It was announced over the weekend that scientists for the first time
succesfully cloned animal DNA.  A group of scientists in Scotland took DNA from
a healthy adult sheep and reproduced a replicant of him (another sheep that is
genetically identical)  The cloning of animals is no longer a far fetched
theory, it can be done.  The practical application will be to reproduce many
quantities of DNA-identical animals who can secrete human proteins.  This will
revolutionize the medical field and make it possible for now rare drugs to be
commonly available.  But the next step is obvious.   The DNA replicating
theories are constant.  We should be able to clone human DNA.  The
possibilities this could open up boggle the mind!

-- Parents could preserve samples of their kids DNA and if their kid is ever
killed, they could reproduce a replicant of him.  In a bitter custody battle,
one parent could have the kid, the other the right to use the kid's DNA to
reproduce another one of him.

-- Someone who is not married could have his own DNA saved and replicated,
producing an heir who is genetically identical to him.  A closer relative than
his own child would have been.

-- Parents with a sick child, knowing that in a few years, he's going to need a
bone transplant, can use his DNA to produce another one of that child, whose
DNA and bone marrow would be a perfect match.

-- If a couple cannot have children because the father is infertile, they can
take a shortcut, and the wife can have a baby that would not be hers
genetically but would be an identical replicant of her husband.  A heck of a
lot better than not having any kids at all.

This all sounds like science fiction but it is not.  President Clinton has
announced that he is forming a special advisory commision to explore the legal
and ethical issues surrounding the eventuality of human cloning.  The idea is
religously offensive to many, because if one believes that we are made in the
image of "God", it could seem sacreligious for humans to manipulate the
reproductive process.  This is going to be the end result of all the
advancements in reproductive technology that have been made in human history. 
We figured out invetro fertilization and made sex unneccesary to have babies. 
Now, in addition to shortcutting the natural fertilization process, we can
shortcircuit the next step.  Rather than letting nature create the DNA, we can
provide it ready-made from ourselves.  "Surrogate motherhood" could be a
booming industry in the future.  But do we want this?  What of the
psychological implications...what would it be like to have more than one of you
in the world?  Someone closer to you genetically than an identical twin? 
Someone who IS you biologically?

Right-wing politicians will do everything to outlaw this.  But do the benefits
outweigh the drawbacks?

  

102 responses total.

I'm so used to the idea of cloning being a cheap SF plot that I'm not sure
I'm ready for it in real life.  And a sheep sure isn't that much less complex
than a human.  It'll be tied up in confusion for years, though, for all
the reasons you mention.

This could NEVER be used to replace a child who has been killed.  If 
your child/relative/friend had been killed, and the DNS had been used to 
produce a new person with the same genes, the new person will look 
exactly like the first person, but the personality will be very 
different.  Life experiences make up our personality, not our genes.

Also, you can't just re-create a copy of yourself for organ transplants. 
When that new person is born, they will have their own mind, and would 
want to make their own decisions.  It would be murder, and unethical to 
grow a person for organ transplants.

How about growing the clone in sensory deprivation, or better yet without most
of the brain?

Intentionally crippling them?

Cloning is a neat concept, but the more I think about it the more alarming
it becomes.  One of the big features, so to speak, of human evolution is that
no two humans are identical, making it harder for diseases to spread.  If
cloning became popular, we would lose that genetic diversity.  Richard's
thoughts about using cloning to replace a sick person, or to create an organ
doner, also scare me, but I suppose that's more of an ethical issue.

Item 17 in the science cf was started a couple of days ago on this same
topic.  I hope someone will link this one in agora to science too. 

Humans are ultimately responsible for making their own moral decisions. 
They always have been, but various religions have been developed to make
these moral decisions "rules" rather than choices. But the rules came from
human choices anyway, though subsequently enforced by various threats. A
lot of people have been afraid of science for a long time, because it
forces us to make new moral decisions, and many don't trust us to do that. 
(We've also demonstrated at times, of course, we are not to be trusted.)
But I believe that the ultimate destiny of human-kind is to take our lives
totally into our own hands and live under rational laws that promote the
welfare of all. 

This development is just another one of the challenges we have been
confronted with over the past few centuries, when we emerged from mind
control by religions, which we will have to deal with on its own terms. I
expect some humans will be cloned regardless of any laws we might pass
against it, and that would be good, if made public, as we will see the
consequences and learn to deal with them.

At least this isn't a new terrorist weapon, like atomic bombs....it is
actually rather amusing and harmnless, if not carried to extremes. 

 6:  if "Humans are ultimately responsible for making their own moral
decisions" then why does the government care so much whether I 
give a job to a female or rent my apartment to a black?  Perhaps you
should add 'government" to your list of suspect institutions.

Recent episodes of Millenium and X-Files have been heavy on cloning, we seem
to be merging.

but, klg, the government is so, so .......so 'human' didn't ya know?
  
wonder wha the compararive costs would be between an hmo and a clone
for medical repairs? 
  
also, this would give some new/old 'weight' to the 'first born'
concept... except women would be on exactly equal footing, wouldn't they?
  
ummmm, ryan1...... DNS   ..<rotfl>.... intersting twist for a
domain name server, eh, what?

Yes, tsty, I can feel your pain!

Government military units composed of one super soldier clone.

Women doing away with the need for men.

stealing famous peoples DNA to create a physical duplicate.  (imagine having
Tom Cuise as your child, or your favorite super model.  Could playboy
centerfolds sell their DNA to people wanting to raise their own stable of
beauties.

OH... this is very complicated.

Re #7: yes, "Humans are ultimately responsible for making their own moral
decisions." Notice the "their". I am speaking of the moral decisions
reached by societies, which must have common components - laws that apply
to all - and individual freedoms. Society cares (should care) that all are
treated equally - this is, in my opinion, a fine moral decision that
humans have reached.  Government is the means by which we codify our
decisions, and is essential to any society. 

Though I don't know what klg's comment has to do with cloning. 

What has to be kept in mind in all this imagining is that any clone - of
animals or people - is a free, independent, unique individual, despite
having identical genes. We don't treat identical twins as monstrosities,
just because their genetic material is identical. In fact, there is a
general friendliness towards and fascination with identical twins. Why
should clones be viewed any differently? (In this connection, I don't
think there is any particvular interest in society in *causing* identical
twins, which should be a lot easier than cloning - why hasn't this come up
before?) 

Since cloning of humans is a bit of "science fiction" likely to come true
- we can relate it to another bit of "science non-fiction, that may also
well come to pass. If one of a pair of twins took a very fast
intergalactic journey at near the speed of light, it would return *much
younger* than its twin - a time displaced clone, in fact. I am sure that
this contingency has also been explored at some length in science fiction
literature.

Where this new technology could come in handy is organ transplants.  Right
now, a transplanted organ is rejected more often than not.  But if we
could take the sick person's DNA and use those cells to genrate a new
pancreas or a new liver under lab conditions, there would be no organ
rejection and many millions of lives could be saved.

As for religious consderations, I refute the idea that knowledge is evil.
If we have discovered the means to do something, than it ca only b e
assumed by those who believe that "God" intended such to be discovered.

How can someone be "free" if he_must_ , by govt edict, treat
everyone the same.  I would say that freedom should allow one
to act as he wishes (subject to not inflictin{_g harm on  others.)


What was the name of the movie about the clones of Hitler,
"The Boys of Brazil"?  I wonder if there are plans to 
re release it.

Our society was established on the premise that "all men are created equal",
which suggests a derivation from "do onto others as you would have others do
onto you" (or something like that). These seem to me to be very good bases
for social interactions. These do not mean that one reacts to everyone the
same - you can be as obnoxious as you want - but that everyone has the same
freedoms and opportunities, so long as they participate in the social
contract.

I wonder if it's possible to clone *just* the organ(s) needed for transplant,
maybe even more than one at a time in case of rejection?

Re: 9
You know I meant DNA, the "S" is right next to the "A".

The thought of growing a person, or "thing" intentionaly without a 
complete brain, on purpose, so that you can have replacement organs 
makes me sick.  It is W*R*O*N*G.

Huh? Why? The idea is to create the *body* without the *being*, so that there
effectively *is* no one whose rights to interfere with.

I think somewhere between cloning off individual organs and intentinally
forcing a complete clone to be brain dead a line is crossed.  I'm just not
sure where that line is. 

it is an emotional response, and therefore completely legitimate.  if it were
an ideological statement, then he would have to support it.

There seems to be no objection to growing selective replacement tissues, such
as skin. If tissue growth technology developed to the point o growing cloned
replacement hearts or other organs., I also see no ethical problems. So, at
what point, in growing organs connected together, does an ethical problem
arise?

growing new brain tissue?  Whole brains? Abie Normal? <g>

There is a large and vigorous discussion about cloning on M-Net.
The item is linked between the February General, the Science, and
the Science Fiction Conferences.  It's at times like these I
wish we could *cross-link* items between Grex and M-Net.

intersting way to experiment with the nature-vs-nurture debate?

that, to me, would be one of the most revealing and significant implications
of this line of research.

Of course, the experiment has already been done, extensively, with twin
research. Of course, more would be learned with a larger database. 

Wouldnt it be interesting to raise your own replicant as a son or 
daughter?  They would biologically have the same body as you, so you 
would know what should happen to them when.  You would probably know 
much of what they are feeling when.  You could theoretically correct 
some of the mistakes you made back then.  

"Cloning" has of course been a staple of many Star Trek episodes, one of 
the main characters, Riker, even has a cloned "brother" as a result of a 
transporter malfunction.  One of the best "cloning" episodes deals with 
the Enterprise coming upon a planet where because of disease, cloning 
has become the method of reproduction.  Because of that, the same 
handful of people have been cloned repeatedly, and the lack of diversity 
is killing the planet.  

The solution is for the Enterprise to (of course) violate the prime 
directive, and bring these people together with a healthy population 
from a less developed world.  In fact cloning is generally portrayed as 
dangerous or evil in science fiction.

  

but rcurl, the twinning experiments were *un*controlled.

I don't really see that cloning raises such difficult moral issues.  We've
been able to make new human beings similar to ourselves for millions of years.
So maybe now we can make ones that are *more* similar to ourselves, but no
more similar than identical twins are, and those have been around for millions
of years too.  It seems obvious to me that a human being conceived by cloning
technology is as much a human being as anyone else, and should have exactly
the same individual rights as any other person.  He or she should not be
thought of as "somebody's clone" but as a human being.  Seems to me that that
is all there is too it, and no large amount of head scratching is required.

Now when we get significant genetic engineering technology, and parents begin
to be able to custom-design their offspring, then we get into some challenging
moral problems.

This response has been erased.

I think the new thing is that they cloned a mammal from the tissue of an
adult, and the clone survived and grew into an adult.  I don't think this has
been done with mammals before, nor from adult dna.

Right, not from cells which had already become specialized.
Prior to this event it was thought such cells couldn't
perform the necessary building-block changes.

I'm looking forward to reading more about the details of
this research.  Fascinating stuff.

MOst of the fuss over this is because the public's idea of what cloning
means comes from comics, etc.  You could generate a similar fuss by
announcing that you would be selling DeLorians (sp?) in a world where
people thought that DeLorians could travel through time.  The excitement
would die down pretty quick once people found out that it was JUST A CAR
that *looked* like a time machine.

Which isn't to say that this isn't a substanital scientific advancement,
or that the technology couldn't be abused.  But it'll matter most to the
livestock industry.

Reality check.  Everyone understands that a clone of me would still have to
grow up over a span of many years.  It's not an instant copy of me.  I don't
think I could wait 6 years for a liver to mature for transplant if it were
going to go that way.  The new person would always be 26 years behind me in
growth and aging.  (Subst your age for 26).  This is altogether un-amazing
stuff.

Re #34:
    Add to it cold sleep, then you and the clone can be the same physical age.
And it should suffice to grow it to about 20 or so, or even younger. The idea
is to get a replacement part, of course, and what's the use of putting in a
replacement part of the same state of deterioration?

ok, for the record, the amazing breakthrough here is twofold:
the cloned animal was a mammal, one of the more complex families of fauna,
and the cloned animal was adult, rather than the clone being an embryo.

this latter is a subtle, but way significant distinction.  until this event,
it was considered impossible to clone a person (or mammal) after much
development beyond the fetal stage because of the specialization (and assumed
reduction in total dna content, i think) of the cells from which to draw the
dna for the clone.  the ability to clone an adult is of amazing significance
scientifically, even if sober consideration of the potentials seems boring.

huh? the clone was an instant adult?

   no, the clone was made from cells taken from an adult ewe's udder.
otherwise, the clone grew in a normal way and was actually born sometime last
year...the significant part of this whole thing is that a clone made from the
cells of an adult mammal grew to adulthood.

The cells had already "specialized", meaning that the cells had long since
lost the usual ability of embryo cells to turn into any needed type of cell.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss