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Science

First cloned human embryo revealed 402

Posted by Hemos from the time-open-up-the-discussion dept.
Stephen Williams sent us the BBC story that American Cell Technology had successfully cloned a human embryo, using a cell from a man's leg and a cow. The embryo was destroyed at 12 days-just prior to when naturally the embryo implants into the uterine wall. They did so wanting to "try and allay fears over artificial life." Wow. The Boys from Brazil indeed-what do you folks think?
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First cloned human embryo revealed More

First cloned human embryo revealed

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  • Cameron Diaz x 10000000 (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Imagine how fun it would be to purchase 2 or 3 copies of Cameron Diaz [geocities.com]... Immature I know, but it's a compelling thought.

  • Everyone Misunderstands Cloning! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm getting sick of this.

    Look, if you successfully clone an adult human, then
    in 9 months you get an itty bitty baby that
    has the same genetic material as the source.
    (Well, there are questions about the telomeres).

    You do *NOT*, repeat *NOT* get a duplicate
    creature the same age as the source! Why
    do people continue to think that cloning works
    like some bizzare star trek transporter
    accident where you get an identical human
    the same age as the source.

    IT DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY!

    -- cary

  • What's wrong with a clone (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17, 1999 @04:17AM (#1846478)
    I have no problems with clones, probably due to me being a twin. But I do have a problem with the idea that clones are not different people, or that a clone can be treated as a commodity.
    Twins/clones are different people even if they look similar. My experience being a twin and with the several others that I know is that the always have different personalities. You can tell which twin is which quit easily. I have never met two that communicate in quite the same way, they usually have different body language and a different vocabulary. Just because you have the same DNA, dosn't meen you are the same. Don't treat us as the same person! (and you thought you had an identity problem ;)
    Now a clone as a commodity... Now as a natural clone I have just one question. Is it me or my twin, who is the spare parts?

    Sorry about this rant, but..
  • This is something I've been thinking about for quite a while. The Bible says that God created man. It does not say how. To my knowledge, there is nothing in the Bible that says God did not create man through evolution.

    It does say man was created on the sixth day and that could be looked upon as ruling out evolution. But a day is a relative measure of time. It's probably not even meant to be taken literally, being more of a symbolic amount of time. God gave humans 1/7 of the amount of time he took to create everything. Ironically, that's also the amount of time he rested ;)
  • hmm.. Quite a good refute. I'll have to think about it some more.

    I do belive that taking something too literally can be just as bad as not believing it at all. For instance, this created from the dust of the earth thing could be just that we are created of the substance of the earth, not literally the dust. I dunno. Maybe I'm just looking for a way to prove something I believe. You know, you have a way to disprove my theories using something taken as fact, but I have no equally strong way to disprove anything in the Bible. Not that I'd want to, just something to think about.
  • Read 'Glory Season' by David Brin for an interesting take on that idea.
  • You piss off the gov't.
    They "make" a clone of you.
    Bye Bye.
    Perfect for those pesky crypto-anarchists and others.
    just an idea. . .
  • As I understand it, creating clone embryos, or even genetically modified embryos, is much easier than creating the sort of gestation tank that is required for scenarios like Brave New World and Cyteen. If you don't have automated gestation, or at least gestation by a non-human mother, you'll have human mothers who are attached to their childern and who won't like the idea that the kids they bear are will be born to be slaves. Surrogate mothers have done this already, an several famous court cases have been fought about it.

    This is much more important to those scenarios than cloning, because if you do can gestate (and raise) the kids without an opportunity for anyone to have an emotional attachment to them, then it will be dangerously practical to raise slaves, and it won't matter whether they're clones or not.

  • All we need is an ample supply of cows.

    I can only imagine what Gary Larson's interpretation of this event would be...

  • If somebody isn't educated or rational then you can hardly blame their religion when they behave ignorantly or irrationally.

    You can if their religion is the cause of their ignorance. Religion has a way of brainwashing people who get too caught up in it. Not that there's anything wrong with that..

    ...

  • Cool! (Score:2)

    by drwiii ( 434 )
    I hope the religious groups catch wind of this.. It's always funny watching them react, trying to delay the inevitable.

    Seriously though, it makes me wonder where technology will be 10 years from now.

  • I can see the 'One With The Cow Harem' cartoon already. ;]

  • AMEN! (Score:1)

    by gavinhall ( 33 )
    Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:

    Clones are just identical twins who were born a little farther apart than normal twins. No big deal.
    --
    "Please remember that how you say something is often more important than what you say." - Rob Malda
  • Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:

    "the resultant offspring will be as unique an individual as anyone else."

    Wrong. The clone would be as unique as an identical twin. That's fairly unique, but not as unique as two randomly chosen people.
    --
    "Please remember that how you say something is often more important than what you say." - Rob Malda
  • Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:

    Why stop there? I'd get myself a copy of Jennifer Lopez, Anna Nicole Smith, Vivica Fox, Electra Summers and several of those porno women.

    LK
  • Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:

    Clearly they are discrete individuals who can make their own decisions. But it is not clear to what extent their genome influences things like thoughts (or modes of thinking), ambitions and desires.

    You should check out some studies on identical twins. Pretty weird stuff.
    --
    "Please remember that how you say something is often more important than what you say." - Rob Malda
  • Posted by aPhysch:

    Why should the scientific community ignore those who believe in a type of Christian morality? Is it because science is somehow "above moral questioning?" I seriously hope that you don't believe this crap.

    If you do, go read a book about the creation of nuclear weapons during WWII, and also read some things on a guy named Norbert Wiener. His "The Human Use of Human Beings" may be applicable. Then perhaps you'll understand that science is not above ethical questions.

    And for those that say that because we have the theoretical knowledge of _HOW_ to do something that we must _necessarily_ do that.... grow up a little. Actions like the cloning of humans should NOT be done behind closed doors, and then revealed in a "too late" manner. Instead, there should be long and thoughtful discussions on these issues. Of course, some might say that the average Joe could not understand the implications of cloning in any real sense, and in their ignorance they will not want such a thing to occur. To them, I state that the scientific community then has it in their best interests to attempt to educate these "poor slobs." Then, perhaps the majority will agree with them, and these moral question would all but vade.
  • Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:

    "Discrete" and "distinct" are nearly synonymous.

    Maybe you are thinking of "discreet"?
    --
    "Please remember that how you say something is often more important than what you say." - Rob Malda
  • Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:

    To the best of my knowledge all of them are naturally endowed (well, maybe not Anna).

    LK
  • I am *more* than a sequence of amino acids. So are you. The creation of a unique (or nearly unique strand of DNA) is not the creation of "me." What makes me unique sis that I think, I have (as the bible put it) the knowledge of good and evil, and the ability to choose between the two. That isn't the case for a newly fertilized egg!

    Biblicly speaking, human life is "defined" by having a soul. We have no "soulscope" to detect souls. However, we do have a reasonable scientific alternative; yes, brainwaves. The right brainwaves mean we are thinking, we are making those choices. And we don't consider a person to be a different person if they have a heart, or a kidney, or a lung replaced (by a transplant or artificial organ.) We don't consider someone dead if their heart can't beat on its own. We do consider someone dead if there's no evidence of brain activity. A just-conceived egg doesn't have brain activity. So why not be logically consistent and take the evidence of brain activity to be the start of life? *That's* what logic dictates.
  • Two genetically identical persons growing up different wouldn't be proof of the presense or lack of a soul or a higher
    power or purpose. There are many environmental factors that are at least as important as genetics, such as how you
    were brought up, how you've been treated, your economic well being etc.

    And what about identical twins? Same genetics, same environment, and they still end up with different personalities.

    Personally, I think that identical twins are very strong evidence that there is more to a person than genetics and environment.

    I also happen to think that a cloned embryo is just as human as a naturally conceived embryo, and to abort either is equally unjust.

    I guess that makes me a religious wacko. So be it.

  • Would it still be a human if you just clone the body, but not the brain? Which part of your body makes you human? I don't know if I buy any of this stuff. We are made of the same stuff as everything else on this planet. We get hurt sometimes or are born with bad defects. Why shouldn't we be able to put together some replacement parts for ourselves?

  • How is morality inherently irrational? Perhaps some of our morals are, but I wouldn't say that morality in general is irrational.

  • That sheep wouldn't have had a lifespan at all if it hadn't been cloned. How many experiments are perfect from the start? It may take some time, but I think they will figure out where the problems are and fix them. They've done all kinds of things that nobody thought possible. Why not this too?

  • "Clearly they are discrete individuals"

    hehehehe
    I think you mean "distinct" maybe?

    that just struck me as funny
  • Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems to me that unless everyone made a clone of just a few people, there would be no problem of inbreeding. As long as you make a clone of yourself, it shouldn't be a problem(although I wouldn't want a clone of myself that I would actually raise, I'd want one w/o a brain that I could just use for spare parts, but I doubt they'll be able to do that any time soon.)
  • "And what about identical twins? Same genetics, same environment, and they still end up with different personalities."

    No, they have different names, one was born first, they will probably sleep in different rooms, one will probably be favored by the parents, etc. The only way to test your hypothesis, IMO, would be to make a computer simulation that ran exactly the same every time, and put two people w/ identical DNA in it from before birth. Meaning, they are born into the simulation and have no different outside influences before the simulation begins. Doing that would be horribly wrong though, so maybe we'll never be sure.
  • heh

  • damnit (Score:1)

    by crayz ( 1056 )
    I want to hear this

  • heh (Score:1)

    by crayz ( 1056 )
    Seems ridiculous to me to. How "just" of God to send an unborn child to eteranal suffering when he/she had no choice.

    I also think it's BS that Adam is our "representative". What? I didn't ask for that. Who is Adam to represent billion of people for millenia.

    And I also don't understand why God couldn't have just said thing in the Bible that nobody back then would have had any clue of. How about: "The earth is round and goes around the sun and is not the center of the universe". If it said that, I'd be much more convinced. Right now it doesn't seem like anything in the Bible is definitely or even probably God's word, or anything that couldn't have very easily have been made up by people who were delusional or stupid or trying a power grab or anything. Why is the Bible any more or less true than many other religous texts or than something I could type up right now?
  • "This is a fundamental error committed by many people (including, it seems, you): that they have the right to judge whether the Bible is God's Word, and whether it's true.

    You don't have such a right. You are obligated to submit to it."

    Even assuming that I would take something on faith and not question it at all, how am I supposed to know who to believe. There are probably at least hundreds of different groups of people who claim to know God's word. Why should I believe Christians? If I don't question what's in the Bible, what right do I have to question what's in the Koran or the teachings of Buddha or anything? If you don't even ask yourself how reasonable the word of God is, how could you possibly know that the Bible is the word of God?
  • crayz@hehe.com

  • Babies born with no brain at all rarely live more than a few minutes. Most people believe that's for the best.

    The big differentiation between brain/brainless is the potential to be conscious.

    The ethics argument can cut both ways. Imagine someone knowing that in two years they will be dead from liver failure. Now, further imagine that there is a way to take a skin cell from their leg, and make a new liver for them in the form of a brainless body. How ethical is it to tell that person "you're going to die because the procedure creeps me out".

    There are going to be a great many debates on ethics as this and similar technologies progress.

  • On the other hand, every cell nucleus in my body has the chance to become a person as well, if only someone will kindly stick it in a cow ovum and give it it's chance.

    After all, that's how they created that embryo.

  • For the leg, you'd probably want to use the stretching technique sometimes used to correct a short limb. It would still take time, and the result would probably not be perfect, but it would be better than any prostetic available today.

    It may also be possable to accelerate the growth and development of the cloned body in some cases. After all, the overall health of the body wouldn't be important, just that of the replacement part needed.

    On the whole though, cloning will likely be useful for internal organs sooner than for limbs.

  • Send them to the island of misfit toys.


    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
    -jafac's law
  • Just because it's technically possible to destroy an entire city with one atom bomb, doesn't make it morally or ethically "right". Or inevitable.

    Michael Chriton said it best in Jurrasic Park; the scientist spent so much time trying to figure out if they COULD do it, they didn't think about whether they SHOULD. . .

    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
    -jafac's law
  • Well, I think this all revisits the whole abortion debate - as in:
    define "human"
    define "murder"

    Is "murder", the taking of a "human" life?
    So, at what point, does egg/sperm become "human"? Well, to differentiate humans from animals, we say humans have a soul, and animals do not, otherwise, eating a hamburger would be murder. Some people feel that is the case, and those people I would please ask to go shut up and eat some tofu, for the purposes of this discussion.
    For those who do not believe in souls, or think defining this is legalistically impossible, (because there is no legal way to prove the existance of the soul) - we go about this issue with the term "intelligence", or "human consciousness". Well, philosiphers have debated this concept for centuries, and we now have a few half-baked theories on what this means, but still, no hard evidence on what's different between humans and animals, other than observations of behavior. So they draw the line at the "approximate" time in development when the fetus starts developing a brain, as if the brain harbored the soul.
    The fact is, the Bible is pretty damn unclear on this. So this is a point I personally don't get all worked up about guilt-wise. There's really only a couple of applicable scripture passages, one stating that it's bad to even use birth control (premature withdrawl method), and another which states that God ". . knew me even before I was formed in my mother's womb". This suggests that even before egg meets sperm, there's a soul, in a primordial state, waiting for a human body to plug into. What's not clear is, if something happens to this fertilized egg, and it dies, is this a death? In the context of the passage about birth-control, God wasn't mad about a murder, he was mad that this guy didn't continue his family-line (because it was "important" in the big scheme of things - I interperet this as an anectdotal message, not an example for all humanity) does the soul then go to it's final resting place? or does it "try again" for another fetus? Simply knowing the sheer numbers of natural spontaneous abortions that happen (1/3 of all pregnancies total?) you would think God had a contingincy plan here. Either that, or a large chunk of folks in the afterlife were never actually born. So, maybe God "plugs in" your soul at a later time, or maybe takes into account the destiny of the fertilized egg - either it's destined to die, or destined to be born and live, and in the former case, never assigns a soul. In this case, will God "help out" in cases where we need the tissue, but don't necessarily want a new life? Or will God make us unknowingly "murderers"?

    I'm not of the calibre of DesCartes, so I'm not going to pursue this further, but I thought that the subject was sufficiently muddled (the topic of how biblical morality applies to cloning), that some issues needed to be clarified.

    This does need to be settled - just like every toddler has to come to grips eventually with: "gee, I can pee in my pants, but is it the right thing to do?"


    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
    -jafac's law
  • And we all know that mitochondria are really midichlorians, so if this cow was strong with the force, so will the cloned offspring, no matter what genetic material it had.

    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
    -jafac's law
  • #5 would be sick with you, but hey, I'm pretty good-looking!


    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
    -jafac's law
  • NO
    ObiWan fought WITH Luke's father in the clone wars, as in, on the same side.

    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
    -jafac's law
  • come on - PEOPLE did these things. How can you blame a god you don't even believe in? Millions of people were killed by - people.

    If religion made it more convenient to explain why entire villages had to be "put to the sword", then wow, what a convenient tool. Almost as convenient as "weapons of mass destruction".

    The first three words God says to mankind in the book of Genesis are "You are free. . ." - so you can't blame God for things man does. Unless you don't believe in free-will, in which case, it really makes no sense to believe in God either.



    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
    -jafac's law
  • damn.
    If I was born without hands, I sure as hell WOULD want my genetic code changed.

    If they could fix my nearsightedness, I sure as hell would want my genetic code changed.

    If they could fix my back problems (or prevent my offspring from having them), I sure as hell would want my genetic code changed.

    Why the hell would I want to pass on suffering to my offspring? A couple of alterations here and there wouldn't hurt - but going much farther, to the point where I and my offspring wouldn't be similar any longer, genetically speaking, I'd kind of shy away from that.

    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
    -jafac's law
  • And for the one or two rich, self centered bastards out there who will have themselves cloned, really,
    I couldn't _think_ of a better punishment than for them to have a child who is exactly like _them_ :>

    and for the rich folks who do this, will also be able to afford a nanny to raise the little brats for them as well.

    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
    -jafac's law
  • If I was legless, I could wait that long.

    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
    -jafac's law
  • I trusted nature and look what I got-
    bad eyes and an aching back, and a predisposition for obesity (not there yet, but I'm working on it).

    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
    -jafac's law
  • I guess what would be nice is if they could direct cell-differentiation to the point of, once they begin a cloned embryo's development, they can direct only certain organ tissues to develop, so we grow say, only a genetically identical heart (in a saline bath - credit to Bill Cosby).
    Then the PETA people would have us clone cows, that only grow tenderloin tissue, we wouldn't need to raise and murder cattle anymore. . .

    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
    -jafac's law
  • I think you're confusing religion with politics. Very dangerous thing to do. Can be convenient for those in power. Very inconvenient for those not.



    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
    -jafac's law
  • (playing DA here)

    That "necessary evil", killing an embryo - perhaps the genetic material used was from the GENIUS who developed this cloning experiment in the first place. Perhaps that embryo would have developed into a pretty smart guy too. Perhaps that embryo would have cured cancer, or solved the CIA crypto-sculpture or something.

    But now we'll never know.

    Did that embryo have a soul?
    Da Pope says yes.
    Da Darwin says no.
    Da ME says I don't fuggin' know, so what right do I have to decide?

    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
    -jafac's law
  • All of the genetic material is coming from the man's cell, so it really shouldn't matter what kind of egg they use.

    --

  • Can someone explain what is so "scary" about this? I'm not really that frightened -- the "huge ethical questions" raised seem to have simple answers. (Are clones human? Well, yes. Do they have full human rights? Well, yes. Huh. That seems to end the discussion.)

    --

  • Most countries already have lots of citizens they can draft for free. Why spend all that money on clones?

    --

  • Two genetically identical persons growing up different wouldn't be proof of the presense or lack of a soul or a higher power or purpose. There are many environmental factors that are at least as important as genetics, such as how you were brought up, how you've been treated, your economic well being etc.

    Even if every gene in a person and its clone were identical the personalities would be quite different if for instance clones weren't given equal protection by the law: You're just a clone, you can't vote, can't own property and oh yeah, if I ever need a liver, kidney, heart or eyes you're just a convenient sack for holding replacement parts.
  • Last I checked, Christians were fighting to get the right to --be able-- to pray in schools, not to force it on your kids. Do you realize in most schools in America, today, the laws are such that most kids cannot pray if they --want-- to, without being suspended/expelled/prosecuted because it might infringe on someone's something or other?

    I was recently visiting some friends in Virginia. They have a daughter who is attending a public school. When I ask her what she had done in school the day before I was shocked at the answer.

    Apparently, once a month, they do 'bible study', in class, during school hours.

    She was one of the few students who didn't participate, and there was no curiculum planned for the students who were not involved in 'bible study'. Those children were told they could just sit around and draw or whatever that day.

  • How's this for a definition:

    Before birth, a fetus is a parasite, feeding off of it's mother.

    After birth it's a small, helpless, hopelessly dependant human.

    That gets the timing question down to the cutting of the imbilicus.

  • Exactly. A clone is a real person, just like an identical twin, not some mindless lab rat. I think we have an irresponsible media and sensationalist religious groups mis-educating the public on what life really is. I can imagine some mindless christians acting like the devil himself and killing people who happen to have origins of cloning, "you are not human!"

    Where did education go? Televised news and religious groups? We are in trouble!

  • So, everyone wondered what religious people might think about this, and while I certainly can't speak for all of them, I'll speak for myself. I find this intensely frightening.

    The problem is that this is another in a growing line of medical-ethical questions whose biggest problem is the "at what cost" factor. No one would argue that using this technology to grow tissues for a burn victim from his own skin, or any miriad of similar situations. The part that is of concern is the abuse of the technology.

    Some situations: We all remember the frogs with no central nervous systems? Human organs on demand when combined with this technology, and don't tell me you don't think someone will try. Labor pool too small? Human workers on demand. Combined with some fancy genetics, human workers that won't mind being abused as slaves. I suppose some of you have read A Brave New World, so the notion of humans grown by the government isn't really new.

    I don't fear new technology, but I do fear the misuse of it. I fear the degradation of human beings grown in labs, and I fear the abuse of life itself for the benefit of a certain few.


    Andrew Gardner
  • >I hope the religious groups catch wind of this..
    >It's always funny watching them react, trying to
    >delay the inevitable.

    Huh? Religious people aren't ignorant, they simply have different beliefs. You might see some religious *leaders* react harshly in an attempt to drum up more support and donations for themselves, but educated, rational people will react in educated, rational ways, regardless of their religion.

    If somebody isn't educated or rational then you can hardly blame their religion when they behave ignorantly or irrationally.
  • I would expect many Christians to be active in the "clone rights" movement in the same way that they were and are active in the antislavery, civil rights and pro-life movements. (In the eyes of these people, those three movements are very closely related.) Obviously there are going to be some wackos who call for exterminating clones, just the way they call for exterminating other races, but those people can hardly be called Christian.
  • I am interested in seeing what the viewpoint of folks like PETA will be. Logically, they should want to protect these animal-like pseudo-humans as much as they protect animals, but the same logic says that they should also try to protect the pseudo-humans called fetuses, which doesn't tend to be the case.
  • Replacing "abortion" with "genocide" in your justification for legalized abortion makes that justification sound silly:

    "I'd rather have a trained and qualified doctor performing the genocide, than some [incompetant who is prone to failure and/or self-injury]."

    If genocide is wrong (as I believe) then wishing for legalized genocide in order to protect the lives of the people who want to commit genocide is ridiculous. Allowing for safe genocide is not better than allowing for unsafe genocide. Likewise, the rightness or wrongness of abortion is independent from its implementation. It is silly to say that regardless of whether abortion is right or wrong, safe abortions are better than unsafe abortions.

    The same is true of drugs. If (some types of) drug use is wrong, legalizing and institutionalizing it doesn't make it better. The question of its rightness or wrongness must be considered independently of its implementation.
  • Lots of adult human beings are parasites too. That doesn't make them less human. :)
  • Oh, give me a clone
    Of my own flesh and bone
    With its Y-chromosome changed to X
    And after it's grown
    Then my own little clone
    Will be of the opposite sex.

    (Chorus)
    Clone, clone of my own,
    With your Y-Chromosome changed to X
    And when I'm alone
    With my own little clone
    We will both think of nothing but sex.

    Oh, give me a clone
    Is my sorrowful moan
    A clone that is wholly my own.
    And if she's X-X
    And the feminine sex
    Oh, what fun we will have when we're prone.

    My heart's not of stone,
    As I've frequently shown
    When alone with my own little X
    And after we've dined
    I am sure we will find
    Better incest than Oedipus Rex.

    Why should such sex vex
    Or disturb or perplex
    Or induce a disparaging tone?
    After all, don't you see,
    Since we're both of us me,
    When we're having sex, I'm alone!

    And after I'm done
    She will still have her fun
    For I'll clone myself twice ere I die.
    And this time without fail,
    They'll be both of them male
    And they'll each ravage her by and by.


    First verse and chorus by Randall Garrett; other verses by Isaac Asimov.
  • It's not a bluff. And here we go. Remember: since you are a Xtian, I trust that you will have scripture to substatiate all your claims. Believe you me that I will have scripture to substantiate mine:

    1. How must I be saved? (Be very careful how you answer this one!)

    2. How can God be moral when he calls for ethnic clensing and the murder of infants by ripping them out of the wombs of their pregnant mothers?

    3. Why would God kill people for petty reasons, such as touching the ark of the covenant or merely NOT praising God (Acts 12:23) and yet he let me survive after committing deliberate blashpemy?

    4. Is a bat a bird?

    5. Jesus made a fig tree wither. Did it wither immediately or not immediately?

    6. How many Gods are there - 1, 3, or 4?

    7. Did both thieves crucified beside Jesus curse him, or did one curse him and the other praise him?

    8. How can God be both just and merciful?

    9. How can God be considered just when he punishes many for the acts of one?

    10. How can God be considered just when he punishes one for the acts of many?

    11. How can God be considered merciful when he would punish multitudes of people with eternal torture?

    12. What happens to the souls of aborted fetuses?

    Please use email.
  • And yet if other parts of the bible are taken literally then the bat is a bird, the ark rested on more than one mountain at once, the earth has for corners, sticks can turn into snakes, and the sky has a window in it. I'd suggest trying to reconcile Genesis 1 with Genesis 2 before trying to reconcile Genesis 1 with evolutionism.

    I have never met a Christian who, when confronted with a contradictory or ridiculous scriptural passage, did not play the "That's what it says, but that's not what it means" game. Tell me, does the earth have four corners?

    And as far as accountability goes, God killed Herod for the petty act of *not* praising him. David banged Bathsheba and arranged for her husband's death and God let him be king. Furthermore (I'm still better than God who is a wimp and a liar), I have blasphemed every day for the past two years deliberately and God sees fit that I survive. Explain.
  • Believe you me, I have a lot to say about your response. But I'd rather continue this in email.

    Try loundry@smyrnacable.net. As soon as I get a message from you I can reply.
  • > For the record, the 'why does a loving God allow
    > bad things' argument has been settled for rather
    > more than a thousand years now. It has to do
    > with free will; you cannot allow free action
    > without allowing evil action with it. Then you
    > get to the question of why free will; the answer
    > is that automata don't provide the same joy that
    > individuals do. To be slightly on-topic, imagine
    > the difference between a computer, which does
    > always as it is told, and a child, who disobeys
    > but is an intelligent individual. Which would
    > you rather have? I'd rather have the kid. YMMV,
    > of course.

    Now now now... Be fair this has not been settled but in your own mind. There are many philosophical proofs for the existance and conversely the non-existance of god. We can take any one of these things and make it a proof based on our own perception of the idea.

    For instance I can take the proof that the idea of god exists therfore god must exist because we can't conceve of something like that without a truth. Well the problem with that is that I can conceve of a purple rooster. Because I can conceive it dosen't in fact make it true.

    But returning to your free will argument. Why does a gods actions soley lay on our heads? I mean the victor does write history. So if it's attributed to a god then he himself made that descision and cast the act yes? if we are in his image then HE has free will also. Therfore if he has free will then he did as he wanted and wiped mankind from the earth. He had that choice nothing forced him/her/it to do that. It's so easy to say that man was corrupt there and that he had no choice. There is always another choice being it a god or human making the descision.

    or it was a cataclysmic event that was attributed to a god. Who knows?

    oh and let's not get into free will verses freedom of action. :)

  • I think worries over clone factories and governments using this "revolutionary" technique to stamp out zillions of genetically engineered soldiers misses one important fact - for every single cloned embryo, some woman has to carry that thing in her womb for most of the 9 months and then bear the child. And finding zillions of women willing (and able) to perform such a task for someone other than themselves or their families seems to me highly unlikely.

    Cloning sheep is much easier because the ewe doesn't get much choice as to whether she gets impregnated by a scientist in the lab; she's just an animal. But I'm thinking that it ain't gonna go so well for a scientist who attempts to force that on a woman.

    Cloning is merely a novel way of creating an embryo, as opposed to the more typical (and considerably more fun) method used heretofore. But it doesn't appear to me that there are any shortage of people willing to contribute to embryo-creation in the old-fashioned way, does it? The real trick, the one that would legitimately raise these questions about what governments and labs might do with them, is if someone figured out how to go from egg to full-term healthy baby without the participation of a female to carry it.

    Until that happens, I'm mostly yawning about the "Brave New World" scenarios.

    -- Ryan Waldron
  • ---
    Although, I find it hard to fathom that "kind
    hearted christian folk" could look into the pale
    blue eyes of a 7 year old girl and tell her she has
    no soul and that she's a monster.
    ---

    The sad thing is, I could very easily see something like this happening. After all, according to Christian myth, wasn't the surface of the planet at one time purged of almost every living creature save for a boatload? Presumedly, those killed included human children.

    - Darchmare
    - Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net
  • > but the same logic says that they should also
    > try to protect the pseudo-humans called fetuses

    Although I somewhat argree with your general point, just how are they pseudo-humans?
    ---
  • Since hurting yourself is a crime in some instances or even thought of as a mental illness, you (or all of you,rather) might be locked up.
  • Not to be a panic monger or reactionary, but I find this comment disturbing. I do think it'd be a wonderful achievment if we could somehow grow organs for transplants. However, I think it would be very difficult to grow/clone organs without the rest of the body, since all parts are in someway dependant upon the others. So while the above comment may have been made somewhat tongue-in-cheek, I do think we may be heading toward organ harvesting of 'brainless bodies' (there's money in organs, so i'm sure someone will step away from their ethics long enough to make a few million bucks). This would be all well and good except that there are people born today that are essentially organs in a 'brainless body', and they are very much human; they are people. And herein lies the problem: Is it acceptable to clone/grow people with brains for organ harvesting? I think not, but why not? An important question. And it is not so big a leap from human bodies with brains to those without, or vice versa. So at what point does a body of organs become a person? It's too difficult to draw the line, and if it isn't draw somewhere, we are left with some very fightening prospects.

  • (2) Knowing that one is a clone is likely to have psychological consequences. I know that I am unique and that's important for my world-view. Imagine that you know that you are a clone of some guy, a copy of him. How does that make you feel?

    I think I'm getting more and more depressed. I just realized that I'm a clone of half my father and half of my mother. I'm not complete. Just half of each.

    I'm going to kill myself. Gotta go now....

  • Since bringing a cloned child into the world would, quite obviously, cause a damn lot of controversy and harassment for the cloned child, is it ethical for someone to do this to a child? Clone or not, it is still a child, just like everyone else, excepting the method of conception. If I know that if I bring a black man to a kkk meeting that the chances are pretty slim that he'll get out unscathed from the ensuing barrage of 'good ol boys', then I would be partially ethically responsible for his misfortune. The same goes that if I choose to bring a clone into the world, knowing fully that the clone will be singled out by an even larger group of 'good ol boys', would I be wrong for doing so?

    There's no point in harassing a child because it is a clone. Just like I had no say in the way I was born, neither does the child. No one has a perfectly easy life, but a clone would have an even harder life if the news got out that the person was a clone.
  • And Sodom and Gamora, infidels, anyone not around to here the 'wonderful word of god', and even men who have had their penises crushed by a rock. No lie. Look around in Deuteronomy, I think it's in verse 26 somewhere. Bastards can't 'enter the house of the lord' for 5 generations, even though the great great great grandchildren had nothing to do with the fact that a man left his wife so many years ago. Christianity is a tyrant religion. Millions of people have been killed because they had different ideas. I simply can't bring myself to believe that a loving god would let this happen.

    On a lighter note, did god send down a Holy Pooper-Scooper to help clean up all the feces that surely built up on that ark?
  • Human workers on demand. Combined with some fancy genetics, human workers that won't mind being abused as slaves.

    You're assuming that there is some kind of "Clone-O-Matic 4000: Ready to Use Clones in 10 Minutes (r)." Clones would take time to develop, just like any other human. Labor laws still apply to "dumbed down" clones, just like they apply to mentally retarded people. It would be much easier just to build a machine to do repetative tasks, as people seem to want to use mindless clones for. No labor laws, no food (except for electricity, and that's not too expensive), no wages to pay, no vacation or holiday time, and no complaints. Clones would be better used for spare organs and such. As far as I can see, you can't have human-level intelligence without human-level emotion and reasoning.
  • Some of the ethical questions aren't merely about the cloned person. It's how to react to the clone. For instance, if a mother loses a baby when it's 3 months old and they have tissue from the now deceased baby, they could make a clone of the baby and it would be the absolute genetic match of the original. But, how would the mother react to it? It is, afterall, an exact replica of the original child. But, something is just different. If the child grows into adulthood, at what point do you tell him/her that he/she is a clone? How would the clone take it?

    Then you get into the religious issue. Whether you agree with the religionists or not, they are a powerful force in the world today. I doubt many christians would buy into the idea that a clone is a human, simply because it "wasn't made by god." Although, I find it hard to fathom that "kind-hearted christian folk" could look into the pale blue eyes of a 7 year old girl and tell her she has no soul and that she's a monster. I also fear what would be done to the parents of a clone. They would be repeatedly harassed by closed-minded fools who think that just because something didn't follow the status quo of arrival into the world that they have fewer rights.

    Some people would even think that the clone is an alien. And you know well what would happen to an alien that stumbled onto earth. People would grow into a hateful mob and kill the unfortunate being. "We don't want your kind here." Kinda like what happened to various non-white ethnic groups in various periods of american history. Rounded into camps or ostracized or just plain killed. Hell, americans don't even like the idea of others simply having differing opinions! Remember the Red Scare? People were turning in their neighbors and family for being communist. Scary thought that it could happen all over again with clones.
  • oh my god ...

    can we stand another Bill Gates on the next generation ? ... Bill gates the second ?

    one with the same capacity to "overrule" the world ? (as we know it?)

    maybe we should start cloning Linux activists from now on to get the world a better place ! :)

    or we might get that urine sample from Linus so we can clone 2000 of him to get the kernel work done quicker :))


    Freaker / TuC
  • I think that growing replacement parts from a person's own tissues would be a great thing.

    I also think that cloning individuals would be no different that spawning a twin of yourself.

    What I dread are the failures that will occur along the road to perfecting the cloning technique. Yes, some will be detected early enough to abort, but some will not. Remember the lab in Alien Resurrection? Therefore I do not believe that we should continue to develop cloning of humans, because the price of the *inevitable* mistakes will be paid by innocent people - who never had a choice!! Isn't it bad enough that debilitating genetic disorders arise "naturally"? The whole think reeks of eugenics and Nazi contempt for individual human suffering.
  • Man, if you can't remember that it came out of the Holy Trilogy, you definitely need to clone some more brain cells.
  • Would it still be a human if you just clone the body, but not the brain?

    How do you do that? Today we have the technology to clone embryoes, which develop into full human beings. If you take an arm from a clone, the clone is going to be mighty upset Even if we could produce a body without a brain, the body would die because it needs the brain to function

  • Re:Two sides of the coin (Score:3)

    by eponymous cohort ( 8637 ) on Thursday June 17, 1999 @03:58AM (#1846558)
    Yes it would be wonderful to be able to replace damaged body parts from the same genetic stock, but if the price of doing so is maiming another Human being (a human clone is still human), then it's not worth it.
  • People have been making new people for quite some time now. The advent of a new way to create people should not surprise us. We humans are rather clever.

    BUT! If we do create new people via cloning, I know it would be WRONG to not grant them the same level of rights as a normally created human. Would you create another person to harvest his organs? Would it matter if that person was cloned or born via natural pregnancy? It should not matter. I don't fear cloning. I fear the extreme abuse and reaction to it.

    I am also not too keen on cloning human embryo's, then destroying them. I feel uneasy about it, while I do understand the reasons behind it.

    Be cool.
  • Right, yes, certainly a clone is a human just as much as any other human, in discussion between two sensible individuals (of a modern Western background, with moderate religious views ... other times and cultures may differ). The problem is, however, that laws only erratically reflect the ethical agreements of humanitarian philosophers, and even when they do, not everyone obeys the laws. There are several scenarious that are likely to actually happen at least once in the future.

    An eventual problem will be slave-clones, born and raised to work in factories. This is going to be science fiction only for a long time to come - it requires that cloning be relatively cheap and reliable, and that it can be done without a human host mother. The last I heard, the latter hadn't been accomplished. Advantages to this technique - in some countries with views other than ours, such clones -may not- be legally human, and this will be legal. Even if it is not legal - there are no mothers, no birth records, no evidence at all. If the international ethics groups come looking, the slavers can just fire the whole setup, and claim accidental disaster. Look for the problem in 50-100 years.

    Then there's the immortality quest - a forward-thinking individual who makes his first million by 25 or inherits his money could freeze a sample of his cells, start a clone growing when he's sixty, and at his age 80, depending on if the Dolly problem is solved, have either 45 or 25 have fully genetically compatible parts. This requires only the technology we have, but will be rendered pointless if we learn to clone body parts without growing a whole person. Good argument for continuing research. Look for this problem in as little as 20-30 years, or the moment the Dolly problem of aged organs has been solved.

    A more subtle, creeping problem - genetic purism. Take a cell sample of an 'ideal person' (probably the cloner him/her self), tweak any genetic deficiencies (anemia, nearsightedness, colorblindness, allergies, crooked teeth, whatever) and raise a flock of children with the same ideals who in turn raise another generation... This is not a problem when it's one looney in a backwater. Look for it as a problem if cloning-as-reproduction becomes acceptable, but remains expensive, because then racial wealth divisions come into play. Look for this problem in... oh... a few centuries. No society I know of would tolerate this right now, so time is needed for culture shift. May be self-solving when the lack of genetic diversity of the 'problem nation' does them in.

    Perfect Soldiers and Perfect Spies - in combination with genetic engineering, raised by espionage agencies to replace field agents. This could begin immediately, but there's little benefit. Once the Dolly problem has been solved, there will be clones of the very best soldiers and spies. If artificial aging can be induced, there may be perfect dopplegangers, but as another poster pointed out, cloning isn't magic - the clone grows at human rates. Solving the Dolly problem may (or may not) reveal a way to induce artificial aging selectively so you can age features but leave organs intact - or age everything - depending on the accuracy needed. Replacements will still probably need -at least- ten years to be grown, maybe a full 18-20, so they will be rare. Perfect soldiers and spies have the all the advantages of the slaves in the first scenario - look for them almost immediately.

    None of which means that we should not research cloning technology, of course. Human beings will be vicious animals towards each other with or without technology, and -I'd- sure like to be able to live for two or three hundred years, which cloning research will directly and indirectly enable, with replacement organs and a better understanding of aging triggers. I just want my replacement organs grown -without- my twin.




  • ...I like most anything that pisses people off. ;) Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating the breeding of human clone-slaves or the torture or anything living, because if we didn't have any ethics whatsoever we'd all be dead. But upsetting those religious kooks who think that the materials of life are 'special' and can't be put together by humans is just plain fun!
  • Geez! This is terrific. Geez! This is terrible. Therer are two main arguments regarding this matter. Yes, it would be wonderful to clone, say, a leg for one that was lost in an accident. It would be beautiful to give somebody the hand that was maimed at birth. How horrid to have to worry that you were the only you in the world. Awful to consider the ethics of this.

    So, good? Bad? Who knows. But, this is for sure "Stuff that Matters."
  • Maybe I'm getting old, but it seems that the rate of technology advances are accelerating faster than ever. In the last year or so we've seen clones, ion drives, artifically-sort-of-intelligent spacecraft, phasers and theoretical advances in, oh, everything. All of which is, of course, a Good Thing.

    As far as ethical considerations of cloning are concerned, reports of the dilemma have, I think been greatly exaggerated. If you clone someone, then
    1. The result is a child. This child is a normal child in more or less every way, and should be treated as such.
    2. A physical clone does not a mental clone make. the resultant offspring will be as unique an individual as anyone else.
    3. Remember the brouhaha about IVF when it was first introduced (death of society, brave new world, etc, etc)? Same thing.
  • educated, rational people will react in educated, rational ways, regardless of their religion.

    Unfortunately the world is much more complicated than you seem to believe. "Being rational" means very different things to different people. Besides an off-the-cuff definition of rationality would probably look something like "A rational person is one whose system of beliefs is logically coherent and whose behavior is consistent with his beliefs". Do you see the problem here?

    Try thinking not in terms of US college-educated suburban upper-middle-class, but in terms of, say, Saudi Arabian or Vietnamese college grads.

    Basically, people react based on their value system which has nothing to do with rationality and little to do with education.

    Kaa
  • Can someone explain what is so "scary" about this? I'm not really that frightened -- the "huge ethical questions" raised seem to have simple answers. (Are clones human? Well, yes. Do they have full human rights? Well, yes. Huh. That seems to end the discussion.)

    Nothing particularly scary, after all single-egg twins (~1.5% of births IIRC) are clones. Still, there are some things you might want to consider:

    (1) If you believe, as a lot of Christians do, that putting the soul into a body (embryo) is God's prerogative, then trying to clone people is a sin of hubris (arrogance).

    (2) Knowing that one is a clone is likely to have psychological consequences. I know that I am unique and that's important for my world-view. Imagine that you know that you are a clone of some guy, a copy of him. How does that make you feel?

    (3) I think that the thing that most frightens people about cloning is not cloning per se, but rather the ease of genetic manipulation that cloning provides. What is a big ethical problem is how to treat designing humans. "Hmm... I would like my child to have blond hair and blue eyes, be tall and not chunky, ... have breast size YYY / dick size XXX ... ". In the extreme case I can imagine designing a child, tracking its development as an embryo to see if the manipulation turned out to be OK, and if not, clone the embryo, terminate the unsuccesful one, and go to work on v2.0.

    Or, alternatively, imagine clone banks where you can go to pick the genes of your child when you can check out how these genes turned out in real people. "See, the type CX774976 has a very good body, but 56% of these develop mild depression around the age of 30... if you check out type DN8743992, it has no depression tendencies, but it's grade point average in high school tends to be noticeably lower, and of course they have to watch their diet or they'll become fat by middle age...".

    And think of how great the responsibility of parents will be...

    (4) There are undesirable long-term genetic and demographic consequences to widespread cloning. Working them out is left as the exercise for the reader.

    There is more, just think through the consequences and don't stop halfway :)

    Kaa
  • Hm, some people tended to understand my comments as going against cloning. That was not my intent. I think that cloning is morally neutral (as organ transplants per se are morally neutral) and inevitable. All the wailing and gnashing of teeth that's coming from the morons and the religious right is not going to change the fact that the cloning and genetic manipulation of humans is coming.
    I think that at first it'll be treated similarly to the way various fertility techniques are viewed now: not necessary for "normal" people (heavy, heavy quotes around 'normal'), expensive, not the proper topic of a party conversation
    Kaa
  • Damn tab key. Please ignore the previous post. A note to Rob: perhaps it's a good idea to reconfigure the posting screen so that tabbing out of the comment text box gets you to the *Preview* button instead of *Submit* button?

    Hm, some people tended to understand my comments as going against cloning. That was not my intent. I think that cloning is morally neutral (as organ transplants per se are morally neutral) and inevitable. All the wailing and gnashing of teeth that's coming from the morons and the religious right is not going to change the fact that the cloning and genetic manipulation of humans is coming.

    I think that at first it'll be treated similarly to the way various fertility techniques are viewed now: not necessary for "normal" people (heavy, heavy quotes around 'normal'), expensive, not the proper topic of a party conversation, but very useful if you really need them. Later the cloning/genetic manipulation should become more accepted and get to the status of, say, plastic surgery.

    There is nothing intrinsically evil about cloning and even nothing clearly evil about the scenarios I described. What's evil about clone banks where you could pick the genes for your child? Still, the idea seems to make most people uncomfortable :). The point of my argument was that cloning is not a cut-and-dried moral issue (as in the post that I was replying to: clones are full humans, problem solved). Yeah, clones *are* full humans, but there are other problems, too... I don't think that we (most people, that is) right now have the concepts and the framework to think deeply and clearly about cloning/genetic manipulation. This is a new area that has been little explored and sweeping generalizations of both kinds (It's evil! No, it's science, so it's good!) do little to help.


    Kaa
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    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday June 17, 1999 @03:04AM (#1846663)
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    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday June 17, 1999 @03:31AM (#1846664)
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  • I'm a big believer of "if we can, we should" science.

    Thanks to modern science, we can blow up the Earth.

    Please remind me not to vote for you on your next Presidential run.

    IMHO, the fact that we can do something doesn't mean that we should. We should carefully consider the consequences before doing something drastic, such as directly meddling in human life.

    I am not "pro-cloning" or "anti-cloning"; I am undecided. I am against cloning people right now, because I don't think we have enough of a clue. I don't think that we will for decades, at least. And if we miss something, the results can be harrowing, to say the least.

    Who here remembers Thalidomide?

  • Well, as far as "ethical concerns" go, there is only one "ethical concern" in the modern world, and that is "money talks."

    Bzzzt, wrong.

    If that were the case, Slashdot (and all the geeks who frequent it) would be a part of Microsoft by now. They know how to make money, big-time.

    Or is Slashdot not part of the modern world?

  • Re:clone fears? (Score:3)

    by remande ( 31154 ) <remande@@@bigfoot...com> on Thursday June 17, 1999 @06:46AM (#1846694) Homepage
    Then you get into the religious issue. Whether you agree with the religionists or not, they are a powerful force in the world today. I doubt many christians would buy into the idea that a clone is a human, simply because it "wasn't made by god." Although, I find it hard to fathom that "kind-hearted christian folk" could look into the pale blue eyes of a 7 year old girl and tell her she has no soul and that she's a monster. I also fear what would be done to the parents of a clone. They would be repeatedly harassed by closed-minded fools who think that just because something didn't follow the status quo of arrival into the world that they have fewer rights.

    I am a Christian, and I am stating my best understanding of Jesus' viewpoint on this. Don't consider this Gospel; I am only human.

    In short: clones are people too.

    I'm avoiding the question of whether the act of cloning is a sin. Theologians will argue that for years, if not decades. I am no theologian. God's perspective on cloning, however, is entirely separate from God's perspective on clones. This distinction is important.

    Here's how I know. Christians (and just about everybody else) believe that rape is immoral. Children can be conceived due to rape. The Christian perspective is that such children are no different from other children.

    In short, Jesus does not hold you accountable for the circumstances of your birth. Children born of rape can be saved, can preach, can do anything other people can do.

    Thus can clones. Cloning is certainly no more immoral than rape! Clones are viable people just as the rest of us are.

    In Scripture, Jesus accepted Jews, Gentiles, Samaritans (though he railed against Samaritan viewpoints, he accepted those who chose to follow him), and prostitutes. To say that He will not accept a clone is ludicrous. And if He will, who is a Christian not to?

  • I am a Christian and I agree with drwiii that it will be fun to watch the reaction of fundamentalist christian groups. However, I don't think that the issues are any kind of religious conjecture about copying souls or some nonsense like that. I think the issues here are ones that we should all be worried about. For instance, rights of a clone -- can they be used as slaves or be killed for parts if that was the whole reason they were created? Or, less terrifying, will duplicate DNA change its use as evidence in court cases?

    I think the fears of negative religious implications are unfounded. On the contrary, clones could support or disprove many behaviourist theories of genetic influences on personality/morality. The behaviourist school of thought is one of the most formidable adversaries of christian apologetics today (IMHO).

    I do think this is a wonderful advancement in technology. But, I'm afraid that history will repeat itself and we will be irresponsible with the technology.

    Science has helped us discover powerful things like nuclear reactions, it hasn't helped us learn to use them responsibly. For that you need values -- something we seem to have a shortage of these days.
  • 1) Send the clone to the Bahamas while you go to WORK!!! Your boss will never suspect a thing!

    2) Have your clone review your code after you write it, lending another set of eyes on the project. Guaranteed to cut efficiency in half.

    3) Send your clone to family functions while you do the cool thing--sitting on IRC.

    4) Now you can smell yourself in the mirror.

    5) Technically, it's not cheating. It's with yourself.

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