Ok, I just have to chime in on all this to-do about cloning.
First there as Dolly the sheep, then there was mice, cats, dogs, and now they are talking about cloned beef cattle for human consumption.
The consequences beg my first question:
WHY do we need to clone cattle? We have plenty to cattle! Cattle are everywhere. And why would they even contemplate it considering that they estimate that it would cost $35,000 to clone the animal? I don't want to pay $500 a pound for hamburger!
The next question is WHY are we cloning dogs and cats when hundreds of thousands of them are euthanized in American shelters every year? Strays are everywhere.
The things that humans do in the name of science so often make no practical sense whatsoever.
I heard another story the other day that scientists here had "manufactured" a heart in a lab from stem cells, and it started beating on it's own. Sounds great. What they failed to mention was whether or not this "heart" was anatomically correct as far as the actual chambers go. Could it actually pump blood? I don't know.
I have a ethical dilemma with cloning. On one hand it brings "replicant" Ruther Hauer on steroids, crazed supercriminal mentality to mind.
On the other hand you have a picture of a sheep. Who's to say what the long term ramifications of all this cloning will be. I won't say that goes against God or something, but I wonder about how this disturbs the natural order of things. I mean, how soon before science discovers a way to mature these "clones" much faster than normal? I know it sounds very science fiction, but one has to remember that most of what we have today was once "science fiction". Like lasers. Space travel. Moonshots. Wireless communication. Supercomputers. All of these things were fictionalized before they were realized. And in 2007, researchers at MIT actually "transported" matter from one place to another. Like STAR TREK transported. Yes, it was only ONE atom, but they successfully transported it from one vacuum tank to another through OPEN SPACE. Today one atom, in 200 years, whole living beings. "I'll meet you in Transporter room two, away team."
Don't think for one minute it couldn't happen. No one thought lasers would ever be made real. Now we use them for all kinds of things. Self-cauterizing surgery. Topography. Missile defense.
Same thing for clones. today, sheep and mice and cows. 40 years from now, humans. What then? We see clones who look 25-30 years old but are actually 2-3 years old? I can't even start to contemplate the ramifications for humankind. All this with our children of this generation being as socially dysfunctional as they are.
I just can't help but think that all this cloning is a bad idea.

posted by Dave @ 11:20 PM

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