Cloning The Tasmanian Tiger... Is it moral?

[adriantc 0]

It's about 6 months since I saw "The End of Extinction: Cloning the Tasmanian Tiger" documentary on Discovery Channel... and today, don't now why, I started searching on Google to see if they done any progress with the DNA. It seems they didn't do anything new but as I searched I ended up on some sites that were discussing if cloning the tasmanian tiger is a moral thing. In my opinion it is very moral to do so since "thanks" to us it's extinct in the first place. Others say that we shouldn't play God. Yet we do that every day... when a doctor saves a person from death. Like the nuclear bomb cloning has a lot of potential, hoping that menkind has the power to use it wisely (see The Cuban Missile Crisis for details).In the end I really hope they can bring this animal back to life. It is our duty to make it happen. If I had some money to spare I would have donated them for this great cause.So what do you think?

[AbstracT 0]

I think cloning is wrong period. When we help a life that's already here it's not wrong..For instance, prolonging a person who has substained trauma to the body or brain. That's not wrong to do, because we are not making or taking a life we are helping to prolong the inevitable. If we clone this animal, who's to say the next animal to be clone won't be a dinosaur that's been extinct for millions of years. This could hurt us. Yes they can say 'we have guns to keep it under control' but that will only work for so long..What if this power of cloning fall into the wrong hands..Should we risk this just to bring an animal back to society? What kind of life will the animal have? It would be forced to be in a zoo, where it gets gawked at for days..What type of life is that..The animal is made for vast areas to roam, not a cage.

[bureX 0]

It's very difficult to clone an animal, isn't it easier to just capture some remaining Tasmanian tigers, set up a controlled environment for them and let them breed? (Just like the Panda bear in China, but I hope that this is easier, because pandas don't breed that easily, not even in the wild).And... My personal opinion about cloning:1) If you clone something, you DON'T play God! Like adriantc said, if you believe that the cloning process is playing God, than you alter your body (and the bodies of animals) every day when you drink some vitamins to make you feel better or when you have a heart transplant.2) People that don't have an idea what cloning is (or even worse, if they think that a scientist can make a person, or an animal split into two) start to relieve themselves from that lack of knowledge by attacking the scientists around the world (that are trying to save lives, if you haven't noticed) and saying that "God is against it"! "We aren't God!" "We can't be compared to God!"If that is true, than God will smash us into tiny little pieces when we invent space travel, so that we can't reach him and see his face somewhere in the stars !3) If a human is cloned eventually, I would be 100% against the idea of cloning myself so that I can "grab" an internal organ that I need, and kill the poor thing (my clone)!On the other hand, if I could clone my kidney, heart, or whatever and use it later, I would support that! But killing an alive creature (especially the one with self-awareness - a human) is not moral!

[Tyssen 0]

In my opinion it is very moral to do so since "thanks" to us it's extinct in the first place.

Yes, but because of us, who's to say it would survive today in the wild if it was brought back. And how much would it cost? And how much is it costing to research the cloning process? All this sort of money would be much better spent making sure the planet doesn't overheat or explode or sink into the ocean rather than fighting to bring back one species of animal that populated only a tiny part of the world.

[midnightvamp 1]

3) If a human is cloned eventually, I would be 100% against the idea of cloning myself so that I can "grab" an internal organ that I need, and kill the poor thing (my clone)!

On the other hand, if I could clone my kidney, heart, or whatever and use it later, I would support that! But killing an alive creature (especially the one with self-awareness - a human) is not moral!

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Yes, the idea of cloning something is a fine line, but I don't see anything wrong with it. If the animal has a chance to live on, then by all means, why not try it. I don't even have a problem with cloning a human being so much, so long as the person would grow up to be a normal person.

 

I know this is sort of unrealistic, because if we ever did get one cloned, there would undoubtaby be complications with something, as all things have when they are just starting. Also, the poor things would be under cameras constantly, which is no way to live, but if it could happen, with no complications, I'd be for it. So long as the clones were just like everyone else, happy, healthy and loved.

 

As for the cloning people so that we have spare parts for ourselves when we need it. I think that is wrong / right depending on the situation. Lets say I needed a kidney, and my clone was fine with giving me one, and it wouldn't kill them (I'd never go for that) then, I think it would be just the same as if my sister wanted to give me and organ.

 

And if I could save the life of my clone, I'd be all for that too. It would be because of me that she would be alive, and if she needed life-saving surgury, I'd be more than willing to donate my kidney or whatever to her. So long as it wouldn't kill me.

 

Like I said, fine line. I think if anything is meant to happen, it will, so with the whole cloning thing, it's sort of wait and see at the moment. Sure, they cloned certain things, and I haven't seen the problem in that, so I'll have to see what is next. It's a tough subject, and takes a lot of thinking.

[Ao)K-General 0]

Cloning is one of the best ways to stop extinction. I believe it can stop extinction completly. Doing that will save many birds, cats, dogs, and many others. And hopefully scientists can get a good piece of DNA from an animal that has been extinct for many hundreds or even thousands of years. If we can do that, think of what the world would be like. And than when we fix the ozone than we are in really good condition. But we need to slow down global warming drastically. They way we are going we could be gone in a few hundred years. And we need to start up electric and very fuel efitiont (or however the f*** you spell it.) motor vehicles. When we also do that we will have more oil longer which means more gas and longer time we have to drive cars. SO NASA, STOP WASTING FUEL!!!!!!

[midnightvamp 1]

But we need to slow down global warming drastically. They way we are going we could be gone in a few hundred years. And we need to start up electric and very fuel efitiont (or however the f*** you spell it.) motor vehicles. When we also do that we will have more oil longer which means more gas and longer time we have to drive cars. SO NASA, STOP WASTING FUEL!!!!!!

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Don't you think that most of the global-warming problem is because of the exhaust that cars let up when they are driving? Perhaps, instead of preserving the fuel so we can wreck our earth for years to come by buring it in our cars and factories, we could look be better cleaner sources of energy...

 

As for NASA... we might just need them in the future to take us to our new home on some distant planet after we've wrecked our own, so they might want to practice a little with that fuel until we do need them. (Or they too could find a new source of energy...)

[Tyssen 0]

The way we are going we could be gone in a few hundred years. And we need to start up electric and very fuel efitiont (or however the f*** you spell it.) motor vehicles. When we also do that we will have more oil longer which means more gas and longer time we have to drive cars. SO NASA, STOP WASTING FUEL!!!!!!

I think it's gonna be a lot sooner than a few hundred years. I saw a TV show a while back that says that the very gases that are reducing the ozone are at the same time forming something of a protective barrier against the sun's rays. So if the world clean's up it's emmissions to stop the hole in the ozone layer expanding, that cloud of gases will start to dissipate which means that until the ozone layer has a chance to repair itself (no telling how long that will be), the situation will actually get worse, not better, due to the more intense rays from the sun warming the Earth.

[Shoobi 0]

Hmm .. Well I think the only way it would be wrong is that.. our conditions in the world now may not be sufficient for the Tasmanian tiger. The world has changed so much.. and if it was cloned .. they would just try and breed it right? what kind of life would a cloned animal have. If you are looking at it from a scientfic perspective though, i think that it would be a very interesting experiment.. But if you are thinking about the best interest of the animal.. maybe not.

[OhMyBosh 0]

I wanted to be a scientist early on in my life because I saw the Tasmanian tiger on some Crate brothers show. I'm not sure now.I also agree with you a 100 percent. It's our fault it's gone in the first place.

[Milk 0]

If we clone this animal, who's to say the next animal to be clone won't be a dinosaur that's been extinct for millions of years. This could hurt us. Yes they can say 'we have guns to keep it under control' but that will only work for so long..What if this power of cloning fall into the wrong hands..Should we risk this just to bring an animal back to society? What kind of life will the animal have? It would be forced to be in a zoo, where it gets gawked at for days..What type of life is that..The animal is made for vast areas to roam, not a cage.

>>Cloning a dinosaur isn't exactly possible right now. To clone an animal, you need dna from the animal, and a live egg from another animal of the same species. You then have to swap the dna and what not. Since there is no live egg (cell) right now, cloning dinosaurs is impossible right now. And they might not hurt us. Have you ever heard of domestication? We did it with farm animals...Now I understand that a dinosaur is a very different creature, but there are also many types of dinosaurs. They're not all vicious carnivores. >>When you speak of the animal being put into a zoo...you say that like only one animal will be cloned and none will reproduce after that. You're placing an animal into the wildlife after the first clone, to see if it's successful. They cloned dolly. Although I think she's dead right now, she wasn't placed in a cage. The point of cloning this tasmanian tiger isn't to put it in a zoo, it's to help keep a species from extinction. Put it in a zoo and you might as well just not clone it. There would be no point, unless you're keeping it their to reproduce in the safety of human hands...

As for the cloning people so that we have spare parts for ourselves when we need it. I think that is wrong / right depending on the situation. Lets say I needed a kidney, and my clone was fine with giving me one, and it wouldn't kill them (I'd never go for that) then, I think it would be just the same as if my sister wanted to give me and organ.

You know they can clone individual organs...right? I don't know the actual process, but they have found a way to do so. Besides...no one would be for killing a clone for a spare heart =X

Yes, but because of us, who's to say it would survive today in the wild if it was brought back. And how much would it cost? And how much is it costing to research the cloning process? All this sort of money would be much better spent making sure the planet doesn't overheat or explode or sink into the ocean rather than fighting to bring back one species of animal that populated only a tiny part of the world.

Why would it not survive? They cloned Dolly and she survived. If the clone is brought up in the proper conditions, it really wouldn't matter. It's not about individual survival, it's about the species surviving. Money spent on making sure the planet doesn't over heat? Well, we've already figured out the problem as to why it's overheating. Why would this world explode or sink into the ocean? wtf? Just disable the use of a nuclear war and we're fine for now. If you keep this species from being able to clone, we might as well just wipe out all endangered species. I doubt you'd say the same if this species of animal was a human race.

2) People that don't have an idea what cloning is (or even worse, if they think that a scientist can make a person, or an animal split into two) start to relieve themselves from that lack of knowledge by attacking the scientists around the world (that are trying to save lives, if you haven't noticed) and saying that "God is against it"! "We aren't God!" "We can't be compared to God!"

If that is true, than God will smash us into tiny little pieces when we invent space travel, so that we can't reach him and see his face somewhere in the stars !/QUOTE]

I think that scientists are getting slandered so much because of people's beliefs. If we somehow were going against God, don't you think he would have struck thunder down on all scientific cloning labs to prevent this? If we are going against God, I'm pretty damn sure he'd do something about it to let us know he doesn't want this to happen. That is, unless God is no longer omnipotent.

Religious belief is why you should never argue with a closeminded religious person. They often are blinded by their religion and don't see the comcept of science. =/

 

Personally, I think they should clone the animal. If we don't, the total number of animals existing today out of the total number of animals that EVER existed would slowly decrease to less than 1%. How do you know that if you don't clone this animal and let it die into extinction...how do you know that your own food supply would falter? If you change one aspect of the food chain, you can change a whole bunch. I don't know about the feeding patterns, but I sure wouldn't want the species it's supposed to eat to overpopulate then eat all the ones below it and then the ones below that to overpopulate...etc...then they all die off...No cloning now may result in future regret. Think throughly before you make decisions people. They're not JUST one species.

[clagnol 0]

I'm more concerned with the genetic consequences of introducing cloned animals into their respective populations. I don't know about the specifics of the Tasmanian Tiger, but if the population is very small, then this could lead to a very small gene pool. The best way to go about cloning these animals would be to only make a clone or two of each original, and spread them out as best they can. If they only made clones of one tiger, inbreeding would likely create many mutant specimens that die young. Genetic diversity is really necessary when trying to revive a dying species.

[gallo 0]

I would like to expand the subject regarding cloning of human beings....First, I think that many people might have the wrong perception of the whole process AND the results. At the current state of things, nobody ever even dreamt about creating a perfect copy of your body, stick it in a freezer cell in order to shop for new organs whenever needed... This is pure science fiction, not reality.Second, the cloning topic is very related to the staminal cells creation and their manipulation, and in detail related to the use of embrions for extracting these "blank" cells that in theory can turn into basically any kind of cell in our body.Is this unmoral? And above all, are embrions human beings (therefore the whole process would be not only unmoral, but also illegal), or just a bunch of cells that have the possibility to be a human being, but not yet (or not at this stage), therefore the operations described above don't harm the right to life granted by most countries in the world?Please feed back... I'm curious to hear your opinion on the subject!

[adriantc 0]

I'm more concerned with the genetic consequences of introducing cloned animals into their respective populations. I don't know about the specifics of the Tasmanian Tiger, but if the population is very small, then this could lead to a very small gene pool. The best way to go about cloning these animals would be to only make a clone or two of each original, and spread them out as best they can. If they only made clones of one tiger, inbreeding would likely create many mutant specimens that die young. Genetic diversity is really necessary when trying to revive a dying species./QUOTE][

They've asked this question in the documentary and they've also gave an answer. After they succeded in making the clone (i mean the cell not the real animal) they will put it into a close related animal (same species ...) and they hope that in generations of controled breeding only the genes of the tasmanian tiger will remain.

For example in a different documentary (also on Discovery Channel) they were talking about (someday) cloning the mamouth (which I think it would also be great). After getting the cell ready they would put it into an african elephant (close living cousin of the mamouth) and hope that is a few generations of breeding they would have a real living mamouth. In theory...

[gaetano 0]

I agree with u 100% We killed off those poor animals, so we are responsible for bringing them back! Everyone thinks that cloning is immoral but let me tell u the basic. What cloning basicly is is taking a dna sample and giving it to another animal making the animal to have a baby that bears a resemblance to the animal that gave the dna. They are not making another of the animal, just one that looks like the other.