Big news today is that the process is underway to ban human cloning on this planet. Failure to do so will result in economic sanctions and the like.

So what do you think?

My feeling is unless it requires a billion dollar laboratory, it is going to happen somewhere on this planet. So, get used to it and cloning is here to stay.

A more likelihood scenario is that the processed egg will comeout of a US or European laboratory and implanted in a thirdworld country. I do not think, it will be published.

In the news has been the threat of the "brain drain". Meaning if we will not support it then the scientists capable of such will go elsewhere to do it.

I agree with Bobby Lee on this one. I do not think it should be can we, I think that we should fully understand all ramifications before setting upon this path. It is not that we have a shortage of people in the world. Can we morally justify growing someone to be our junker for spare parts? I shiver every time I think of what might come with the cloning of people.

The proponents for cloning say that, if a husband is sterilized, then the wife who loves him dearly may want a child cloned in his image. Assuming cloning works perfectly, who you are to deny the wife that choice? Today we use surrogates to have babies. Then we should outlaw that too since the surrogate is not legally married and hence morally and ethically wrong.

Excellent point.

Such has been the way of the world since we began. Do you prehaps think that surrogate mothers have not been used before this day and age? I know better than that. You have much to good a head on your shoulders.

NEWS

Controversial Italian doctor to National Academy of Sciences: "But my love IS real: A team of reproductive specialists led by controversial Italian doctor Severino Antinori, today will elaborate on its plans to clone some 200 human beings. (http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2001/08/05/stinwenws01036.html?) In an address to the National Academy of Sciences that is sure to inspire further contentious debate on the subject, Antinori will speak out against a sweeping ban on human cloning approved by the U.S. House of Representatives last week and tout "therapeutic cloning" (http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/tech/008306.htm) a necessary step in the progression of science. Antinori, who insists President Bush approved legislation prohibiting human cloning largely because "he listens to the pope," dismisses out of hand those who claim this particular branch of science is not advanced enough to undertake human trials. "We have the techniques we need," he told Reuters. "We will never allow a deformed child to be born." His critics remain unconvinced. "I have to say, if you looked at the animal work that's been done, and the people who really know this procedure of cloning -- that is, veterinarians who try it in animals -- the procedure is just not safe," University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Art Caplan (http://www.cnn.com/2001/HEALTH/08/06/cloned.embryos/index.html) told CNN. "I'm really worried that what they're going to do here is make a dead or deformed baby, not a healthy one"

The problem is not that cloning itself is so bad but that the success rate is horrible. I have heard that the Italian doctor that was mentioned will have a total of 3 healthy children. More than half are expected to be able to survive birth and half of those will appear healthy and die for no reason a month after birth. Is it worth so much human sacrifice?

Does that mean, we should perfect the technique on lab animals before we should try out on humans?

A human will be cloned within the next three years. The technology has been created and someone wants to do it. Though it won't happen in the US or most other nations, it will happen in a third-world country, or on a yacht in international waters.

The clone will be created, but the cost of doing so will horrify the most pro-clone people. It took 277 tries to create Dolly the sheep. Many were miscarried, had gruesome birth defects, or if they survived birth they died a few days or even hours later.

Imagine 200 mothers trying to give birth to one clone each, if the odds increased a full 50% from the Dolly experiment that leaves slightly under 150 damaged/deformed/dead fetuses left. That's practically a mass murder from the hands of science.

When the world catches wind of this gruesome accident than no one, not a doctor, politician, private citizen, or infertile couple would wish to attempt cloning again.

After this sad incident we'll have a lot more time to think out if and when we clone again what should happen.

This will be a bigger cultural quagmire than Rowe vs. Wade.

Imagine 200 mothers trying to give birth to one clone each,

What are you talking about? The first case will probably be one women, like the first heart transplant.

If it is sucessful, it opens the door to many more. But I doubt it will be a common occurance because of cost. Only rich can afford it and you will never hear about it....until the son looks like the father after 20 years or so...when he takes over the family business...

Another reason it will happen is that if you are a billionoire, and do not have kids, you want the business continue. Who else is more qualified than yourself? With a clone that problem solved. The family fortunes stay with the family - literally....

Ah well... despite years of warning in various science fiction classics, it appears we finally have to deal with the reality of cloning.
Anyone ever read "The First Immortal" or "The Truth Machine" by James L. Halperin ?
If you like both the scientific and ethical analysis of cloning technology you would enjoy either of these.

In any case, I think it's going to be a long and arduous task. Cloning has been in use for some time now; 3rd degree burn victims often have skin from their own cells cloned to assist in their healing. But this is a rather simple task compared to the generation of an entire human. Contemporary science does not have a complete grasp of the human maturation process for example; how well prepared are we to deal with the intricately timed chemical/hormonal reactions that occur during maturation, in, and ex-utero?
While it may be the case that we have an understanding of the micro processes involved, it seems to me that our holistic, macro view of the human being is somewhat lacking. And therein lies the crux (putting all ethical arguments aside temporarily): a human being is in constant flux, from the cellular level to the gross molecular level. We're not talking about making a ceramic vase here, we're talking about trying to 'jump start' a dynamic process and hoping that it comes out alright.
Much more research needs to be done, in my opinion.

Point well taken. But let us not get hung up on research or technology. It is not like someone is building a Time Machine which could destroy your own future or that someone is building a targeted neutron bomb (we probably have it).

Assuming the technology works, what are the ramifications?

Am I the only one who remembers all the cute babies that resulted from their mom's ingesting thalidemide early in their pregnancy during the early '60's I believe?

The 'Thalidemide Babies' as they were called sunk any further research as to the beneficial aspects of the drug for over thirty years! Wasn't until we realized we were facing a serious AIDs epidemic that some research with thalidemide is again being done.

Can you see what the reaction will be if some of the clones are even more deformed ... and don't die quickly? Hell we might see 'life in prison without parole' sentences being laid on the research doctors!

Just a thought.

The two doctors that announced their plans to clone, said that they planned to insert 200 cloned embryos into 200 mothers. This is going to be a big mistake, a lot of kids will die.

It took Edison years to create the light bulb, he failed many times. It took Ford dozens of tries before his Model T. The Wright Brothers took many tries on flying.

No one gets these things right the first time. They can't bat 1000, this will be greusuem when it happens.

I strongly disagree with the suggestion of cloning real human beings with a technology which is apparently fraught with errors, at this time.

Although I have no real argument against the possible future refinement of the human genome, I cannot bear the idea of real, living human children being subject to a seriously primal science!

I also do <u>not</u> believe that it should become commonplace for any community of science to hold another human being <b>"fee simple"</b> ! ! ! This would be the case I am sure, as the project scientists would become the parents of the cloned <b>HUMAN BEING.</B> PERHAPS NOT WITH THE FIRST CLONED CHILD, OR THE SECOND. But who will be the parents of cloned child #17823? <b>And make NO mistake, this day will come.</b> When we are consumed about the newest political affair, clone#17823 will be born & owned by the corporation, or the military government agency which has produced it ! ! ! ! BUT BY THAT TIME WE WILL BE OLD FARTS, AND OUR OWN CHILDREN WILL BE ACCUSTOMED TO CLONED HUMANS & WON'T CARE!

I have much more to say, on this subject.

My point exactly Professor, thats why this should be stopped by either your generation before mine is too powerless to stop this. Do it for your kids and grandchildren.

I think there should be a UN mandate against cloning. A world wide ban. Then again they could do it in international waters, but this would help preventing it.

The first human clone will be a story on par with Clinton-Lewinski. At least this time it will be about something else but oral sex.

" But who will be the parents of cloned child #17823? And make NO mistake, this day will come. "

The same could be said for artificial insemination. It is not a horrific technology. It does not create a perfect copy of the original. The process itself is pointless really. You could inseminate much easier. The only difference is you can have a father with biological ties if he is not fertile. The child would still have biological ties with the mother as well. The issue is not whether it should be done (as it WILL be done, you cant stop progress) but when. Now is not the time. There will be 150 – 190 dead children out there. Maybe not all of them will have a face but at least one will, and that one will be on the banner. Unfortunately there will not be a uproar against the technology like there was with the thalidomide as it will not be in any major country. As I last heard the clones were to be implanted on a private island owned by the lead doctor.

Cloning WILL happen. It is nothing to fear. Most technologies are feared when they first come out but the process must be perfected before we go on a mass murdering spree of children. I don't doubt that the team will produce a live clone that is healthy. I also don't doubt he will burn for it when the stories of the deformed and dead children come out.

At the very least, all cloning experiments on humans should be delayed until the process has been refined enough that researchers have a very high rate of success on animals. So far as is known, the failure rate on animal clones is significant. I remember somewhere that there were a lot of bad mutations before "dolly" the sheep was produced. <i>I doubt that "Doctor Moreau" will be publishing any articles about badly deformed children that will be born on his island.</i>

<i>
I don't doubt that the team will produce a live clone that is healthy. I also don't doubt he will burn for it when the stories of the deformed and dead children come out.</i>

Sure there will be the healthy ones that will be paraded in front of the world media. But what about all the one's which are not?


FA_Q2:<i> "As I last heard the clones were to be implanted on a private island owned by the lead doctor". </i>
The Island of Doctor Moreau
H. G. [Herbert George] Wells

http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/H_G_Herbert_George_Wells/The_Island_of_Doctor_Moreau/XIV_DOCTOR_MOREAU_EXPLAINS_p1.html

Chapter XIV. DOCTOR MOREAU EXPLAINS.

[page 1]

"AND now, Prendick, I will explain," said Doctor Moreau, so soon as we had eaten and drunk. "I must confess that you are the most dictatorial guest I ever entertained. I warn you that this is the last I shall do to oblige you. The next thing you threaten to commit suicide about, I shan't do,-- even at some personal inconvenience."

He sat in my deck chair, a cigar half consumed in his white, dexterous-looking fingers. The light of the swinging lamp fell on his white hair; he stared through the little window out at the starlight. I sat as far away from him as possible, the table between us and the revolvers to hand. Montgomery was not present. I did not care to be with the two of them in such a little room.

"You admit that the vivisected human being, as you called it, is, after all, only the puma?" said Moreau. He had made me visit that horror in the inner room, to assure myself of its inhumanity.

"It is the puma," I said, "still alive, but so cut and mutilated as I pray I may never see living flesh again. Of all vile--"

"Never mind that," said Moreau; "at least, spare me those youthful horrors. Montgomery used to be just the same. You admit that it is the puma. Now be quiet, while I reel off my physiological lecture to you."

And forthwith, beginning in the tone of a man supremely bored, but presently warming a little, he explained his work to me. He was very simple and convincing. Now and then there was a touch of sarcasm in his voice. Presently I found myself hot with shame at our mutual positions.


The creatures I had seen were not men, had never been men. They were animals, humanised animals,--triumphs of vivisection.

"You forget all that a skilled vivisector can do with living things," said Moreau. "For my own part, I'm puzzled why the things I have done here have not been done before. Small efforts, of course, have been made,--amputation, tongue-cutting, excisions. Of course you know a squint may be induced or cured by surgery? Then in the case of excisions you have all kinds of secondary changes, pigmentary disturbances, modifications of the passions, alterations in the secretion of fatty tissue. I have no doubt you have heard of these things?"

"Of course," said I. "But these foul creatures of yours--"

"All in good time," said he, waving his hand at me; "I am only beginning. Those are trivial cases of alteration. Surgery can do better things than that. There is building up as well as breaking down and changing. You have heard, perhaps, of a common surgical operation resorted to in cases where the nose has been destroyed: a flap of skin is cut from the forehead, turned down on the nose, and heals in the new position. This is a kind of grafting in a new position of part of an animal upon itself. Grafting of freshly obtained material from another animal is also possible,--the case of teeth, for example. The grafting of skin and bone is done to facilitate healing: the surgeon places in the middle of the wound pieces of skin snipped from another animal, or fragments of bone from a victim freshly killed. Hunter's cock-spur--possibly you have heard of that--flourished on the bull's neck; and the rhinoceros rats of the Algerian zouaves are also to be thought of,--monsters manufactured by transferring a slip from the tail of an ordinary rat to its snout, and allowing it to heal in that position."

[page 2]

"Monsters manufactured!" said I. "Then you mean to tell me--"

"Yes. These creatures you have seen are animals carven and wrought into new shapes. To that, to the study of the plasticity of living forms, my life has been devoted. I have studied for years, gaining in knowledge as I go. I see you look horrified, and yet I am telling you nothing new. It all lay in the surface of practical anatomy years ago, but no one had the temerity to touch it. It is not simply the outward form of an animal which I can change. The physiology, the chemical rhythm of the creature, may also be made to undergo an enduring modification,--of which vaccination and other methods of inoculation with living or dead matter are examples that will, no doubt, be familiar to you. A similar operation is the transfusion of blood,--with which subject, indeed, I began. These are all familiar cases. Less so, and probably far more extensive, were the operations of those mediaeval practitioners who made dwarfs and beggar-cripples, show-monsters,--some vestiges of whose art still remain in the preliminary manipulation of the young mountebank or contortionist. Victor Hugo gives an account of them in `L'Homme qui Rit.'--But perhaps my meaning grows plain now. You begin to see that it is a possible thing to transplant tissue from one part of an animal to another, or from one animal to another; to alter its chemical reactions and methods of growth; to modify the articulations of its limbs; and, indeed, to change it in its most intimate structure.

"And yet this extraordinary branch of knowledge has never been sought as an end, and systematically, by modern investigators until I took it up! Some of such things have been hit upon in the last resort of surgery; most of the kindred evidence that will recur to your mind has been demonstrated as it were by accident,--by tyrants, by criminals, by the breeders of horses and dogs, by all kinds of untrained clumsy-handed men working for their own immediate ends. I was the first man to take up this question armed with antiseptic surgery, and with a really scientific knowledge of the laws of growth. Yet one would imagine it must have been practised in secret before. Such creatures as the Siamese Twins--And in the vaults of the Inquisition. No doubt their chief aim was artistic torture, but some at least of the inquisitors must have had a touch of scientific curiosity."

"But," said I, "these things--these animals talk!"

He said that was so, and proceeded to point out that the possibility of vivisection does not stop at a mere physical metamorphosis. A pig may be educated. The mental structure is even less determinate than the bodily. In our growing science of hypnotism we find the promise of a possibility of superseding old inherent instincts by new suggestions, grafting upon or replacing the inherited fixed ideas. Very much indeed of what we call moral education, he said, is such an artificial modification and perversion of instinct; pugnacity is trained into courageous self-sacrifice, and suppressed sexuality into religious emotion. And the great difference between man and monkey is in the larynx, he continued,-- in the incapacity to frame delicately different sound-symbols by which thought could be sustained. In this I failed to agree with him, but with a certain incivility he declined to notice my objection. He repeated that the thing was so, and continued his account of his work.

[page 3]

I asked him why he had taken the human form as a model. There seemed to me then, and there still seems to me now, a strange wickedness for that choice.

He confessed that he had chosen that form by chance. "I might just as well have worked to form sheep into llamas and llamas into sheep. I suppose there is something in the human form that appeals to the artistic turn more powerfully than any animal shape can. But I've not confined myself to man-making. Once or twice--" He was silent, for a minute perhaps. "These years! How they have slipped by! And here I have wasted a day saving your life, and am now wasting an hour explaining myself!"

"But," said I, "I still do not understand. Where is your justification for inflicting all this pain? The only thing that could excuse vivisection to me would be some application--"

"Precisely," said he. "But, you see, I am differently constituted. We are on different platforms. You are a materialist."

"I am not a materialist," I began hotly.

"In my view--in my view. For it is just this question of pain that parts us. So long as visible or audible pain turns you sick; so long as your own pains drive you; so long as pain underlies your propositions about sin,--so long, I tell you, you are an animal, thinking a little less obscurely what an animal feels. This pain--"

I gave an impatient shrug at such sophistry.


"Oh, but it is such a little thing! A mind truly opened to what science has to teach must see that it is a little thing. It may be that save in this little planet, this speck of cosmic dust, invisible long before the nearest star could be attained--it may be, I say, that nowhere else does this thing called pain occur. But the laws we feel our way towards--Why, even on this earth, even among living things, what pain is there?"

As he spoke he drew a little penknife from his pocket, opened the smaller blade, and moved his chair so that I could see his thigh. Then, choosing the place deliberately, he drove the blade into his leg and withdrew it.

"No doubt," he said, "you have seen that before. It does not hurt a pin-prick. But what does it show? The capacity for pain is not needed in the muscle, and it is not placed there,--is but little needed in the skin, and only here and there over the thigh is a spot capable of feeling pain. Pain is simply our intrinsic medical adviser to warn us and stimulate us. Not all living flesh is painful; nor is all nerve, not even all sensory nerve. There's no tint of pain, real pain, in the sensations of the optic nerve. If you wound the optic nerve, you merely see flashes of light,-- just as disease of the auditory nerve merely means a humming in our ears. Plants do not feel pain, nor the lower animals; it's possible that such animals as the starfish and crayfish do not feel pain at all. Then with men, the more intelligent they become, the more intelligently they will see after their own welfare, and the less they will need the goad to keep them out of danger. I never yet heard of a useless thing that was not ground out of existence by evolution sooner or later. Did you? And pain gets needless

[page 4]

"Then I am a religious man, Prendick, as every sane man must be. It may be, I fancy, that I have seen more of the ways of this world's Maker than you,--for I have sought his laws, in my way, all my life, while you, I understand, have been collecting butterflies. And I tell you, pleasure and pain have nothing to do with heaven or hell. Pleasure and pain--bah! What is your theologian's ecstasy but Mahomet's houri in the dark? This store which men and women set on pleasure and pain, Prendick, is the mark of the beast upon them,-- the mark of the beast from which they came! Pain, pain and pleasure, they are for us only so long as we wriggle in the dust.

"You see, I went on with this research just the way it led me. That is the only way I ever heard of true research going. I asked a question, devised some method of obtaining an answer, and got a fresh question. Was this possible or that possible? You cannot imagine what this means to an investigator, what an intellectual passion grows upon him! You cannot imagine the strange, colourless delight of these intellectual desires! The thing before you is no longer an animal, a fellow-creature, but a problem! Sympathetic pain,--all I know of it I remember as a thing I used to suffer from years ago. I wanted--it was the one thing I wanted--to find out the extreme limit of plasticity in a living shape."

"But," said I, "the thing is an abomination--"


"To this day I have never troubled about the ethics of the matter," he continued. "The study of Nature makes a man at last as remorse-less as Nature. I have gone on, not heeding anything but the question I was pursuing; and the material has--dripped into the huts yonder. It is really eleven years since we came here, I and Montgomery and six Kanakas. I remember the green stillness of the island and the empty ocean about us, as though it was yesterday. The place seemed waiting for me.

"The stores were landed and the house was built. The Kanakas founded some huts near the ravine. I went to work here upon what I had brought with me. There were some disagreeable things happened at first. I began with a sheep, and killed it after a day and a half by a slip of the scalpel. I took another sheep, and made a thing of pain and fear and left it bound up to heal. It looked quite human to me when I had finished it; but when I went to it I was discontented with it. It remembered me, and was terrified beyond imagination; and it had no more than the wits of a sheep. The more I looked at it the clumsier it seemed, until at last I put the monster out of its misery. These animals without courage, these fear-haunted, pain-driven things, without a spark of pugnacious energy to face torment,--they are no good for man-making.

"Then I took a gorilla I had; and upon that, working with infinite care and mastering difficulty after difficulty, I made my first man. All the week, night and day, I moulded him. With him it was chiefly the brain that needed moulding; much had to be added, much changed. I thought him a fair specimen of the negroid type when I had finished him, and he lay bandaged, bound, and motionless before me. It was only when his life was assured that I left him and came into this room again, and found Montgomery much as you are. He had heard some of the cries as the thing grew human,-- cries like those that disturbed you so. I didn't take him completely into my confidence at first. And the Kanakas too, had realised something of it. They were scared out of their wits by the sight of me. I got Montgomery over to me--in a way; but I and he had the hardest job to prevent the Kanakas deserting. Finally they did; and so we lost the yacht. I spent many days educating the brute,--altogether I had him for three or four months. I taught him the rudiments of English; gave him ideas of counting; even made the thing read the alphabet. But at that he was slow, though I've met with idiots slower. He began with a clean sheet, mentally; had no memories left in his mind of what he had been. When his scars were quite healed, and he was no longer anything but painful and stiff, and able to converse a little, I took him yonder and introduced him to the Kanakas as an interesting stowaway.

[page 5]

"They were horribly afraid of him at first, somehow,--which offended me rather, for I was conceited about him; but his ways seemed so mild, and he was so abject, that after a time they received him and took his education in hand. He was quick to learn, very imitative and adaptive, and built himself a hovel rather better, it seemed to me, than their own shanties. There was one among the boys a bit of a missionary, and he taught the thing to read, or at least to pick out letters, and gave him some rudimentary ideas of morality; but it seems the beast's habits were not all that is desirable.

"I rested from work for some days after this, and was in a mind to write an account of the whole affair to wake up English physiology. Then I came upon the creature squatting up in a tree and gibbering at two of the Kanakas who had been teasing him. I threatened him, told him the inhumanity of such a proceeding, aroused his sense of shame, and came home resolved to do better before I took my work back to England. I have been doing better. But somehow the things drift back again: the stubborn beast-flesh grows day by day back again. But I mean to do better things still. I mean to conquer that. This puma--

"But that's the story. All the Kanaka boys are dead now; one fell overboard of the launch, and one died of a wounded heel that he poisoned in some way with plant-juice. Three went away in the yacht, and I suppose and hope were drowned. The other one--was killed. Well, I have replaced them. Montgomery went on much as you are disposed to do at first, and then--


"What became of the other one?" said I, sharply,--"the other Kanaka who was killed?"

<i>"The fact is, after I had made a number of human creatures I made a Thing." He hesitated. </i>

"Yes," said I.

"It was killed." "I don't understand," said I; "do you mean to say--"

"It killed the Kanakas--yes. It killed several other things that it caught. We chased it for a couple of days. It only got loose by accident--I never meant it to get away. It wasn't finished. It was purely an experiment. It was a limbless thing, with a horrible face, that writhed along the ground in a serpentine fashion. It was immensely strong, and in infuriating pain. It lurked in the woods for some days, until we hunted it; and then it wriggled into the northern part of the island, and we divided the party to close in upon it. Montgomery insisted upon coming with me. The man had a rifle; and when his body was found, one of the barrels was curved into the shape of an S and very nearly bitten through. Montgomery shot the thing. After that I stuck to the ideal of humanity-- except for little things."

He became silent. I sat in silence watching his face.

"So for twenty years altogether--counting nine years in England-- I have been going on; and there is still something in everything I do that defeats me, makes me dissatisfied, challenges me to further effort. Sometimes I rise above my level, sometimes I fall below it; but always I fall short of the things I dream. The human shape I can get now, almost with ease, so that it is lithe and graceful, or thick and strong; but often there is trouble with the hands and the claws,--painful things, that I dare not shape too freely. But it is in the subtle grafting and reshaping one must needs do to the brain that my trouble lies. The intelligence is often oddly low, with unaccountable blank ends, unexpected gaps. And least satisfactory of all is something that I cannot touch, somewhere--I cannot determine where--in the seat of the emotions. Cravings, instincts, desires that harm humanity, a strange hidden reservoir to burst forth suddenly and inundate the whole being of the creature with anger, hate, or fear. These creatures of mine seemed strange and uncanny to you so soon as you began to observe them; but to me, just after I make them, they seem to be indisputably human beings. It's afterwards, as I observe them, that the persuasion fades. First one animal trait, then another, creeps to the surface and stares out at me. But I will conquer yet! Each time I dip a living creature into the bath of burning pain, I say, `This time I will burn out all the animal; this time I will make a rational creature of my own!' After all, what is ten years? Men have been a hundred thousand in the making." He thought darkly. "But I am drawing near the fastness. This puma of mine--" After a silence, "And they revert. As soon as my hand is taken from them the beast begins to creep back, begins to assert itself again." Another long silence.

[page 6]

"Then you take the things you make into those dens?" said I.

"They go. I turn them out when I begin to feel the beast in them, and presently they wander there. They all dread this house and me. There is a kind of travesty of humanity over there. Montgomery knows about it, for he interferes in their affairs. He has trained one or two of them to our service. He's ashamed of it, but I believe he half likes some of those beasts. It's his business, not mine. They only sicken me with a sense of failure. I take no interest in them. I fancy they follow in the lines the Kanaka missionary marked out, and have a kind of mockery of a rational life, poor beasts! There's something they call the Law. Sing hymns about `all thine.' They build themselves their dens, gather fruit, and pull herbs-- marry even. But I can see through it all, see into their very souls, and see there nothing but the souls of beasts, beasts that perish, anger and the lusts to live and gratify themselves.--Yet they're odd; complex, like everything else alive. There is a kind of upward striving in them, part vanity, part waste sexual emotion, part waste curiosity. It only mocks me. I have some hope of this puma. I have worked hard at her head and brain--"And now," said he, standing up after a long gap of silence, during which we had each pursued our own thoughts, "what do you think? Are you in fear of me still?"

I looked at him, and saw but a white-faced, white-haired man, with calm eyes. Save for his serenity, the touch almost of beauty that resulted from his set tranquillity and his magnificent build, he might have passed muster among a hundred other comfortable old gentlemen. Then I shivered. By way of answer to his second question, I handed him a revolver with either hand.

"Keep them," he said, and snatched at a yawn. He stood up, stared at me for a moment, and smiled. "You have had two eventful days," said he. "I should advise some sleep. I'm glad it's all clear. Good-night." He thought me over for a moment, then went out by the inner door.

I immediately turned the key in the outer one. I sat down again; sat for a time in a kind of stagnant mood, so weary, emotionally, mentally, and physically, that I could not think beyond the point at which he had left me. The black window stared at me like an eye. At last with an effort I put out the light and got into the hammock. Very soon I was asleep.




<b>Whenever I hear the arguments for cloning, I am often reminded of Doctor Moreau's explanations and assurances.</b> H.G. got it right again.

I would tend to agree that the first sucessfully cloned human will be the poster child of the movement. And needless to say that the mistakes will be labeled unfortunate mishaps when they come to light. Judging by the responces from the forum this won't be long in coming.

Down the road I tend to think that it will be a much higher sucess rate than present day. The thing is, a lot will be throwed out with the dishwater as unfit. Is this morally and ethically correct? I can not believe that it would be. Right to life advocates will have a field day with this one. A feeding frenzy might be closer to the truth. And will it influnance the politics of the day. Yes, it will. I would believe to the same extent that abortion does today. I can not help but think this is a can of worms better left unopened.

1. Human cloning will happen not that it is really necessary for the society, but due to scientific challange.

2. Nature always tries to abort the miss-conceptions - it is called miscarriage. But humans try to prevent it all the time. So we have deformed babies.

3. I do NOT like the idea of 180 deformed babies to be born alive so that we can learn from it.

4. We do abortions to the first trimester at the request of the mother.

5. So the safegurads should be in place such that no deformed babies are born.

6. In the name of the science and greater good for the living, limit the abortions related to cloning to no more than say 10. That is a compromise I can live with. Anything more is not acceptable.

7. Given the parameters, I am sure the science can solve the problem.

8. Stopping cloning technology in US will produce back alley labs in third world countries with thousands of deformed babies. Such moral high ground is phoney, immoral, unethical, and irresponsible.

Such moral high ground? Methinks you misunderstood, kmguru. Tis not high ground but low ground I observed. And no, because I do not personally agree, does not mean it will not be done. That should be evident from the context. It was the observation that when it is done that most likey the results offspringing from it will come to look like the thoughts within the post.

Wet1:

I did not see your previous post when I posted (there is a time delta between viewing and posting). So now I am confused about the misunderstood part....


(and I am getting runtime error on line 11...)

<b>GENTEC Corporation</b><i> We build better people.</i>

Without doubt, cloning of all living organisms will eventually come. Whether or not it proves to be a good thing is to be seen. I say again, that I do not believe that now is the time to be experimenting on <u>human beings.</u>

At some point in the future, it may well become possible to manufacture people without using a female womb at all. I am sure that this is the ultimate goal of some genetic researchers. When the day comes that clones (or any forms of life) are produced entirely by machines, will they still be human, with the same human rights as the rest of us? Or will they become the property of a genetic corporation (GENTEC)? Will these humanoid's of the future become the property of the military if they are produced to replace soldiers of today? Will these "produced" soldiers have human rights?

Some may now say that these genetically produced people will have rights, but judging the cold, callus attitude of these same people toward a human fetus, and now the "who cares about deformed clones", I have no doubt that corporations of the future will sue for the right to own their produced cloned organisms that have some human-like attributes. From there, the courts will have to decide "how human" an organism has to be in order to have human rights.

<b><i>Doesn't a Chimp have about 97% of a human's DNA?</b></i>

So if corporation GENTEC produces hummanoid organisms of less than 100% human, then is the organism going to be considered human? Certainly a chimpanzee can be considered property. At what point between a chimp and a human will the organism lose it's rights? There is a very similar question before the courts in regard to when does a fetus become a human. Certainly the fetus is far more human than a chimp, but is not human, according to the courts!

As the capabilities of genetic researchers increase, so will the capability to produce a variety of humanoid lifeforms. If corporation GENTEC produces a living being that has 99% of human DNA, then what? Will the courts proclaim that it is human, or will it be property? Can it be bought and sold like a chimpanzee? Can it's internal organs be harvested and placed into people who can afford to buy them?

African people were once considered to less than human. So were aboriginal americans. These people simply didn't have 100% European DNA. In fact, I left asking who (or what) is 100% human.

This is an extremely thorny issue. You can go to Afrika, pick up the gene from a masai tribe, redesign the gene to look more closely like a chimp (like giving a lot of hair), setup human IQ to 75, drop the voice box so as not to have full speech capability, only sign language, sexually sterile - and you have a designer mammal for doing household work.

I think 100% human is an avarage gene structure of 15 million people from various ethnic background.

I am 100% against harvesting body parts from a full grown body (at this time). If you can grow specific body parts, that may be acceptable.

Damn it I hate when I don't check the site soon enough. Now I missed out on all the good stuff!

Rats!

!0% is acceptable? Was that not about the rate of death per troops in the Vietnam war where we were actually being shot at with the intent of being injured? And here we are not talking soldiers who's business is to risk life and limb, here we are talking innocents who have not choice. No say whatever. If we do not say for them, who will? The corporations who the Professor speaks of? A fine lot that will be! Better to let race car drivers set the speed limit for the United States as far impartiality goes. And to be honest I think we might come out better on the race car driver scenario for at least they realize that not everyone is so qualified.

So who will set the acceptables? Who will deem ahead of development which are suitable for entry into the human race and who is not? Smacks of playing God to me. Are you qualified for such a task? Are any? Who is to say that this disability or deforminity is not ok? And if you were the one allowed to be born, would it not occur to you somewhere along the line they could have done that which would have helped you not to be that way? Would you not hold resentment that you were not considered worthy for help, and that help provided by way of genetic remedy prior to birth?

The Professor alludes to what could happen if these clones were considered property, chattel without the same rights as those natural born. Where is the line that says you pass and you do not. Will those lines be forever static? No more than things are today. Your taxes are not static. Corporations are not static. In a sense corporations are a living entity in that they have legal standing much the same as a person would. To not be human would seem to deny those legal standings. Otherwise any could file suit to become human and in doing so would circumvent taht designed to prevent them from doing so. I'm sorry but this does not stack up as something equitable. We would be returning to the days of slaves.

My wishes on Genetics:

Understanding of the genetic sequence such that we can repair every part of the body including genetic defects and also provide cosmetic enhancements at any age. This is possible because we can manage the cell reproduction in living tissue. So the need for organ transplant will go away.

We should develop an electronic transmitter to turn on or off certain hormonal and endocrine activities adjunt to drug delivery.

By repairing and enhancing human bodies in situ, we may eliminate cloning or designer subhumans. While we are at it we should not create super humans too. That is just as you have a speed limit range of 45 to 75 in US. The law should be made that no human will be agumentated beyond a range of say 100 to 300 IQ points.

It is like those who use Rogain and those who do not. The advantages are minimal so as not to cause a large disparity in the society.

This rules out cloning altogether. A law should be established that only a childless couple will be allowed a male and female clone of themselves as their offspring. Because by then genetic modifications are possible, so the genetic traits of the cloned son and daughter could be adjusted to reflect both the parents and not just one. It should be a capital offense for those who break this law.

That will rule out one million clone soldiers that eat tree leaves and have 4 stomachs (or creating Gumbas a la Mario Bros).

In fact if we can repair the human body by advanced genetics, the requirement for cloning will disappear. Because the childless couple can be fertile again through the DNa and cell regeneration process which is very doable (Salmanders do it...)

After much thinking, I SAY NO to CLONING to grow full humans, subhumans, superhumans under my above scenario. The money is better spent in the repair side.

Readers beware, since members are posting at the same time, the thread may not follow sequentially....

Kmuguru I think you are on to something.

I think that there should be no human cloning at all. As for genetic modifications, they should only be done to enhance health, which is prohibits appearance modifications unless you are grossley disfigured as part of a birth defect.

IQ modifications may have to be set against the intelligence of future computers with an "alien intelligence" so that we may keep closer to them in brain functions.

This whole thing scares me. I know that I will never permit my child to have genetic modifications to enhance looks or any other superficial feature. What counts is a person's insides, not their appearance.

But who will be the parents of cloned child #17823? And make NO mistake, this day will come. When we are consumed about the newest political affair, clone#17823 will be born & owned by the corporation, or the military government agency which has produced it

I am reminded of the old movie "Blade Runner."

Damn fine posts by all!

I too had flashbacks of Blade Runner.
I think that thecurly1 sees now what I meant by a can of worms better left unopened.

Yeah, I think we should leave this can sealed, strapped to the back of a rocket and hurled past Pluto. This is bound to create the largest cultural backlash in history. I can't think of any other event that people have been appaled by except for maybe the Holocaust.

Granted the Holocaust was a bit different than Human Cloning but the same in the fact that both are practically crimes against humanity.

Here's another question if cloned, especially from only one parent, female obvioulsy, would it have a soul?

Without a sould many followers of religion wouldn't consider it to be human. This opens a Pandora's box which has never been seen. It used to be differences between religions, now it maybe differences between those with a sould, and an unholy child of somesort.

Treading in uncharted waters.

thecurly1 wrote

I know that I will never permit my child to have genetic modifications to enhance looks or any other superficial feature.

We do cosmetic enhancements everyday. My proposal is not the enhancement that can be only done before birth but the one that can be done at any age. Then it equalizes the playing field. Cosmetic surgery is done all the time. If your nose is longer than your "part" you should be able to take a pill for a few months to get it right.

Unless we give the society an alternate choice, it is going to happen and life on this planet will not be the same.

And I like the idea of IQ enhancement to keep up with the silicon intelligence. We should work on technology that is applicable at any age at best or till ones 60s at worst.

If these cosmetic enhancements though genetics are allowed than the rich will presumably have stronger, better looking, and vastly more intelligent kids than the other classes.

Too dangerous, the playing field doesn't just become unlevel it becomes lopsided.

<i>
This whole thing scares me. I know that I will never permit my child to have genetic modifications to enhance looks or any other superficial feature. What counts is a person's insides, not their appearance. </i>

There was another movie out a few years back. I cannot remember it's title. It dealt with the genetic <i>improvements</i> of unborn children. Uma Thurman was in this movie.

In the time period, it became possible for parents to have their unborn children recieve genetic improvements. The first child of this couple had no modifications and was born naturally. His parents opted to have his younger brother genetically improved.

As time passed, the parents regretted not having genetic improvements made on the first son. The reason being that almost all other children of wealthy parents, had been modified and were the ones who got the best professional jobs and became the professional athletes,.... while children who were un-modified ended up as janitors, sanitation workers, low skilled laborers, ect..

In fact, as the natural born son grew up, he worked harder than anyone else and often overcame his rivals, in his attempt to become an astronaut. But he was never even considered because of his "flawed genes." Eventually he used the DNA samples of an injured genetically refined athlete to pass the genetic tests, which were being done by all corporations, businesses, ect..

<i>
This whole thing scares me. I know that I will never permit my child to have genetic modifications to enhance looks or any other superficial feature. What counts is a person's insides, not their appearance. </i>

<b>Who knows what the future may bring in our Brave New World? </b>

Exactly. Thats what we should be afraid of. For the past century we have strived to teach our progeny that what counts is there intelligence and kind heartness. I don't want to see all that work unravel in 20 years worth of genetic revolution.

Predicting the future is ultimately a fool's game. Nothing comes out to exactly what we tried to predict, in this case I hope this prediction proves to be just that, a prediction not a prophecy.

I am not so sure that I would like for my grandchildren to have no chance at being more than a sanitation worker, while everyone else was being born to be scientists, leaders, athletes, ect... I don't have anything against low skilled laborers, but if I knew that my grandchildren had NO chance of competing with the genetically purified, then I might consider the enhancements for my decendants also. It would be a matter of my decendant's survival. Not unlike natural selection, the most fit to survive will survive, while the weaker will simply be pushed out of existance!

<b>Gattaca</b> 1997.

http://www.nitrateonline.com/rgattaca.html

<img src="http://www.nitrateonline.com/images/rgattaca.gif">
<img src="http://www.nitrateonline.com/images/rgattaca-1.jpg">

Written and Directed by Andrew Niccol
Starring Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman,
Jude Law, Gore Vidal, Alan Arkin, Loren Dean,
Tony Shalhoub,and Ernest Borgnine


<b>Welcome to Gattaca, a land in the "not-too-distant" future where discrimination is "down to a science," or perhaps attributed just to science itself. It’s a world where your resume is "in your genes", where social winners and social losers are determined not by popularity, but by your genetic code. In this world, "natural" childbirth means getting the right pre-natal mixture of DNA and behavioral traits; it’s called giving the child "the best possible start," but it really means condemning those born without genetic intervention (the so-called "invalids") to a life as servants to those above.</b>

http://www.nitrateonline.com/rgattaca.html

You guys misunderstood me. I agree with you in relation to gene manipulation before birth, which creates a disadvantage for those that did not. And therefore that should be banned except in the management of deseases.

What I am talking about is gene therapy after birth at any age. The cost will be very low because the way the gene is modified and inserted to the cell. The pill (chemical insertion) or more likely a high pressure sonic insertion is simple and effective. That way like cosmetic surgery, you have the procedure done at a nominal price.

Today people use special chemicals to compete in Sports. You think the wrestle mania group does not use any chemicals? Goto any GNC store. You will see specialized products for sports. On top of that people are using steroids and Hgh (human growth hormone) to bulk up. Is it fair? In the brain department, I have experimented with chemicals that speeds up brain activity to solve complex problems. It is all after birth my friend and being used now...

Gene therapy only aguments...
(I am against Gataca type therapy...except genetic deseases...)

Here you open another potentially volatile door. The one of haves vs. have nots. We give this pill, or however dispensed, (At what cost) to those we would have be on level with the machine intelligence. How about the rest? Are you condemned because you don't have the money, or the opportunity to do so? Or maybe the last upgrade to make this one effective? Talk about a new version of Bill Gates monopolistic practices.

Are we in essence setting up a priesthood to interpret and pass down what the machines have thought up next for the lowly serfs?

" We should develop an electronic transmitter to turn on or off certain hormonal and endocrine activities adjunt to drug delivery. "

I would bet the psychiatrists would love that one. Mind control is not to far from that.

" In fact if we can repair the human body by advanced genetics, the requirement for cloning will disappear. Because the childless couple can be fertile again through the DNa and cell regeneration process which is very doable (Salmanders do it...) "

This still has the same negative affects that cloning does. If I can regrow things or change them then I can ever improve them. Redesign yourself into a superhuman. You can never fully control these thing because there will always be somewhere there is no rules. All it would take is one country or even one crazy doctor to edit many people.

Actually I take no postion on genetic refinement at all. In the long run, genetic refinement may save hummanity.

As far as gene therapy, I believe that it may well become possible for gene therapy to evolve into a field of science that becomes capable of changing the already born into enhanced humans. The beliefs that people cannot be genetically altered after birth is short sighted.

My original argument was against human experimentation while the the science is still so unpredictable.

The pursuit of gene therapy as treatment (or cure) for diseases is a noble one.

Originally posted by kmguru
In the brain department, I have experimented with chemicals that speeds up brain activity to solve complex problems.

Really? Well give us a list! I should like to email the names of these brain enhancing chemicals to a few members at Science forum!:D

While you are making a list of these chemicals, I shall prepare a list of the people who are in the greatest need. :D

Seriously, I have used Ginko Biloba. For a time, I did notice a ..... much wider perspective and an increase in ability. What would you recommend?

Prehaps I should put my name in the hat for a times I feel the need.

Actually Howardstern & Chagur would definately be at the top of my top 10 list:D !!!!

There will be a huge problem with genetic engineering, lets call it GE for saving space. If GE is all its cracked up to be than that would mean people could live 50% or longer than before, almost overnight. While there wouldn't be an actual aging vaccine, GE would provide us with something similar.

Medicare would be overwhealmed by this massive demand to live a lot longer with a fairly uncomplex way of getting the genetically engineered shot. Depending on expense there could be mass demonstrations even riots against governments to provide their peoples with the vaccine.

There could be problems if an "age vaccine" is ever invented. I would hope that the pros would outweigh the cons, but its hard to tell.

Brain Boosters:

I am not sure I can recommend anything on a public forum (not sure the liability) but can state the following.

People have used the following from any health food store:

Huperzine A
Vinpocetine
Ginko Biloba
Gotu Kola
phosphatidylserine
DHA
Choline

You must check with your doctor for side effects and drug interactions. For example, Choline can drop your blood pressure. I usually take 1200 mg of Choline before a presentation to reduce my "um", "you know", "uh" etc. In China, those words sound like "chega, chega, chega"...and they work for me.

If you take a chemical continuously, it will not work, because the body reaches a new equilibrium. You have to take it only when necessary to do the job same way you need caffine to wake up. That is why we need a gene therapy so that the body will produce the required neurotransmitters all the time. Here is why: When you are in a agarian society, you do not need such high level brain activity, but when you are doing software development, we need that level. So we have no choice but to do something to improve our brain activity when the society becomes highly knowledge based. The vitamins and drugs are a temporary measure but ultimately we have to reconfigure our DNA.

Other high powered prescription drugs include a family of drugs called "nootropics". You can check them out in Google. They work too. The brain follows the same activity as the body. If you do not excercise, your muscles will get atrophy and your brain will get dull. So if you are in a constantly challenging environment (this forum for example ;) ) you keep your brain ship-shape. But if you are not and then you have to go in to an intense activity, you need some chemical help to quickly get moving.

Originally posted by thecurly1
If GE is all its cracked up to be than that would mean people could live 50% or longer than before, almost overnight. While there wouldn't be an actual aging vaccine, GE would provide us with something similar.

Weare already working on a youth serum by manipulating the telomerase enzyme. It is being researched with the Cancer research. The cancer cells stay immortal because they do not loose it. Any way we are there ...very close.


Medicare would be overwhealmed by this massive demand to live a lot longer with a fairly uncomplex way of getting the genetically engineered shot. Depending on expense there could be mass demonstrations even riots against governments to provide their peoples with the vaccine.

On the contrary, we spend $650 to $800 Billion a year on health related expenses. A gene therapy that automatically repairs your organs will reduce that cost drastically. Granted the rich golf playing doctors, and obscene profit making drug companies will see their future disappear (except the gene guys)...but society will be better off.


There could be problems if an "age vaccine" is ever invented. I would hope that the pros would outweigh the cons, but its hard to tell.

What are you smoking...? no body wants an age vaccine to stay on a heart-lung machine for 50 years! That vaccine will keep to healthy period. No doctors, work to contribute to the society.

UH OH, now social security is in real trouble ;)

Sound nice, but it won't work.

One company will have the patent for the age vaccine, then they can keep the prices EXTREAMLY expensive. Just imagine if it costs as much as a cancer or AIDS drug which could be likely. Even if it cost as much as Viagra, they'll keep their patent for years if not, DECADES.

With an expensive drug that nearly everyone wants, Medicare would be simply overwhealmed. We'd be in debt trying to recover the costs in later years.

Another reason why this is stepping on a slippery slope.

If the drug is very expensive and solves your problem, there will be a black market. Someone here or overseas will manufacturer it and supply like illegal drugs of today. I heard you can buy Viagra in Asia cheap.

It must be kept at a reasonable price so that anyone can get it done. A black market is a definite if it gets to selective. The only problem is how long one must take the drug for it to have an affect. It might be a very short duration so there is no requirement to keep taking the drug and become a regular customer. That will affect prices. Whatever happens I plan to be one that takes the drug, no matter how I have to get it.

" With an expensive drug that nearly everyone wants, Medicare would be simply overwhealmed. We'd be in debt trying to recover the costs in later years. "

Why? Medicare would not care at all. It simply will not cover that drug.