Okay, I hear all the bru-haha over cloning, and I was wondering what everyone's thoughts are about cloning . . . in its current state of development.

Originally posted by D Durden:
bru-haha

Finally! Someone else who uses that word, every time I used it, its followed by a puzzled exspression!

On another note, I am ot into cloning, more or less because of my religious beliefs. It really bother me to even think about humans being cloned......i'll leave it at that!

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***"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."***

In it's current state of development, though, what are your religious objections?

It definitely is kind of wierd but I think it is bound to have some very useful scientific/medical benefits. Far as cloning humans go, I am not sure about that yet but I don't think the govt. should be makinig it ilegal and everythin.

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"Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them"
Martin Luther King Jr.
"You cannot separate peace from freedom, because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom" -Malcom X

Cloning full humans I think I have issues with...I saw some cloning guy on tv the other night actually saying that he wanted to clone himself, to have a son (er, exact copy of him) that he could raise. a) Egotistical, anyone? b) This just feels sketchy. I can totally see some psycho trying to take over the world with an army of himself, trying to wipe out anyone who's different (different being, well, not him). On a religious level...what about the soul? I mean, if you believe in that sort of thing, how does that work with clones? And I can see the 'playing God' argument, too...there are some things that I'm not sure one should mess with.

However, when it comes to cloning body parts, I think that's great. My cousin's cousin (and a friend of our family) just died a couple months ago, at the age of 14 or so, because her heart gave out, and they couldn't find one that her body would accept. I'm not at all cool with them making cloned people to harvest their organs or test on them for the rest of their lives, but I've read articles about them making individual organs, and I think that's great.

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"I have no regrets. Regret only makes wrinkles." - Sophia Loren

I dont have a "problem" cloning humans... I dont have a problem with people being twins either...

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Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?
George Carlin

Believe me, if you had seen photos of the miscarried, deformed foetuses from when they tried to clone Dolly, you WOULD have problems with the idea. They look like some sick HR Geiger sculpture. Nauseating.

But just theraputic cloning (using clone stem cells to grow replacement parts) is fine by me.

Originally posted by Dilbert:
Believe me, if you had seen photos of the miscarried, deformed foetuses from when they tried to clone Dolly, you WOULD have problems with the idea.

That is how it works. We have a few mistakes until the process is running correctly.

At one time, heart surgery was thought to be "playing god".

imo, cloning is just another step in our evolution and it should not be stopped. The more progress we make the better. Sure, we'll make mistakes but we're only human...

The sooner we get off this hellhole the better. To be able to do that we'd need as much progress as we can come up with.

I do not agree with cloning. If God wanted 2 or 12 of me, then he would have created them. I just dont think we need to be going around cloning people. Its just not right.

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"The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for"
-Joseph Addison

Looks like Hitler will get his dream of a master race after all. Do a search on the Manhatten Institute and see where this could lead us..



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Red 86 GT

Originally posted by Princess:
I do not agree with cloning. If God wanted 2 or 12 of me, then he would have created them. I just dont think we need to be going around cloning people. Its just not right.



That's exactly how I feel!



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***"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."***

Why the hell would you really WANT to create a clone of anyone? A clone is just a different person in a considerably younger twin's body. The body is the only common aspect. If you're infertile, adopt for crying out loud. Any other reason is the height of misguided vanity.

And I don't believe that genetically engineered or enhanced humans help our evolution at all. I'll give you a real example: There is an island in the Mediteranean where about 1 in 6 people carry the gene for a fatal blood disorder. If two carriers mate, their child will probably live only until early teens. So would you like to engineer this gene out of humanity? Would you abort a foetus if it was merely a carrier (not even a victim)? It might solve a lot of heartbreak later. Yes? Well what if I tell you that this same gene also makes its carrier practically immune to malaria. Now what do you do?

We can't even pretend to understand the interactive relationships between different genes, so we shouldn't go screwing with the gene pool by tweaking one or two of them, or aborting on the basis of one gene.

wait a minute-
Cloning is not just limited to making copies of people. By experimenting with cloning, we can better understand ourselves. And important organs can be made for those who need it. If we want more people, we can have sex. But if we want to understand why we are what we are, cloning will help.

Perhaps we are to take control of our evolution, in time. I remember a sci-fi movie, where humans geneticly enhanced themselves to live on other planets. It was like they made other races. But for right now, it is a method to learn from.

Well, cloning is NOT playing god. A cloned animal is just a copy of an animal already in existance. That's all. So, basically, it's nothing BETTER, it's just something predictable.

We're not "making" people in labs. We're fertilizing an egg and putting it in a womb to be properly "raised". These aren't Space Marines being dumped out of birth chambers.

With regards to religion, I believe that any creature knowing the difference between good and evil has a soul, therefore a clone (which IS a human being) would have a soul.

I'm NOT saying we NEED to clone people. I prefer creating life the natural way, myself, but I don't see an ethical problem with it. And, like many of you, I believe that the REAL value is going to come from cloning organs and tissue for implantation. THAT'S where the resaerch should be . . . in my opinion.

As far as genetic engineering goes, well, that's a cloudy subject. If we can introduce genetic material that will counteract genetically passed diseases without affecting other traits, I don't see a problem. I WOULD, however, oppose phasing some types of people out or something "Hitlerish". Then again, improving the human race is inevitable IF we allow genetic engineering to continue as EVENTUALLY, someone will come up with 3 or 4 different "ideal" human prototypes. Of course, hehehehe . . . why would you come up with "ideal" people if there wasn't some ability to enjoy the fuits of those labors.

It's an interesting discussion, and you could battle it back and forth all day without even approaching a resolution.

Originally posted by ChaoticThoughts:
I remember a sci-fi movie, where humans geneticly enhanced themselves to live on other planets. It was like they made other races. But for right now, it is a method to learn from.

There are some schools of thought that believe humans were previously other creatures by had their DNA manipulated and were cloned by scientists (aliens) in the past. This theory is even more valid than Darwinian Evolution since it theorizes how man suddenly came into being when the Darwin evolution has no such evidence.

As people have stated, cloning done by human scientists have resulted in creatures with structural and internal biological system problems.

The excuse that cloning can help humans with disease is not good because most diseases can be resolved through a properly functioning immune system. There is clear evidence that an unborn child at some time during the pregnancy becomes conscious and a spirit becomes manifest. When this happens is the question.

I think the possabilities and the iplications of cloning are scary. Made to order babies anyone?

Oh, no, I want blue eyes, brown haired, etc etc etc.

With that said...the medical advancements that could come from cloning are amazing. Being able to regrow limbs, restore mobility after paralysis. How could you NOT want to give someone a second chance at life?

'Cloning' is an inevatability, not a maybe. It is important that people understand it, and FIGHT for important safety placements/laws.

Regarding full human cloning, kinda odd, but as DaOgre said, it is just like having a twin.

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Manu Narayan

Yeah it would be odd having a race of people without deformities or whatever... but is that such a bad thing? I mean if you could insure that no child would get cancer would you? We already have plastic surgery and whatnot to change how we look... I think the good outweighs the bad here...

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Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting.
Alan Dean Foster, "To the Vanishing Point"

Originally posted by cosmic overdrive:
There are some schools of thought that believe humans were previously other creatures by had their DNA manipulated and were cloned by scientists (aliens) in the past.

Ya, I have heard about this before. I would wait until conformation from that aliens before really accepting it. But there was a cult/religion based on this, and while the idea is fine, they represented it badly. Just like televangilists or whatever.

But if our mental capibility came to a certian point, we might know what we are destined to be. And then people can make the choice to wait, or help the process. Interesting things to think about.

I read today that Dr. Ian Wilmut (creator of Dolly) has said that there is an urgent need to ban human cloning. It's been found that not only do clones suffer from premature ageing, but they also have massive numbers of genes which have been randomly activated or deactivated in their DNA. The results could include all sorts of physiological disorders, and even bizare behavioral problems.

Long story short: clones are screwed up. Badly. Instead of enhancing our gene pool, clones are critically impared and (from a strictly evolutionary view) a liability to our species.

Originally posted by Manu:
I think the possabilities and the iplications of cloning are scary. Made to order babies anyone?

Oh, no, I want blue eyes, brown haired, etc etc etc.

With that said...the medical advancements that could come from cloning are amazing. Being able to regrow limbs, restore mobility after paralysis. How could you NOT want to give someone a second chance at life?

'Cloning' is an inevatability, not a maybe. It is important that people understand it, and FIGHT for important safety placements/laws.

Regarding full human cloning, kinda odd, but as DaOgre said, it is just like having a twin.

Well, as others have said in this thread, a clone will resemble the person from whom the DNA was extracted in physical form only. This person will be different because of the time in which they are raised and the environment they experience. I agree that human cloning will happen (if it hasn't happened already).

The scary part is - as Manu stated above - that the custom ordered babies that will enviably come after tinkering with DNA so the outcome is near flawless. The other scary element is the idea that there would be "cloning farms" to just create "replacement parts" for all of us.

Then again, why would we want to clone anyone other than for "replacement parts"? They planet is already at 6 billion in population. Why bring more to the table?

The ethical implications are huge. This will be a VERY big issue over the next 50 years.

Originally posted by Princess:
I do not agree with cloning. If God wanted 2 or 12 of me, then he would have created them. I just dont think we need to be going around cloning people. Its just not right.



So I take it that you don't go on airplanes either, being that if God meant you to fly, he would've given you wings...

-Patrick

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aka, Grand Master Wheat Thin
"The difference between an individual terrorist and a government in some cases may be simply that the former has a bomb but doesn't have an air force."
-William Blum

Originally posted by PatTheAnarChrist:
So I take it that you don't go on airplanes either, being that if God meant you to fly, he would've given you wings...

-Patrick



Well, I am an Angel so...



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"The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for"
-Joseph Addison

Woah woah, I thought you were a princess?

There was an article on abcnews.com about cloning and the side effects...lots of defects, let me find it..

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Manu Narayan

Hidden Flaws
Mouse Study Reveal Clones Appear Normal But Are Not

By Amanda Onion

July 5 — Nearly 98 percent of attempts to clone animals have failed and those that do survive often appear abnormal and grossly enlarged. Now researchers say they have new evidence to explain why.



By tracing specific genes in cloned mice, Rudolph Jaenisch, a biologist at Whitehead Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and colleagues, found that while clones showed no clear flaws in their genetic make-up, the animals did reveal problems in expressing their seemingly normal genes.
The team traced this gene expression problem not to the cloning process itself, as scientists had suspected the problem might lie, but to the original stem cells that were used to help create the cloned mice.

"We found that embryonic stem cells are unstable — the state of their genes changes a lot," explains Jaenisch. "What was surprising was despite this genetic irregulation, still some embryos developed into pups. This means that those cloned animals that reach birth or beyond may appear normal, but our research shows they're not."

Sounding Caution

Scientists may have succeeded in cloning sheep, mice, cows, pigs and goats, but Jaenisch says this new research adds to mounting evidence that cloning remains a poorly understood science and one that is not ready to be undertaken with people.

Mark Westhusin, a cloning expert at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, points out that problems with genetic expression — the way information in genes is manifested in the body — are difficult to detect and this makes the practice of cloning even more dangerous.

"It's not gene mutation, it's gene expression," he says. "This is not something you can set up a test to prevent."

Ryuzo Yanagimachi, a professor of anatomy and reproductive biology at the University of Hawaii and co-author of the study appearing in this week's issue of Science, says "it is outrageous and irresponsible to try human cloning."

The work also casts some uncertainty on the field of stem cell research for fighting disease. In this field, scientists propose using embryonic stem cells to clone adult human cells and tissue, which then can replace diseased tissue of those suffering from heart disease, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's and other diseases.

In a press release from Yanagimachi's office, caution is directed toward stem cell researchers, saying the study "is a warning to scientists that they must be very cautious in handling embryonic stem cells" which "may not be normal in a physiological or functional sense."

But Jaenisch feels despite his team's findings that stem cells are unpredictable, therapeutic cloning remains safe.

"Even though therapeutic cloning creates embryonic stem cells through cloning, as long as you have some normal cells around and you're not creating an entire clone you counteract any abnormalities," he says.

Bloated Mice, Overweight Dolly

Scientists have already had visible evidence that cloned animals are not normal. Cloned mice have developed into extremely overweight animals, cloned cows have been born with abnormally large hearts and lungs. Even Dolly the sheep, the first cloned animal (who turns 5 years old today), is inexplicably overweight, says Jaenisch.

"Look at Dolly — she's fat — as are many cloned mice," says Jaenisch. "Clearly something is going on that we don't quite understand."

While the results of cloning remain mysterious, the process is now well practiced. To clone an animal, scientists insert a cell from an adult into an egg with its genetic material removed. The egg then reprograms the adult cell to develop into an embryo and, eventually, a genetic identical to the owner of the inserted cell.

Tests have shown that inserting embryonic stem cells (which have only been isolated in mice and people) rather than any adult cell, leads to a 10 percent to 20 percent improved cloning rate in mice. Scientists think this may be because it's easier for emptied eggs to reprogram stem cells to develop into embryos.

Researchers have suspected that the process of reprogramming a cell in the emptied egg leads to flaws in clones. But this new research shows, the stem cells, themselves, may be flawed.

Different For Humans?

Despite these and other foreboding findings, Panayiotis Zavos, a reproductive specialist of the Andrology Institute in Lexington, Ky. appears resolved to forge ahead with his recently announced plans to try and clone people.

Zavos did not return repeated calls and e-mails to his office, however his office released a statement to ABCNEWS.com saying "Dr. Zavos is not attempting to clone mice but human beings. Rudolf Jaenisch himself has indicated that there are species-to-species variations as one goes about attempting to clone them."

Zavos and his colleague Severino Antinori, a fertility doctor in Rome, have argued that in some respects, it may be easier to clone people due to doctors' long experience with growing human embryos in the laboratory for in-vitro fertilization.

Jaenisch is appalled by such arguments.

"The problems with cloning remain biological, not technical — the problem is not getting embryos to survive in a petri dish," he says. "It's ridiculous to assume that humans can produce normal clones when five species of other mammals give you abnormal clones."

www.abcnews.com (http://www.abcnews.com)


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Manu Narayan

Originally posted by Dilbert:
Long story short: clones are screwed up. Badly. Instead of enhancing our gene pool, clones are critically impared and (from a strictly evolutionary view) a liability to our species.

Well, thats why we should study before cloning everything left and right. Dolly has her problems, she is born into adulthood. We can figure out why, and fix it. I would not give up just because it did not work perfectly.