Thread: Human Cloning

Well, since everyone is having fun around here expressing what they like, I decided to continue with the serious thread.



In my opinion, human cloning is not ethical and shouldn't be done.
Just check a animal case: only at the 227 attempt was sucessful to clone a sheep, that scientists Ian Wilmut and his pals named Dolly.

Imagine how the resources they used to do it suffered.
Don't want to mention more things because want that people participate in it, also english doesn't help a lot :laugh:

Human Cloning, is ethical to do?
What's your opinion guys?

Express it :001_tongue:

O.K lets say I really believe scientists cloned a sheep-- which by the way is almost laughable [I mean all sheep look pretty much exactly the same and saying you cloned a sheep is very easily faked]-- If they could clone humans I would say power to them.

Is it ethical to kill a dog because it is in pain? Is it ethical to eat a squid or a shark or any animal for that matter? Humans have already shown when progress/possible evolution is involved we don't care how 'ethical' something is, this will just be another thing to add to the list of stepping stones to immortality, and if it leads to immortality then great.

It'll be a long time until cloning is perfected, but it is an ethical dilemma, certainly... I'm not sure what to make out of the subject, because there are many good sides to it, and even more bad sides, just like most things in life, I guess.

Cloning would be abused by govenments across the globe.

For those who haven't, you should watch the movie "MOON" with Sam Rockwell, which has a pretty strong anti-cloning message. My view is that it would most likely be used in these circumstances. If a bomb needs deactivating, send in the clone. If something needs retrieving in any dangerous circumstance, send in the clone. The military would be made up of clones. Clone armies.

I guess the question would be, is that a bad thing?
Seeing that clones would be people too, my answer would be yes.

Originally Posted by ethicks

O.K lets say I really believe scientists cloned a sheep-- which by the way is almost laughable [I mean all sheep look pretty much exactly the same and saying you cloned a sheep is very easily faked]

DNA test?


As far as cloning goes, I don't think there's any good reason to clone a whole human. If it comes to it, and experiments have already started, it makes a lot more sense to just clone a replacement heart, or lungs, or liver. What ever you need replaced. Maybe in the future they'll be able to clone a whole human body without the brain, and then just transplant your brain into the new body when it's ready. They would have to grow the body for several years until it would be big enough for you, Can anyone think of a scenario where it would make sense to clone an entire human? Unless it's like "Children of Men", I can't really think of one.

The scenario where the test subject comes out of the cloning machine horribly disfigured and screaming in agony is fiction. The 227 cloning failures cited by the thread starter probably didn't make it past a few cell divisions. Hardly an ethical issue.

Originally Posted by s2cuts

DNA test?


As far as cloning goes, I don't think there's any good reason to clone a whole human. If it comes to it, and experiments have already started, it makes a lot more sense to just clone a replacement heart, or lungs, or liver. What ever you need replaced. Maybe in the future they'll be able to clone a whole human body without the brain, and then just transplant your brain into the new body when it's ready. They would have to grow the body for several years until it would be big enough for you, Can anyone think of a scenario where it would make sense to clone an entire human? Unless it's like "Children of Men", I can't really think of one.

Yeah, DNA testing... I think it'd be pretty hard to fake, actually. Considering it was the first successful clone of such a large animal, the data was scrutinized.

Anyway, I don't really have a reply to this topic right now. Just wanted to mention that your question about why it would be necessary to clone a whole human reminded me of a book titled "Never Let Me Go" where the clones were raised for the sole purpose of donating their organs. There have been other references to it in modern media culture through movies such as "The Island", as well. Of course, this is all science fiction, but it does make me wonder how far we would go in the name of self-preservation.

The legitimate argument for cloning an entire human body would probably have more to do with research purposes. It's a good way to control for genes in longitudinal studies. It would also be necessary to create some "full clones" before we could achieve the level of understanding necessary to create a human body without a brain that we could later transplant (or something similar) and probably even the level of understanding necessary to grow individual organs successfully... Anyway, that's all hypothetical for now. Hopefully humanity wouldn't really venture that far in the name of our own immortality and pursuit of knowledge.

The scientific community will probably mock me for this but the idea of cloning is hideous to me because of the simple fact that a clone would not carry a soul.

lol well if they clone it Jenna, then if the original has a soul, wouldn't the clone?
it's essentially the same thing; if you were twins with someone, i'm pretty sure that your sister/brother would have a soul... if they didn't, that might be somewhat of a concern :/

Originally Posted by JustJenna

The scientific community will probably mock me for this but the idea of cloning is hideous to me because of the simple fact that a clone would not carry a soul.

Interesting. So why wouldn't the soul be cloned as well? I mean, if we were able to clone another human, what makes you think that the clone wouldn't have a soul of their own?