evolution :-)

The discussion is ... er exciting. Sometimes people don't like to listen or use demonstrable evidence. Instead they shout and bully to hide their fear, ignorance, and loneliness. It's becomes like much of political extremism and religion where claims of piety cloak hatred and bigotry (circular arguments of right despite the facts).

PS there is no such thing as a soul - please refer to the Greek derivation of the concept.

What you describe is hopelessness which is a far larger death than fear...but this is philosophy and there is no place for that in a cloning discussion. I will be shouted down for it if I continue.

my observation about fear being a little death had to do with the idea that, when we are afraid of something, it is difficult to learn about it rationally. Fear is un-rational, an animal response, and should not be part of scientific thought.

in regards to cloning being a bad idea or not, I would say that any argument either for or against the technology that has anything to do with fear, should be discounted.

If you are afraid of the tech and its potential, what can you really contribute except fear?

I am not afraid of cloning. I don't see it as bad or good. It is simply skill and knowledge and biology. However, I am a Jeffersonian Deist and I see clearly the moral debate.
Although I see nothing wrong with cloning, either morally or ethically, I do see the potential for immoral/unethical application. I question the ability of man to apply this staggering tech in a moral way.

I don't see this tech as anything more compelling morally than the concept of unwanted children.
If we cannot care for all the children we produce the 'natural' way, is it correct to begin to produce them in an 'un-natural' one? (if such a thing becomes possible, which I'm certain it will, eventually)

conversely, the concept of having no children the 'natural' way and having all our children grown for us with carefully screened genetics and selected traits (as clones would have to be)as long as those traits are selected by the potential parents, could lead to a world where all children are wanted and nurtured as treasures. This kind of world would free us from the stereo types of sexual identity and make the issue of sexual preference moot.
Love would be love regardless of who was doing the loving and all pairs could have children that were the result of genetic combination of the two parents, regardless of the sex of either or both.
this concept only works in a free world. we cannot have big money, big power, big anything involved. Its a utopian vision and therefor highly unrealistic but then, I'm a novelist, my business is high un realism.

Dawn

PS: Rationality, I would love to discuss the concept of the soul but this is not the forum for that. I do want you to know I read your post and agree with most of it...just not the soul part.

Hello lehmann520

Reading your last post in this forum I wonder;how far the reasoning or the argument of "justifying" the unjustifiable has to go.

Maybe am wrong but it seems like you are trying to introduce the fear factor, in a scientific argument, as a catalyst on deciding or effecting the outcome of that argument.

First that means; reducing the science and the scientific lobby to a mere ignorant entity.

Second, playing the card of fear against the concept of responsibility and against the concept of the concern, in such an argument,it is a step closer to immorality and a step closer to total lack of rationale and sound judgement.

Third, fear, it is a feeling and it is weighted and balanced only in the context of other feelings, therefore in its own as a catalyst in an argument it is missleading
and confusing.

Last,I could be wrong in all this, but this is my opinion and understanding,at least for now. :)

Hope you do not take wrong my opinion.
Only expressed it as honestly as I could.

cheers.

Well, you have to handle me and my clone. Yes, I have handles and I love it when the lady uses them.

regards,

Forget it whiten, she is very negative about everything. Listen, my clone would always be there for me. I would just keep him in chains. If I ever needed a new kidney or something, I know exactly where to get it. But I would still treat him good, like he can have ice cream sometimes, maybe a woman once in a while. What else you want?

regards,

Hello andrew99

You already like it very much to be your own clone,dont you?
:) :} :}

How can you tell that is a "she" and not a "he"? :-)
Like to know that trick very much,as much as you may like your own clone. :-) :-)
never been good at it. :-0
hope you may be of some help here.

Like also your sense of humor. Think,some time,very much needed.
Keep bringing it around.

Thank you.

Actually I'm saying fear should be carefully eliminated from the scientific process.

I don't know what kind of responsibility pure science ought to be saddled with. This is what makes the issue of cloning so interesting. I am also very interested in the activities at CERN. Both things seem to have so much potential and quite a lot of risk.

It took a very long time to develop the scientific method. It isn't for the casually curious, especially when considering the huge forces and concepts science works with today. The men and women on the cutting edge of science today are, in my opinion, heroes.

and you are perfectly correct. I don't think morality has anyplace in science. This is not negative or scary for me. I think morality belongs in the application of whatever comes from scientific discovery, not in the science that discovers it.

Dawn

Andrew,
how is it that you continually see me as negative? I am mystified, sincerely flummoxed.

I know I get a bit...testy...in the other threads. I'm sorry if I've offended you. Believe it or not, this medium is quite new to me. I'm unaccustomed to publishing my words so quickly. Usually the editing process takes months. To tell you the truth, I go back and read my own posts and sometimes I want to retract the whole thing. I've done it once or twice but lack the energy to keep it up.

Andrew, we might disagree and I may be clumsy as hell with my writing and my passion but I don't hate you and I'm not actually all that angry about anything although I agree that many of my posts sound that way. I'll try to do better.
I'm delighted to find someone who is smart and opposed to my opinions.
I also find your humor to be...excellent. Chained clones having sex with (I assume) hookers, perhaps call girls if you decide you like the clone...would you publish it on YouTube?

Dawn

Dawn, its not a matter of disagreement, its a simple observation. I have classified you as a contrarian not a libertarian.

I keep wondering what I would have to do in order for you to say -- You did good Andrew, real good. Keep it up.

There is no way to predict it. Not that I am in the business of trying to please you, just wondering if its possible.

see you

Andrew,

you did good. You were right about something we've discussed in other posts. I came here to see if you'd answered so I could tell you this.

I'm not really a contrarian...I'm an outside the box kinda gal. Please don't classify me, it hurts being confined that way.

Dawn

There is a parallel between cloning and the soul. It is to do with duality.

Some struggle with the concept of clones, yet the cells in the body are cloning themselves all the time. It is the concept at the macro level that causes a little confusion. One question is “If my body and memories (in the brain) are duplicated, where am I?” Taking it further, “If my old body is destroyed, am I reincarnated in the new body?” At a superficial level, it makes for good science fiction novels and endless chatter over pints of beer.

But, look at it a different way, if one cell in the brain of another person is modified to mirror one of mine, are we still distinct? Do I become that person? If the answer is no, then extrapolate to a second and then more cells, until all are mirrored. It's a bit like the calculus. It seems that they remain distinct. Just like identical twins, cloned sheep, and the fat tissue in our bodies.

Is it worth cloning? Maybe for agriculture. We have done it with palm trees for decades. The science is there, but some consider it a stepping stone to correcting genetic diseases and improving our genes.

A similar replication occurs with the mind. The authors of biology books often struggle to describe the operation of the brain, and sometimes revert to illustrating the head with a little person viewing the world through the eyes and pulling levers to control the body. Although this recursion is false (we haven't found any mini-mes), it was the basis of the model used by many early thinkers struggling with the idea of the thought and the mind. The model suggests an independent person (or persons if recursion is followed :-) ), and some suggest this where the idea of the soul comes from - the mini-me as independent of the body and doing all the thinking. But what about the mini-me in mini-me :-)? There are similarities with the confusion with cloning.

Later discoveries about the brain show a system of paired areas monitoring one an another for synchronized operation and giving rise to consciousness. Similarly experiments show that the operating brain, or mind, responds, after a delay of several seconds, to stimuli outside of the brain. This suggests we have no free-will. However the complexity and randomness of the universe generates a rich tapestry for the mind. Understanding this makes life all the more wonderful and poetic. There is an initial shock to us all, rather like prisoners released from the confines of their cell and had found the walls and their graffiti strangely comforting and misses them at first. Sounds a bit like Plato discussing the cave in The Republic.

I did good? I will cherish the moment. I know its insulting when someone can describe your entire psyche (that you are so proud of) with one word. No, I don't mean to insult you that way.

This is the Cloning forum, if we were going to clone someone, who should it be? What about John Lennon, Joe Di Maggio, Neils Bohr, Mozart, Van Gogh? Any of those interest you?

Of course, we have to address the problem that both of them wrote the same song so who has the rights to it. Maybe we can clone Obama and both of them will run for President. Does raise some legal issues.

Human cloning, I think, is such a random idea. Who even came up with it anyhow? And why??

To be honest, I'm really not comfortable with the idea of organ farms...and while a logical part of me asks what's wrong with growing a person who is not concious of the world and could then be used to save a person who would otherwise die of cancer, organ failure etc etc. There's a huge and dominant part which is screaming NO THIS IS WRONG at the top of it's voice. It's such a grey area.

In the end, the biggest issue is probably as stated the rights of the clone. I also don't see any real pros for cloning, if its so infertile couples can have kids, why not adopt a child who needs a family? And if you really want your genes involved it may be possible to use both the egg and sperm through IVF and surrogacy (depending on the problem of course). Cannot imagine cloning ending well that's for sure.

Human cloning makes me think of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World that I read recently.Read the first chapter where humans are produced in a cloning factory and you will get the idea of what cloning can do to people.

All of you need to look the positive side of this. Suppose all the males had bodies that looked like Arnold Swarzenegger and the women had bodies that looked like Sharon Stone, Vanessa Williams or whomever else you prefer.

Now the male clone knows how to cook, do the laundry, and go to the supermarket without getting confused. The women has this agreeable personality that does anything the man asks her to do, never gets jealous just because a coworker adjusts his tie, doesn't fight about anything, and doesn't spend a lot of money.

Think about it. Its heaven on steroids. Look to the positive side of it. No more divorces, no more throwing the ring at the guy, know what i mean?. Its coming to you like it or not.

I dunno...I think I'd like to clone something interesting like a mummy from Venezuela or something...but that's only interesting if they retain some kind of memory so...pointless really
I guess if I had to choose someone to clone I would clone my kids in case they ever needed a kidney or bone marrow or something. If we couldn't keep the clones you know...brainless and stored like sides of beef then I wouldn't mind raising them again, if I had too.
Makes the issue of morality in this field very interesting huh?
Who would you clone?

Dawn

How will cloning upset ecological balance anymore than a natural birth would? Think about it. Both add a new person into this world

Nature, aka evolution, has, and does provided humankind with the abilities to change their enviroment even to the extent to clone theirselves. The human brain has and always will thirst for new frontiers to explore and cloning is just another bridge for it to cross. Rest assured the holy grail of life is simply "Eat or be eaten" and all the attributes that go with it. GO NATURE!

For Darwin's sake, if you are going to clone your kids please leave out the A.D.D. D.N.A. We already have too many kids and grownups with this doctor created disease...

you know if they what just one organ they wholdint need clone the whole person just that one organ this is called Tharapudic cloning

Leanardow divinci ( for give me for spelling his name roung)he thout of it but giving the thenoligy of the time just a thout

I do agree. This is ruining the path that mother nature has created for us. what were they thinking? were they thinking that no one would notice?

What would be the motive for cloning and how could it be honourable? Also, wouldn't the original be the first one, or the one who was actually born and grew up in our world? Just wondering. I think that every human being has a soul, and a clone of one woul dhave a soul aswell. I just think that not every has the right to start a new life in that way.

Makes me think of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

I understand cloning is perfectly natural in animals, e.g. identical twins are clones of the same cell, and are perfectly normal individuals. Cloning is a common method of propagation by plants, e.g. strawberries. Have they caused any additional problems for the planet? Are pollution, limited resources, improved healthcare and medicine separate issues? Eradication of diseases such as polio would help many people, and seems a noble aim. Limiting population is a separate issue, i.e. have fewer than three children. Does the Second Law of Thermodynamics allow immortality?

There is just so much BS out there about cloning, generated by Hollywood and other fiction writers, that it's hard to have a sensible discussion of it. A cloned person, if such were viable, would be no more than an identical twin, just one with a different birthday. No more--no big identity problem or shared conciousness--and no less of a person than any other identical twin.

However, in a world that already has or soon will have more people than it can support, cloning makes no sense whatsoever. We just don't need more ways to reproduce humans. We especially don't need a method that is likely to produce more genetically-flawed humans, as cloning probably will since it starts with "aged" genes.

Cloning is ok

I want to live forever! Trouble is, so does my clone and his clone and his clone and...?

yes your right human cloning is the creation of a genetically identical copy of an existing, or previously existing, human being or growing cloned tissue from that individual.but this tha fact there ia a question of dealing with the identity crisis and people using it for unethical activities.so human cloning is a very bad idea.

I think it's a bad idea. it's not even barly humane. it's just not right. i would rather die than be cloned. the earth is already over-populated, cloning would just add to the probleam.