Ahh, there now. I just found my reason not to clone indidual body parts. Overpopulation. If we can make people live longer by giving them better organs, then life expectancy will go up for sure. I'm probably reaching for straws on that one, but maybe we shouldn't be messing with things we were given. I mean really, life is a gift and should be taken as such. We get one time around, live it to its fullest, don't try to tweek it like you do your computer. We are humans, we have brains and feelings, not motherboards and microchips. C'mon now, leave well enough alone.

We aren't the number one living being...(well, depending on how you look at it, a virus could easily take over a human ) It still gives us no right to control their lives. If we aren't allowed to mess with ourselves (which doesn't affect others directly anyway), we seriously should not be allowed to mess with others (especially when it does hurt them in some way). I mean, inbreeding dogs can create genetic problems that wouldn't have happened had their been no human intervention. I just don't think we should be allowed to make their lives miserable like that...

Hum...but couldn't it also be argued that overpopulation is just a cycle of evolution, which is nothing short of natural? For instance, overpopulation will most likely lead to mass extinction, and we know that mass extinctions have happened in the past, when there was no human intervention. Which means that any mass extinction happening in the future as a result of overpopulation is only natural. We do something bad (i.e., have too many people), we repent for it by dying eventually anyway. No big difference in the long run.

This post has been edited by Arbitrary: Jul 26 2006, 05:58 PM

I'm not really worried about cloning either, and to the original poster, that would assume that god does infact exist (which he may or may not, nobody really knows).

There's alot of things to consider I suppose (probably mentioned in some the larger posts I haven't taken a look at yet in this thread).

I think we must realize that technology is neutral. It is humans that make technology look good or bad. Think about plastic surgery. Do you think the proportion of people having plastic surgery have it becoz of medical necessity? I would think not. But try telling people that have disfigurement either naturally or due to accidents that plastic surgery must be banned becoz there are more people misusing it than people who genuinely needs it for medical purposes.





Like I have mentioned in my previous post, our understanding of genes is not entirely perfect. If there is someone out there that tells you that this combination of genes make you smart, you better be wary of what he/she is telling you. But what the majority of the medical communities have agreed is that certain genes causes hereditary diseases. And we should let couples that have those genes to screen their artificially fertilized eggs. Fearing for doomsday kind of scenario does not apply here unless there is a certain chances that it would happen. Think about the drugs that you take when you are sick. I just thought of an example. Try searching for talidomide, its history and its effects on pregnant women. So, are we gonna ban medical drug usage as well?

I'd say leave it up to choice? Some female movie star or car crash victim having plastic surgery isn't going to affect me or have the world blown up so let it be.....

Same with cloning I suppose, but then you got to worry about rights and things, are they treated as clones or just another human but brought about with a different approach.

Define perfect! even perfect beauty has changed throughout the years... By this alone, the topic to this question is lost. morality and ethics, while absolutely necessary to have as a scientist, should not be left to scientists when it comes to questions of this magnitude. society must weigh these lofty ideas and vote for it. so, as much as I am all for cloning and the benefits of stem cell research... I am but one vote.

To clone or not to clone? Well this seems more of a philosophical debate then a actual discussion about whether its moral or ethical to clone a human being. Well the ability to do something doesn't necessarily mean you should, but that is a question best served by ones prodginy and the years that follow the decsion to allow human cloning and the fallout of that decision.

The best corrilation I can draw, in my opion to allowing cloning is the wide spread use of antibiotics. While their use has helped millions to live and servive what once would have been deadly desies it has lead to, some might say, over population as well as the advent of the super bug, i.e. antibiotic resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae.

The major problem I see with Cloning is the unnatural continuation of human life. Humans are only ment to live for a set number of years, as we push the medical barriers back and allow ourselves to live longer and longer we are putting more of a strain on our planets limited resources. If we start cloning ourselves and continue to enlarge our population through normal conseption means our ability to feed our population will continue to get harder and harder.

Also the ability to clone a human, while in and of itself is a problem unto itself what about the ability to transfer the memories of the original to the new body. Cloning only allows the new "product" to look like the original, without its original memories and experiances it might look like the first but it won't act like the first. Without the ability to transfer the memories and experiances across then all is for not.

The biggest question that I see coming up in this whole ordeal is the one that I have seen posed by the religious side of our civilization, will the clone have a soul. Now that is a questions that I don't see any easy or final answer to. So that is how I see the issue in a nutshell.

As for the "perfect" human ideas that have been put up, that is just a matter of opinion. As for cloning being used to weed out and kill deseases, that is for gene therapy and what not. Cloning, in and of itself, will have no direct impact on that except for allowing the new "product" to be susceptible to the same deseases and illnesses as the original.

This post has been edited by Logan Deathbringer: Jul 31 2006, 02:15 AM

Well that depends on your definition of a soul and if the religious version of what they deem a soul even exists.

We know clones can exist so that's an obvious answer but not a soul so >_<.

Indeed the question of a clone having a soul would be a big debate amoung the religous faction. I for one believe it would not have one. It is made with the help of scientists not by the hand of a 'higher power'. That right there makes it a clear cut decision for me. How could anything made from science have a soul? A human born into this world is made naturally, the way it was intended, no intervention. And just before anyone steps in here, I'm not saying that humans born 'with the help of science' have no soul. Science has helped many people have children. But not just design one like from a blue print as a clone would be. Not natural.. No soul.

Well that could be up for debate too. Depending on how someone was cloned or how the clone was made. I don't know of any special godly thing that just thwacks a soul into a newborn baby....

So even if you built and designed it in a different manner if you get the same end result (more then one approach to many things) why shouldn't it have a soul? if souls do indeed exist.

That's just thinking on a simple logical level though.

A very simple and basic example of this is:
2+2 = 4 and 1*4 = 4.

Two different ways of getting the same result, but anyone can probably guess what is wrong with that in terms of mathematics but you get the idea right