Human Cloning

[raydanator]

Well, I wasn't quite sure where to post this question, but I figure this is about as good a place as any

So, maybe I've just been asleep for the past few years or something, but I didn't realize that the ability to clone mammals without using the God given reproduction system existed. I guess I was thinking that "Dolly the Sheep" was just another fusing of male and female reproduction cells, somehow altered, to create a new life that looked the same as its predecessor...but I was wrong.

I didn't realize that what the scientists had done was to take sheep cells, and combine them with the female's own reproductive cells, and create life without the use of the male's reproductive cells. I'm sure this has been discussed much before, but where I'm going with this is what are some of your views, as Christians on cloning?...and I'd like to hear anyone's views- not trying to push anyone away here, but I'm especially interested in cloning from a Biblical basis.

I believe that God is not for cloning at all, although at least for now He is letting cloning happen- whether or not he will put an end to it, or stop human cloning, who knows, but obviously it is not in accordance with Biblical principles at all, and is definitely working against his natural processes for life that He has set up. Although whatever happens, I know He's in control and has a purpose for it, so I guess I can be thankful there.

With all the talk going around of cloning for the use of manufacturing body parts for ourselves etc., it reminds me of the movie: The Prestige...movie spoiler to follow--

In the movie, which is about two warring magicians duking it out over an old grudge, at the end the main magician's "trick", or his "prestige", "best work" is the fact that each night at his performance he clones himself and then drowns the clone. And yes, it is far fetched, but what I'm getting at is what kind of a society would we be living in, where life would be held that cheap and meaningless? Granted, for now the government has banned human cloning, but if it is possible, which I'm not denying, then how could we morally accept that? As Christians, I don't believe we could. Either way, it is a human life-- and one may justify it by thinking of cloning as a "continuation" of that life, since taken from the original being, but I don't believe that's the case. Its a serious issue, and one that I did not realize was as important as it is. Feel free to post your thoughts, and thanks for your time.

 

[Meshavrischika]

watching raydanator open can of worms...

 

[Caitlin.ann]

Cloning...cool but could care less. There is only room enough for one Sacredsin though..any more would start an Apocalypse! *dun dun dun...*

 

[comana]

I imagine that at some point a human clone will be born but other than to prove it can be done I don't see any benefit. There have been plenty of sci-fi stories involving clones and various kinds of inhuman abuses. The reality is that cloning is a very expensive endeavor which makes the sci-fi version so expensive as to be prohibitive.

If ever a clone is born, I don't see how it would be treated any different. It would be completely human and be afforded all rights of a human ( I would hope).

 

[Maxwell511]

Personally I don't see the point of cloning people, I don't see how it is a moral issue. It is in the same category in my mind as extreme ironing. I did find this interesting though...

I believe that God is not for cloning at all,

You release that if God exists he clones people all the time. He can't be against it. Ever met identical twins?

 

[DoubtingThomas29]

Allright great topic Rayburn. For some odd reason I feel like being controversial, so I will argue in favor of human cloning. Which by the way, you know somebody has cloned a human, they just aren't telling anyone about it.

I feel it would be great if the human race could make a master race of humans, with a mixture of all ethnic groups, white, black, hispanic, asian and Indian of humans with IQ's of 150 or greater, and mass produce these people to force an evolutionary push in the human race as a whole to where the IQ's of humn reach a very high mark, with people with good quality brains. Imagine an army of Issac Newtons, or Karl Gausses, also, An entire country populated with people like Socrates, Aristotle an Plato, and brillant computer programmers. IQ's on the average could go up fifteen or thirty points on the average with such an evolutionary push on the human race, then we could find a way to fix the sun so it turn into a huge red giant billions of years from now.

Don't clone me though, the first humans I would clone would be the entire physics department at the UC's and Ivy leagues, and make exact duplicates of them. Natural selction doesn't work so good for the human race, so maybe we should give our race the push it needs to advance in its sophistication.

Side note,

I don't take anything like that seriously, and doubt anybody posting here would, so I'll play devils advocate to try to get the debate going. There is nothing wrong with a good friendly debate. So lets way the pros and cons, see what we can think of?

What should be off limits to cloning though is cloning Brittany Spears and Paris Hilton, the world couldn't handle two or three of them.

 

[Maxwell511]

I don't take anything like that seriously, and doubt anybody posting here would, so I'll play devils advocate to try to get the debate going. There is nothing wrong with a good friendly debate. So lets way the pros and cons, see what we can think of?

As the Devil's advocate can you think of why the Devil someone would clone a person?

 

[DoubtingThomas29]

To create an evolutionary push for the human race, there are about sixty five million people in the whole world with an IQ of 130 or greater, if we cloned even half of those, this would create a push in the evolution of the human brain and ability to learn new things, from philosophy to art, to politics, to law, to medicne, and even artifical intelligence. By increasing their numbers selectivley, we will artifically increase the intelligence of the human race within a few hundred years. IQ's of humans are going up one point on the average, every ten years, probably because of bette nutrition, but cloning would really get it up there.

Side note:

Pretty weird idea, don't know if a politician could really sell me on that. It is probably better to work on creating artifical intelligence rather than have a nursery of genisuses running around. But what are your thoughts?

 

[Maxwell511]

To create an evolutionary push for the human race, there are about sixty five million people in the whole world with an IQ of 130 or greater, if we cloned even half of those, this would create a push in the evolution of the human brain and ability to learn new things, from philosophy to art, to politics, to law, to medicne, and even artifical intelligence. By increasing their numbers selectivley, we will artifically increase the intelligence of the human race within a few hundred years. IQ's of humans are going up one point on the average, every ten years, probably because of bette nutrition, but cloning would really get it up there.

Side note:

Pretty weird idea, don't know if a politician could really sell me on that. It is probably better to work on creating artifical intelligence rather than have a nursery of genisuses running around. But what are your thoughts?

You don't want to hear my thoughts on "IQ measuring intelligence". I get a bit emotional about it and start shouting.

If cloning is supposed to produce a master race by messing with genes I don't see how it is a more of a threat that gene therapy.

 

[keith99]

You don't want to hear my thoughts on "IQ measuring intelligence". I get a bit emotional about it and start shouting.

If cloning is supposed to produce a master race by messing with genes I don't see how it is a more of a threat that gene therapy.

Less of a threat for sure. Cloning only lets you duplicate, gene therapy is pretty much limited genetic engineering, that can go all kinds of nasty places.

Cloning exceptional individuals has some interesting possibilities. Truely top level people may be worth the cost. And if history is any indication if this gets done the cost will come down. In 50 years it would not surprise me is the costs are within the reach of all the upper middle class. If this goes anywhere we might get some interesting nature vrs nurture data.

I'd recommend Heinleins 'Beyond This Horizon' as interesting fiction that touches on real solutions.

BTW as far as evolution goes is who says smarter is the answer? There might just be other more important things to select. (see the above book).

 

[The Princess Bride]

If ever a clone is born, I don't see how it would be treated any different. It would be completely human and be afforded all rights of a human ( I would hope).

Nah. They'd probably keep it and do all sorts of weird experiments on it and all, like test it's pain tolerance, susceptibility to biological hazards, etc...

Ya know, "clone 'em and make 'em better" technique.



/sarcastic humor

 

[cantata]

The main intention of cloning is not to produce exact copies of human beings and have them walk around and see what happens to them. Human cloning (and mammal cloning as research for human cloning) is mainly being done in the hopes that it will provide new options for therapeutic medicine. See here.

I'd also draw your attention to the fact that cloning happens in nature. Some animal species (such as the flowerpot snake and certain species of lizard) are entirely female, and reproduce via parthenogenesis, resulting in genetically identical offspring. (With all those virgin births, I'm surprised no one's started a religion about them yet.) What are identical twins? Natural clones. Also, horticulturalists clone plants all the time (by fertilising plants with their own pollen). This can sometimes happen naturally as well.

 

[DoubtingThomas29]

That is just amazing, I didn't know some animals could clone themselves.

 

[cantata]

That is just amazing, I didn't know some animals could clone themselves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis