a poll on human cloning?

[notAFanB]

just finished reading this newsbit

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3128098.stm

and

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3123978.stm


good, bad or doesn't anybody give a damn.

 

[zurich]

Good.

 

[notAFanB]

good as in there is a movement to prevent cloning or good as in the research appears fruitful at this stage?

 

[zurich]

good as in there is a movement to prevent cloning or good as in the research appears fruitful at this stage?

Good as in Human Cloning = Good.

 

[Natoma]

I voted "good" with the caveat that it be for Therapeutic cloning purposes only, i.e. if you need a replacement liver or something like that. But definitely no for cloning a twin or a replacement child or something like that.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

I didn't vote because the poll is too vague. Like many others here, I think cloning research is OK, butI don't favor cloing as a means to create a new human.

I voted "good" with the caveat that it be for Therapeutic cloning purposes only, i.e. if you need a replacement liver or something like that. But definitely no for cloning a twin or a replacement child or something like that.

Curious...what is your moral stance on using cloning / splicing technology to create a "new human" from two male sets of chromosomes?

 

[Natoma]

Curious...what is your moral stance on using cloning / splicing technology to create a "new human" from two male sets of chromosomes?

That's different than taking a single set of DNA and creating a new life form. It's no longer cloning at that point if you massage two separate DNA strands together.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

That's different than taking a single set of DNA and creating a new life form. It's no longer cloning at that point if you massage two separate DNA strands together.

Yes, I obviously know it's different (which is why I said "cloning / splicing")

And you didn't answer my question. I wouldn't want to assume what your position is before taking up an argument on it.

 

[Natoma]

I have a problem with creating a new life form from one person's DNA. This has the problem of people cloning themselves or their children or their pet or whomever. While it may be noble, everyone and everything has to die at some point.

Two people however is a different story. Taking two separate DNA strands is no longer cloning, so I don't have any predilection toward it. Splicing DNA strands together and cloning a DNA strand is completely different, which is why I made the distinction in my last post. When you put them together with the "/" I wasn't sure if you realized that.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

I have a problem with creating a new life form from one person's DNA.

Why?

This has the problem of people cloning themselves or their children or their pet or whomever. While it may be noble, everyone and everything has to die at some point.

That makes no sense to me. Making a clone of yourself does not make "you" live another generation. It's just a physical body.

Splicing DNA strands together and cloning a DNA strand is completely different, which is why I made the distinction in my last post. When you put them together with the "/" I wasn't sure if you realized that.

They are different but related. Cloning techniques will be required to bring a "spliced" set a DNA to "life." In other words, once you have a "spliced together" set of DNA, bringing it to "life" would follow the same procedures as bringing a non-spliced set of DNA to life.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

"Cloning" is a single emotive word that covers a lot of research, from being able to cure people of diseases, replacing organs, gene therapy, etc right up to the "copying a human being".

As with all these kinds of things, there are risks along the way, but the eventual rewards are very much worth persuing.

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

If I made a female clone of myself and I make love to my female clone, would that be considered incest?

 

[Natoma]

This has the problem of people cloning themselves or their children or their pet or whomever. While it may be noble, everyone and everything has to die at some point.

That makes no sense to me. Making a clone of yourself does not make "you" live another generation. It's just a physical body.

That depends on whether or not you believe much of who you are is encoded in your genes.

Splicing DNA strands together and cloning a DNA strand is completely different, which is why I made the distinction in my last post. When you put them together with the "/" I wasn't sure if you realized that.

They are different but related. Cloning techniques will be required to bring a "spliced" set a DNA to "life." In other words, once you have a "spliced together" set of DNA, bringing it to "life" would follow the same procedures as bringing a non-spliced set of DNA to life.

This doesn't mean they can be compared simply because they share some of the same techniques for genesis. Invitro fertilization is in many ways like reproductive cloning, but I would not make the comparison between them for realistic purposes.

The same can be said for therapeutic cloning wrt organ replacement. Yes, they are related, but they are different enough to escape comparison. Anyways, to get back to it. Reproductive cloning produces an exact genetic copy of you. Splicing does not produce a copy, in fact it produces a completely new being., which is why they are related, but different enough to escape comparison.

 

[Natoma]

If I made a female clone of myself and I make love to my female clone, would that be considered incest?

Yes.

 

[Himself]

Only issue for me is whether or not clones would be considered as people, if not, then I don't think it's a good idea. If it's just another variation on identical twins, it's nothing big, same thing just time displaced.

Would be cool to be able to buy genes from some super model to grow your own... lol Dunno, if I could wait for years for her to grow up though..

 

[Joe DeFuria]

That depends on whether or not you believe much of who you are is encoded in your genes.

A "clone" of you is no more "you" than one identical twin is the "same person" as the other twin.

I fully reject any argument against cloning based on some "people have to die at sometime" (immortality) argument. It just cant be reasonably argued that the clone of one person is to any reasonable extent, that same person.

This doesn't mean they can be compared simply because they share some of the same techniques for genesis.

Of course they can be compared.

I'm not equating the two. Nor have I claimed that they are equal in all respects.

Invitro fertilization is in many ways like reproductive cloning, but I would not make the comparison between them for realistic purposes.

You might not make the comparison, but others might. It depends on the basis for the comparison.

I'm trying desparately to get you to answer one simple question.

Why is it a "bad thing" to clone a human? I'm just looking for you explanation on that. Depending on your answer, we can then compare / contrast that with same sex slicing / cloning.

All you've basically said so far in this regard, is that with straight cloning, only "one set" of genes is used....so presumably that's the factor that makes it bad to you. Why? What makes one set of genes "bad", whereas arbitrarily splicing two sets together...not bad?

 

[arjan de lumens]

If I made a female clone of myself and I make love to my female clone, would that be considered incest?

Probably, yes. But if you make a straight female clone of yourself (no chromosome modification), it would mean that you or her have a set of chromosomes that doesn't match your sex and therefore are infertile (this is actually possible; IIRC it happens naturally to about 1 in 10000 people), so you don't have to worry about inbreeding yourself just yet ...

 

[Natoma]

In a nutshell I don't think it's ok to artificially make identical copy of someone. Each being is unique and I don't think that should be tread upon. Not only that, but there are biological issues with making direct copies. I'm sure you're aware of the "Xerox effect" when it comes to genetics.

That's all there is to it, no more no less. If you're looking for a deeper answer frankly you're going to be disappointed because there isn't one. I still don't see how or why you're trying to make a corrolation between cloning and the combination of random sets of genetic information. One results in a genetic copy, another does not.

My question is, what you you feel about cloning? Do you feel that making copies of human beings is fine? Why or why not? How do you feel about invitro and the fact that many of the techniques used for invitro are shared with direct cloning?

 

[Silent_One]

What is the ""Xerox effect" when it comes to genetics"?

 

[Natoma]

What is the ""Xerox effect" when it comes to genetics"?

When you make a copy of something, the image is close to the original, but not identical. It degrades in the creation of the copy. If you then make a copy of the copy, it degrades again, and so forth and so on. That's one of the reasons why Dolly the sheep, along with all the other clones that have been created thus far, have experienced abnormalities that sometimes did not show up for years.

One of the problems that people have with cloning is that if you make a clone of yourself and that clone reproduces, it will introduce a good amount of genetic problems into their offspring. Or heaven forbid if the clone decides to clone him/herself later on in its life.