If we can clone sheep and monkeys . Why can we not clone humans . What is the argument against cloning ourselves ...i cant really see a bad side to this .
" If we can clone sheep and monkeys . Why can we not clone humans . What is the argument against cloning ourselves ...i cant really see a bad side to this . "
Cause the religious people would have a fit. Or so that is how I understand it.
Because Ethics. Really I just want them to perfect cloning so I can be one step closer to my dream of having my brain transplanted into an awesome mechanically enhanced body.
The ethical problem that once you clone somebody, it becomes another human, except it's just a copy of someone else, so does it have a right to really exist?
Cloning isn't perfected sir. I don't think a lot of scientists want to make a person just to be an exeperiment. Why would you even want a cloned human anyway?
I don't think there's any physical reason we can't, it's just that we don't want to. The only possible reason you would clone somebody is if you wanted to harvest their organs if you were injured (however getting sick is kind of pointless, considering chances are the clone would also get sick). However obviously the clone wouldn't want to just give up their organs, so we'd need to keep them sedated throughout their whole life, which is ethically dubious to say the least, considering they are essentially still people. However growing cloned organs without the associated body and mind is what researchers are pushing towards. I believe they have already grown and transplanted a heart valve.
@Make_Me_Mad said:
" Because Ethics. Really I just want them to perfect cloning so I can be one step closer to my dream of having my brain transplanted into an awesome mechanically enhanced body. "
I suggested this to my philosophy class, and they thought I was crazy, and none of my friends ever wanted it done. I really like the idea myself.
Because of an insanely high failure rate. A successful nuclear transfer is less than 3% and after that there is high likelihood that the fetus won't come to term. Even if it does it has an abnormally high risk of cancer or genetic disorders. For every clone there are like thousands of failures.
" Remember in Jurassic park... "Scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should!" I've realized that all of life's questions can be answered by Jeff Goldblum. "
I concur with this statement. Jeff Goldblum is truly a genius.
" The ethical problem that once you clone somebody, it becomes another human, except it's just a copy of someone else, so does it have a right to really exist? "
Creating a clone is like creating an identical twin. And no one is really debating if identical twins are human. Or I hope not anyway.
" Huh? We cloned animals before? I've never heard of that... Would having sex with your clone be considered masturbating? "
Wow seriously? You are super retarded.
The first reason we don't clone humans is because the technology and technique is still too primitive and most attempts to actually make a living clone end up in failure and those few that do manage to be born are naturally unhealthy, are more vulnerable to disease and generally die young.
Even if we DID manage to produce a 100% healthy clone (the only way it would be humane to make them), there would still be an urgent need to elaborate an incredibly complex system of brand new laws pertaining the making and handling of clones from both ethical and legal standpoints the likes we can barely imagine.
" The ethical problem that once you clone somebody, it becomes another human, except it's just a copy of someone else, so does it have a right to really exist? "
Creating a clone is like creating an identical twin. And no one is really debating if identical twins are human. Or I hope not anyway. "
Yes. One reason promoted for creating a clone is so that you can harvest the clone's organs and heal yourself. The problem with that is, obviously, that once you create the clone it's conscious, and it should have the right to exist just as much as you do.
Because religious people somehow think that everybody else thinks that clones aren't real people, and that the second we clone a human, we'll be living in Blade Runner. In that sense, I support them; I don't want a universe where everybody owns those creepy midget doll things.
You know way before cloning becomes a serious sci-fi-esque problem we're going to be able to genetically turn off the aging process and that's when the world is well and truly fucked.
It's because different religions see cloning as "humans trying to be God" which is morally unethical since God is the only Being that should give life to humans naturally and with uniqueness. That is just how I interpret it. But I do think cloning has its benefits although I do find it unethical. But it does remind me of the movie "The Island" where a clone is like a health insurance for a person so that they can live longer by harvesting the organs of the clone to be used medically with the original person like if you lose a liver, there's a perfect substitute, then in turn of course, the clone dies. something like that hehe!
No, it isn't, especially considering that I lost my virginity that way. Two people makes it not-masturbation, especially when one of them transformed into a character of the opposite gender.
" You know way before cloning becomes a serious sci-fi-esque problem we're going to be able to genetically turn off the aging process and that's when the world is well and truly fucked. "
But by the time we can stop ourselves from aging, we'll also hopefully be able to modify our minds and bodies with technology, so that the world can split into ever-warring factions and keep our numbers thin enough to keep everything from really getting screwed.
We already have that form of cloning but we call it in-vitro fertilization. It's best not to use the same DNA though because of the higher chance of abnormalities.
The way it works is that you take an egg and extract all the genetic material so that It's just a shell, then you take the DNA of the animal you want duplicated and place it in the shell. Then you place it in an animals uterus and wait for it to come to term. Then when you extract the DNA it should be, for all intents and purposes, exactly the same. That's how they cloned the sheep "Dolly" and other assorted animals. They problem they found later on was that they would die much faster than they should have, but I'm sure they figured out why by now.
" If we can clone sheep and monkeys . Why can we not clone humans . What is the argument against cloning ourselves ...i cant really see a bad side to this . "
The problem I have with your statement is that you're making this out to be a very simple issue, despite the fact that science struggles to grapple with the moral, ethical and logical questions surrounding this topic. I guess if we're going to in part answer your 'question', we really have to answer all the half-questions you allude to.
Is there a need to clone - either the broader animal kingdom and/or ourselves?
Do we have the technology available to us to clone sheep and monkeys?
Do we have the technology available to us to clone humans?
Regardless of the technology, is it appropriate to clone humans?
Regardless of the technology, is it appropriate for us to make clones of ourselves (eg. I clone myself)?
There are entire essays which try to answer one of those questions, so I'm not even going to try answer all of them. Instead, I'll just put forward an answer for the first one.
Is There a Need to Clone?
@tdk08 bought forward the point "I don't really see the need to clone anything". I guess you could argue that anything we can achieve by cloning can also be achieved by other means.
Yes you could try to clone organs, but you can also just raise the level of organ donations.
Yes you could try to clone "perfect" cows, but you can also breed them that way - that's what people have been doing for centuries.
Yes you can try to clone humans, but we have things called natural births and IVF births which don't involve cloning (IVF is contentious particually amonst the religious but that's another issue).
However, while there are alternatives to cloning, many people feel that if we can get the technology right, then perhaps this is a way that we can do these things more efficiently and produce 'products' that are more perfect over the same time frame.
Ultimately there are legitimate reasons for cloning in the first place, but whether we choose to pursue them through cloning or other means will always be an area of intense debate.
I know cloning sounds cool at first glance but there are many things to consider such as over population,i mean look at China and their strict laws on how many babies a couple can have imagine if even 10% of them made clones of themselves and they were just walking around aimlessly.Next imagine if someone like Hitler decided to clone him/her self in case anything happened to them it would be a very tricky situation.Also we do not know what the technology is capable of so doing something like that in a technology's infancy would be pretty reckless.
While I've just had my post, I feel as though I should inject my opinion into one other opinion.
@lilbigsupermario said:
" It's because different religions see cloning as "humans trying to be God" which is morally unethical since God is the only Being that should give life to humans naturally and with uniqueness. That is just how I interpret it. "
That is one of the reasons many religions argue against cloning, although I think the question as to whether we should be "playing God" is not the right one. Instead, we should be asking ourselves to what extent we "play God".
I mean if someone just is diagnosed with cancer, gets run over by a car, or simply gets a bad flu, do we simply say that this is God's fate and that we shouldn't do anything? I'm no expert of religous texts, but I don't think that most religions (at least the mainstream interpretation of the major ones) have any clauses which say that we can't interneve in these situations - the one exception to a certain extent that I can think of is Jehovas Witnesses in the case of blood.
However, aren't we "playing God" by changing an outcome in this particular way? The real question for cloning is whether this goes one step too far in the process of changing the world, and that argument in my opinion has more to do with moral, ethical and logical arguments than religious ones. I not saying that religion doesn't have a place in this argument, but a blanket "we're playing God" doesn't make much sense.
" Because Ethics. Really I just want them to perfect cloning so I can be one step closer to my dream of having my brain transplanted into an awesome mechanically enhanced body. "
" Because Ethics. Really I just want them to perfect cloning so I can be one step closer to my dream of having my brain transplanted into an awesome mechanically enhanced body. "
this "
Well there is "science" which is available to make this happen one day called cryonics. The quickest summation of it - its the first 2 minutes of Futurama but a whole lot messier. The only thing is that its kinda expensive, and obviously you can't suffer an accidental death, otherwise they can't do the procedure on you in time.
Cloning is cool in small doses. Cells and plants and stuff, medical research, even animals is okay, really, as long as you don't do it too much and drive the species toward extinction with constant inbreeding and a lack of genetic diversity.
But cloning a full on human is treading a very fine line.
Does the clone have human rights? Does it have citizenship? Or is it just an organ bank for the original? And what if it's born and achieves sentience? At that point it is a completely different organism than the original. Does it have rights then?
I think we'd have to answer some very important, very fundamental questions before we even consider doing such a thing.
" Cloning is cool in small doses. Cells and plants and stuff, medical research, even animals is okay, really, as long as you don't do it too much and drive the species toward extinction with constant inbreeding and a lack of genetic diversity. But cloning a full on human is treading a very fine line. Does the clone have human rights? Does it have citizenship? Or is it just an organ bank for the original? And what if it's born and achieves sentience? At that point it is a completely different organism than the original. Does it have rights then? I think we'd have to answer some very important, very fundamental questions before we even consider doing such a thing. "
Keep in mind that I'm playing devil's advocate here, but since humans are animals, why is it somehow more ethically contentious in cloning humans than cloning other animals? Animals have rights too. Aren't we just being humanists by somehow arguing that all of the ethical issues surrounding animals aren't relevent but somehow are significantly more important in human beings?
But putting my entire range of arguments on the table, obviously humans lead incredibly complex lives, and these issues wil cause monumental challenges in the way we deal with humanity. While my gut reaction is to say that clones have exactly the same rights as every other human because they are humans, that does prohibit us from accomplishing many of the reasons as to why we might want to clone humans in the first place.
The only way we can solve these challenges is to start working on the problem now. When movies like I Robot show us a far flung future in which robots are helping people in all aspects of their lives, many people forget than in many respects this is already happening - its just that robots don't take human form and are not able to emulate the full range of functions like humans quite yet. If we don't work these things out soon, one day we might just find ourselves with a cloned human being without any legal, moral or ethical frameworks sorted out. That scenario would be a real mess.
" Because of an insanely high failure rate. A successful nuclear transfer is less than 3% and after that there is high likelihood that the fetus won't come to term. Even if it does it has an abnormally high risk of cancer or genetic disorders. For every clone there are like thousands of failures. "
THIS. It has actually very little to do with religious people at the moment and more with the fact that even animal cloning is still in it's infancy with high failure rates and even "successes" are pretty crappy as well. While there are certainly ethical questions and hurdles to overcome concerning cloning, right now there are still huge technical issues to solve first before we even get to the stage of asking: "Is it OK to clone a human?"
" Cloning is cool in small doses. Cells and plants and stuff, medical research, even animals is okay, really, as long as you don't do it too much and drive the species toward extinction with constant inbreeding and a lack of genetic diversity. But cloning a full on human is treading a very fine line. Does the clone have human rights? Does it have citizenship? Or is it just an organ bank for the original? And what if it's born and achieves sentience? At that point it is a completely different organism than the original. Does it have rights then? I think we'd have to answer some very important, very fundamental questions before we even consider doing such a thing. "
Keep in mind that I'm playing devil's advocate here, but since humans are animals, why is it somehow more ethically contentious in cloning humans than cloning other animals? Animals have rights too. Aren't we just being humanists by somehow arguing that all of the ethical issues surrounding animals aren't relevent but somehow are significantly more important in human beings? But putting my entire range of arguments on the table, obviously humans lead incredibly complex lives, and these issues wil cause monumental challenges in the way we deal with humanity. While my gut reaction is to say that clones have exactly the same rights as every other human because they are humans, that does prohibit us from accomplishing many of the reasons as to why we might want to clone humans in the first place. The only way we can solve these challenges is to start working on the problem now. When movies like I Robot show us a far flung future in which robots are helping people in all aspects of their lives, many people forget than in many respects this is already happening - its just that robots don't take human form and are not able to emulate the full range of functions like humans quite yet. If we don't work these things out soon, one day we might just find ourselves with a cloned human being without any legal, moral or ethical frameworks sorted out. That scenario would be a real mess. "
I think it is more ethically contentious to clone humans than animals because humans are sentient beings.
Animals do have rights, and I'm not saying I don't think they should, but when push comes to shove, we're smarter and higher on the food chain, and if we're going to futz around with cloning, I'd rather we do that with some sheep than with a human being.
It's also why I'd rather give to a charity that supports starving children in Africa than a charity to help animals in shelters.
I guess I'm a humanist! Is that what they're called? I don't know!
"there are still huge technical issues to solve first before we even get to the stage of asking: "Is it OK to clone a human?"
If you don't mind me quoting myself:
The only way we can solve these challenges is to start working on the problem now. When movies like I Robot show us a far flung future in which robots are helping people in all aspects of their lives, many people forget than in many respects this is already happening - its just that robots don't take human form and are not able to emulate the full range of functions like humans quite yet. If we don't work these things out soon, one day we might just find ourselves with a cloned human being without any legal, moral or ethical frameworks sorted out. That scenario would be a real mess.
"there are still huge technical issues to solve first before we even get to the stage of asking: "Is it OK to clone a human?"
If you don't mind me quoting myself:
The only way we can solve these challenges is to start working on the problem now. When movies like I Robot show us a far flung future in which robots are helping people in all aspects of their lives, many people forget than in many respects this is already happening - its just that robots don't take human form and are not able to emulate the full range of functions like humans quite yet. If we don't work these things out soon, one day we might just find ourselves with a cloned human being without any legal, moral or ethical frameworks sorted out. That scenario would be a real mess.
"
This is actually exactly what is most likely to happen. First clone with no framework. No one will properly or at least 100% seriously from all legal/social/ethical/economic angles address the issue of human cloning until the situation arises when it HAS to be done, ie: when there is a first human clone and we have a shitstorm on our hands. That's just how humanity works.
The technological leap from the processing technology today to something like a self conscious and self aware robot in IRobot is not even phenomenally huge it is in the same order of difficulty as traveling within our solar system to developing FTL. I Robot is not a very good movie to take as an example, Bicentennial Man would be more appropriate and even better is to read Issaac Asimov's books rather then the movie versions.
I think it is more ethically contentious to clone humans than animals because humans are sentient beings. Animals do have rights, and I'm not saying I don't think they should, but when push comes to shove, we're smarter and higher on the food chain, and if we're going to futz around with cloning, I'd rather we do that with some sheep than with a human being. It's also why I'd rather give to a charity that supports starving children in Africa than a charity to help animals in shelters. I guess I'm a humanist! Is that what they're called? I don't know! "
I'm not saying that I don't agree with you on most of those points - its just that in the spirit of universal discussion, I was putting forward an alternative view (as I said, I was playing devil's advocate). Its worth correcting you on one point though - all animals are sentient, that's the way nature works. Its just that ultimately, humans should come first. If we are going to test cloning, then of course we need to do it on animals first before we ever even conceive touching humans. If we never did medical research on animals, then we and the entire animal kingdom would be worse off for it.
However, its important that in being pro-human that we don't abuse that power too greatly - we might be pretty smart and high up on the food chain, but other animals that are high up on the food chain are intelligent as well - its just that they haven't shown it in a way that we are able to appreciate. Here, an environmentalist could come in and complain about how putting humans first has caused huge ecological damage, and they wouldn't be wrong either.
Balancing the needs of humans and the greater world is an important challenge. Its something we haven't quite got right yet, but on the issue of cloning, I have no issue with putting animals before humans if we're going to do it anyway.
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