The Rules Of Cloning Thread

Just a little bit of fun to keep us going.

Is we (the users of this forum) had to write guidelines for the appropriate, ethical and proper use of cloning research and technologies, what would they be?

Well, I won't make this long, just brief and then others can argue the points and if they disagree, state why.

Alrighty, here we go...

- Never should anyone be allowed to clone someone just for the heck of it.
- Cloning should be used for the aid of others, such as cloning body organs, etc, but there should be limits to make sure people don't get carried away...only in critical cases.
- Implement harsh penalties for people who try and cheat the system and not follow the set guidelines.
- No weird mutations of animals/humans...such as making a half donkey/half elephant or half penguin/half human...pure nonsense and evil at work there.
- No stupid testing without permissions from a certified organisation that is in charge of the whole issue or something similar.

I dunno...can't really think of anything else. There are a lot of issues and things that need to be considered. If there were guidelines, there would have to be a novel written just to summerize em, it's just such a big issue.

But they are the ones that come to my mind, what you all think?

Greg

Basically I think this issue should be broken down into two areas which can be derived via the question:

Why would you want to clone something and what would this something be?

In answering the 'why' I can envisage two major reasons.
- 1. To prolong / improve our lives by cloning non-living organs etc... for use to replace defective ones
- 2. To clone supposedly 'superior' things so they may last, become abundant, personal gain / benefit etc...

I can justify point 1 above, I mean we have already accepted the practice of recycling the organs of dead people, but personal gain / benefit not only is selfish and unessential but would most definatly lead to problems I mean where would it end? We could live forever as a 20 year old, by just saving our genes at that age and then everytime we age killing ourselves and been reborn...

Secondly 'what' can be cloned?

This falls in line with what I had to say above... anything non-living such as an individual organ should be able to clone. It has no say in life and no ethical issues are raised concerning it.

But living things that can think and breathe for themselves is just wrong. I mean have you seen the movie 'the 6th day' with big arnie? 50% of the time in that movie, he was actually a clone and he never realised...

So yeah hopefully that makes sense and is my take on the issue of cloning

INtense! wrote:
I can justify point 1 above, I mean we have already accepted the practice of recycling the organs of dead people, but personal gain / benefit not only is selfish and unessential but would most definatly lead to problems I mean where would it end? We could live forever as a 20 year old, by just saving our genes at that age and then everytime we age killing ourselves and been reborn...

Genetically engineering a person won't mean that they'll live forever, just means that it makes an exact copy of them in terms of DNA, but they are still born as a baby and still live a normal life, then, eventually, they'll die. The only differences will probably be their personality, as you develop this during your life via the environment that is around you, such as family.

I agree with you there that we can't let people do whatever they want, because just imagine what could be done with it - scientists could basically create and test whatever they want, and this shouldn't be allowed.

And as for this genetically engineered cross between a sheep and spider which I heard, if it is true, I think it's wrong as well. You don't just combine two animals together so you can get a strong, light-weight friggen string/rope/whetever - it's just wrong. Living things shouldn't really be played with and changed.

Greg

INtense! wrote:
I can justify point 1 above, I mean we have already accepted the practice of recycling the organs of dead people, but personal gain / benefit not only is selfish and unessential but would most definatly lead to problems I mean where would it end? We could live forever as a 20 year old, by just saving our genes at that age and then everytime we age killing ourselves and been reborn...

the difference between cloning and organ donation is that organ donors actually make the choice to donate their organs. One way of getting organs from cloning is to harvest them. So taking organs from a clone, means that the clone hasn't given prior consent.

Secondly 'what' can be cloned?

This falls in line with what I had to say above... anything non-living such as an individual organ should be able to clone. It has no say in life and no ethical issues are raised concerning it.

absolutely, if there is a means to create an individual organ by itself, then by all means, use it. That doesn't bother me in the slightest.

But living things that can think and breathe for themselves is just wrong. I mean have you seen the movie 'the 6th day' with big arnie? 50% of the time in that movie, he was actually a clone and he never realised...

So yeah hopefully that makes sense and is my take on the issue of cloning

That was a good movie. Looking at a lot of hypothetical situations...thought provoking

I believe human cloning is wrong - thus no rules for it at all, just dont do it.

Animal cloning is fine.

azz0r wrote: I believe human cloning is wrong - thus no rules for it at all, just dont do it.

Animal cloning is fine.

What are your justifications for those opinions which you just brought forward? Why do you believe that you can clone animals, but not humans? I think if we stamp out cloning, we should forget it all together, even cloning animals.

Animals are living creatures, just like humans, and they should be treated as if they are worthless. If you allow cloning of animals, people would be trying all sorts of crazy experiments and it would get out of control. It shouldn't be allowed.

Greg

In a perfect future, i would have no cloning at all. But policing that would be near impossible.

Sure, you'll be able to tell that most cloning would occur in some lab, but what about the backyard jobs? There'll be illegal activity everywhere.

For the time being, we should avoid as much human cloning as possible. Until we know the real rammifications of cloning on those test animals.

liquid wrote:
What are your justifications for those opinions which you just brought forward? Why do you believe that you can clone animals, but not humans? I think if we stamp out cloning, we should forget it all together, even cloning animals.

Animals are living creatures, just like humans, and they should be treated as if they are worthless. If you allow cloning of animals, people would be trying all sorts of crazy experiments and it would get out of control. It shouldn't be allowed.

Simple really. We as a race need food, to get the best value out of our animals (yep they are ours - farmers anyways) and to help feed millions of people- we need to genetically modify and clone the best quality animals to slaughter.

Imagine a genetically engineered cow that could live in ethopia and produce milk daily of a few stacks of corn - then clone it over and over.

However humans don't have a good cause like that - theres no need for two George Bush's or you's! Whereas animals are essentially our food.

azz0r wrote:
Simple really. We as a race need food, to get the best value out of our animals (yep they are ours - farmers anyways) and to help feed millions of people- we need to genetically modify and clone the best quality animals to slaughter.

Imagine a genetically engineered cow that could live in ethopia and produce milk daily of a few stacks of corn - then clone it over and over.

However humans don't have a good cause like that - theres no need for two George Bush's or you's! Whereas animals are essentially our food.

That's just wrong.

I'd prefer to eat non-genetically engineered food then ones that are, even if they are apparently more tastier or whatever crap they say. It's amazing how much food is already genetically engineered to be easier to produce or add taste or what not. Most don't even have clear labels to state this...it's bullcrap if you ask me.

We are messing with nature and life - I honestly don't think that should be altered. It's something natural and we shouldn't turn it into something that humans designed.

Before you know it, we'll be living in a world where nothing is natural and if something is, it'll be so expensive that only the rich will afford, if that.

If someone genetically engineered a cow so that their meet tasted better and was without any fat or chewy bits, I'd take the natural one any day. Or fruit even, if someone said they'd made a more sweeter banana with more flavour, I'd tell em to go eat some s**t, cos I'd take the natural one any day over their crappy product.

What we have now is excellent food and we want to alter it just for the sake or trying something different and making it better when it already is perfect. I don't understand why we would want to change something that is natural. Maybe farmers would want to make their fruit repel insects or something crazy, but that's just a part of their job, they have to work out some other means of keeping the insects away and not modifying the natural product.

Greg

Well, this topic has certainly grown.

Some interesting points being made.

I'll throw in a couple of comments and then look at my own opinions.

Animals vs Humans.
I personally see no difference (again, it's normally a religiously affiliated thing). If we can clone animals, why can't we clone people?

No Cloning Living Stuff
If it's not alive, you can't clone it. A liver is alive, hence we can clone it. I can see the point "No cloning higher lifeforms" though.

As I know that there is no way to outlaw cloning (being that there is no way to police such a law), I believe it should be legalised (the sociological impacts incite rebellious behaviour otherwise).
Rather than baning cloning and cloning related genetic experiments, I see that it would be more worthwhile to have a set of rules (hence this topic) to govern what is appropriate, and what is not.

It would be nice to see reasoning for every point based on its ethics and appropriateness (topic title).

Ooops, I've run out of time, so I'm not going to be able to put some big reasoning behind my arguments, but here goes.

* Via cloning and genetic engineering, produce all of our food requirements off a sterile tree (no more killing of defenceless animals)

* Appoint a non-affiliated organisation to perform official research into human improvements. All individual researchers would be able to approach this organisation to have their ideas heard by the world, thus providing a buffer against all the 'bad stuff'

Remember that a person is still a person whether they have been cloned or not.

Cheeseness wrote:
* Via cloning and genetic engineering, produce all of our food requirements off a sterile tree (no more killing of defenceless animals)

what are defenceless animals? do you mean domesticated farm animals? Surely an animal is being harmed more during testing as they try to create the perfect animal. Take the movie aliens, there were so many test aliens which didn't make it, and that was cruel. Now that i think about it more, i am less supportive of genetic modification of animals. What we are doing is interfering further with animals. First we kill the animals, then we destroy their habitat and now we might destroy their very own genetics.

I for one wouldn't want to eat genetically modified foods. For starters, we do not know the harm/benefits of long term consumption of genetically modified foods. Can we know for sure whether they'll be more beneficial than harmful? Too much of the same genetic composition surely cannot be good for the body.

When you say defenseless animals : If we didnt tame them over generations they wouldnt be defenseless, and who knows they couldve killed us off and farmed us.

Look at who we are. Is there any animal which has a defence against us?

i just went back and read again...you were saying some kind of tree which would produce all the nutrition we needed...i wouldn't want to be eating what that produces

You are all forgetting a basic rule of nature: survival of the fittest.

At the moment humans appear to be the fittest thus we must survive. If this includes GM and cloning so be it.

If dinosaurs had a civilisation capable of cloning & GM and they saw this asteroid heading for them, would they be all ethical and sacrifice a whole species?

I think not.

About GM - the plants would have evolved the changes anyway, we're just speeding the change up. We're also keeping the species alive for longer.

I'm all for GM, cloning only when necessary.

You can eat your GM food...i'll not touch the stuff

As for plants learning to grow faster, bigger and more nutritious, and we speed up the process....that's a bit far fetched that the plants would know to do that

Cheeseness wrote: Look at who we are. Is there any animal which has a defence against us?

I didnt mean nowerdays, I meant back then when animals coudlve evolved better than us.

We didn't have GM or cloning back then. I'm sure that post made some sense.

And what's wrong with GM foods?