The Cloning Issue Should cloning be used to create the perfect human?

[Arbitrary 0]

I was thinking more along the lines of changes that help prevent/protect against or completely remove common/well known diseases, virus's etc.

Hmm, but I'd say that's where the problem stems. Yes, our wishes are good in that we're hoping to help the general population, but they turn bad. Like I mentioned earlier about the rich and the poor, the rich will have easy access to these medicines, but the poor will not. The same problem is already happening today--a number of people in the poorer countries are unable to vaccinate their children. This problem will exacerbate as our technology gets better--the rich will become healthier and healthier, while the poor become less healthy (this is all relative). Eventually, the determining factors of evolution will no longer be genes but money. The more money you have, the more likely you'll survive.

But of course I know the ideal is a good thing, even if population-control could be a problem.

[lonebyrd 0]

The high price that would come along with cloning would be a major problem. Imagine, the rich people, being able to clone the perfect baby, no flaws (or very little) able to withstand most diseases and illnesses. This child will grow up to be an extremely high productive member of society, taking the best jobs, the high pay. Meanwhile, the poor, middle-class will not be able to afford such a luxury as cloning, therefore, getting the lower paying jobs. As time goes by, the economy will shift, leaving the poor/middle-class in the dust, inducing poverty in many places, while the 'well-to-do' will have many advantages. This is how I see it in how I see it in America. I know nothing of other countries govenments. But in America, the govenment would end up making it easier on the upper-class, and harder for lower and middle-class. That is always the way it is.

[BooZker 0]

How would they know that Jake's clone would have the same likes and dislikes? These things are not in your genetic code. Instead, these and other such things are aquired tastes, not traits. It is not something that can be controlled Also, why clone Jake if they can just have another child and save money? Jake was a unique being, why clone him if you can have another unique child naturally?

The likes and dislikes are not in the code itself, but let's say you were really good at playing the drums. Most likely you will like to play them because you have no trouble playing them. Maybe he would not like playing the drums because he is not good at them and finds them too hard. This is just an IF and nothing more. It was just an example.

Why wouldn't you clone the child that was with you for over ten years? He would look exactly the same and has a chance to act close to the same as before. Not exactly, but close. The other part of that example was in some cases i think it would be ok and others a for sure NO. The clone will be unique anyways. It will not be exactly the same. No matter how much you modify the genes he will grow up different because of different things that will happen such as someone in the family dying and would make him more mature. This is just another example.

[lonebyrd 0]

Since this is all hypothetical anyway, what do we really know what would and what wouldn't be carried on in a human clone? Yes, to some extent, what happens in everyday life will effect what will happen, but who's to say that likes and dislikes won't come from something, say, in the brain, the genetic code. I don't know alot of anything about genetics, as people can probably tell from my posts, but there is so much unknowns about human cloning (at least that I know of) that I'm sure it would be a guessing game at first anyway.

[mpinsky 0]

Since this is all hypothetical anyway, what do we really know what would and what wouldn't be carried on in a human clone? Yes, to some extent, what happens in everyday life will effect what will happen, but who's to say that likes and dislikes won't come from something, say, in the brain, the genetic code. I don't know alot of anything about genetics, as people can probably tell from my posts, but there is so much unknowns about human cloning (at least that I know of) that I'm sure it would be a guessing game at first anyway.

Yes, you are quite right, there, Lonebyrd. Likes and dislikes are not carried in the genetic code, but rather developed as the organsim in question grows older. For example, I am the only one in my immediate family (besides my brother) who does not like the taste of olives. Both my brother and I are from the same parents, but we don't like the same things our parents do.

Again, this is what makes any particular organism unique because it develops who they are. Cloning, on the other hand, wouldn't really eliminate this. Your clone may very well like green peas while you yourself do not. It's just like how a perfectly normal couple's child turns out to be a serial killer. These things aren't genetic.

[Arbitrary 0]

Again, this is what makes any particular organism unique because it develops who they are. Cloning, on the other hand, wouldn't really eliminate this. Your clone may very well like green peas while you yourself do not. It's just like how a perfectly normal couple's child turns out to be a serial killer. These things aren't genetic.

Well, there's obviously the environment factor to be taken into consideration in all of these--people say that there may be genes causing a person to lean toward sociopathic behavior, but whether or not that person becomes a serial killer depends on their environment. So I guess genes can determine inclinations, but not absolutes. (No one's sure about this though...not even the researchers. )
I don't think anyone knows if likes or dislikes are carried out by genes, no one has done enough research in the area to know whether or not it's true. Genes could be so very complicated that they set a timer that at one point in your life your like/dislike of a certain thing will change. But of course, that's all hypothetical.
Edited August 13, 2006 by Arbitrary (see edit history)

[cyborgxxi 0]

Personally I think your likes and dislikes are very much related to your enviroment and raising rather than genes. Would a clone who was raised in a dirt poor town who had to beg to survive end up the same as a kid raised in the richest neighborhood and eating at his leisure. Would they both like the same entertainment? I doubt it because entertainment the rich child could afford and enjoy the poor clone would never even dream of. Would they like the same foods even if the poor clone ate out of a trash can and the rich child ate banquets every meal? Now this is a very extreme case but it is just to demonstrate how the different lifestyles would effect their likes/dislikes. Maybe I'm wrong and perhaps they would somehow like the same things and enjoy doing the same activities but I doubt it.My humble opinion,Cyborgxxi

[mpinsky 0]

Personally I think your likes and dislikes are very much related to your enviroment and raising rather than genes.

Very true, I know this as a fact as my upbringing was quite different than what my friends' were and they definitely do not like the same smells that I do when it comes to cooking.

 

Because Judaism is a religion that originally orginated in the Middle East, a lot of the foods we cook at Channukkah, such as latkes, involved using oil for frying things, such as onions for example. One particular friend came over and absolutely hated the smell and asked if I could smell it as well. While the answer was yes, technically I could, I had gotten so used to it that the smell didn't even register any more.

 

Another one of my friends was brought up less priviledged than I was and so her whole family became very modest when giving us a tour of their new house.

 

Then again, things can go wrong, or you get an oddball of the bunch (so to speak), and then the type of upbringing they had has no particular effect on them.

 

I do know for a fact, though, that certain traits, such as being left-handed or right-handed, are genetically related.

[iGuest 3]

Replying to mpinskyAmen to that! it's wrong to try to create perfection. We must learn from our mistakes, not create a literally new 'us' that doesn't even make mistakes! not only that, but it would be kinda creepy running into a clone of yourself when you're 30 but your clone is 5... Total unnatural deja vu!-reply by Kirstin

[Haydn 0]

no,clones cant b used as perfct humans. they dont hv their own identity. If human A is cloned, A Prime will be fomed. A Pime will look exactly like human A, n a conflict migh happen! I disagree!

[hoopa 0]

As far as I can tell likes & dislikes would be pretty much down to environment & personal experiances. If anyone has forgotten, twins are not that rare, but I think technically regarded as clones (I think, happy to be corrected). That said, twins are never exactly the same in their behaviors & tastes.

 

Meh, as for cloning humans, I think there are way too many of us already. Apart from that, diversity is one of the key principles of our survival to date. Take that away and we're totally screwed IMO. Start doing too much cloning and we become too similar. Once we're all 'perfect' (which I think is an impossibility), we are all prone to the same diseases, and the human population as a whole is weaker for it. Our diversity is one of the things that has served us so well in the past. e.g. strangely enough when the black plague hit London all those years back, I think there was some evidence that all the survivors had some similarity in their genes. That means that perhaps a portion of the population had a small advantage and survived. If we were all the same we may not be here right now. The idea repeats in nature too. Viruses run in strains, and only when we take a full course of anti-biotics do we kill then all. Take a half dose, and the strongest survive to create the next strain (of even stronger viruses).

 

To play devils advocate however, I do think there are a few valid times where cloning is justified in it's end. Where I come from there was a creature called a Tasmanian Tiger. This creature is now extinct because the of the blind stupidity of humans who believed it to be a threat to livestock. Turns out it actually couldn't care less about livestock, but that doesn't matter now. There is a slim chance that this create could one day be cloned from preserved embryos of the tiger and brought back into existence. For those creatures who solely owe their disappearance to us, I think it only fair that we try and right some of our blunders of the past.

 

My 2 cents

[projectGREEN 0]

I actually did a presentation on this topic a few years ago. Personally, though I find cloning to be a very interesting and potentially useful (in some aspects) tool, using it to create the perfect human is just not ethical. The main issue that I take with using cloning to modify humans, in any way, good or bad, is that there is so much potential to abuse that power. Not only would we be eliminating diversity and rendering ourselves outdated, but if the cloning tools and process got in the hands of the wrong person/people, it could theoretically be used to create a group, or, dare I say army, of genetically superior clones, who could in turn be easily persuaded (especially if that, too, was stressed in their DNA) to fight or advocate for the negative cause of their creators. Admittedly, it's not like they would be robots, they are still able to make their own decisions, but with enough altering it is highly possible that you could almost completely eliminate feelings of guilt, etc., that keep most humans in line.Whether you believe in God or evolution, cloning would be interfering with the natural development process of the human race, and we have no idea what the effects of that would be in the long term. With many people with very similar genes (something that cloning could be used to select for), the spread of disease could be disastrous and incredibly difficult to control. I believe that if we can draw a fine line between using the process of cloning to create medical treatments or aides and/or discovering more information about the human genome, versus using cloning to physically create humans, then that first option would be permissible. Cloning has considerable potential to aid doctors in developing new methods for organ transplant, nervous system regeneration, and other important medical advances. It can also help the medical world to better understand genetic diseases, miscarriages, and birth defects. If cloning was used solely for those purposes, it could be very successful, but using it to alter humans is just not right. All in all, I think we have other interesting medical technologies which could be used for some of the aforementioned purposes of cloning, and in all cases I would experiment first with those. If used, cloning for the purpose of human alteration, even if it would be improvement, should not be permitted as it is not ethical, but smaller-scale cloning for other medical purposes (listed above) could be permissible.

[Maxfelgar 0]

In my opinion cloning should never be done - whether with animals or people. I highly doubt that any government would allow it in the foreseeable, except perhaps to create some sort of... super soldier. I know it's a bit 'geeky', but I really can see governments trying to find a way to win more wars. No human is meant to be perfect, and I hope that it will stay that way.

[darkken 0]

This might sound a little geeky but have you heard of Stargate SG-1 and the Asguard. Well they cloned themselves trying to make themselves live longer and be closer to perfect. Also when they cloned themselves they transferred their thoughts and memories to the clone so they could continue their work. In the end they couldnt reproduce any longer because they cloned themselves so much that they no long have reproductive organs. They thought they could remove them to make the process easier. So if we start cloning for the best human we might get ourselves into the same mess. Man it would suck to not be able to make babies. Next example is Gatika (not sure if i spelled it right) in that movie parents could choose what features and intellect of their unborn child. It made a 2 tier society where the god borns couldnt get higher jobs or anything like that. Cloning could be good for body part replacement for people like people needing a heart transplant or lost an arm or leg from war. We would still have issues with people saying that it was alive and had a soul and shouldnt be grown like that. But no issue with stem-cell research mumbo-jumbo.

[iGuest 3]

Replying to HaydnWhen you said "No one has the right to play God" That is where I stopped reading. Not everyone believes in "God", so really there is no issue here. No one is trying to play the role of a fictional character, people are discovering cloning to make your kid's life and your grand kid's life better. So you are selfish saying that this sound not be done.Replying to mpinsky-reply by JBVGfk