What do you think of cloning?

[BubbaGump04]

What do you think of cloning? I have really been thinking about this since I read the synopsis to the new movie Godsend that is coming out with Robert DeNiro. A major part of the movie has to do with cloning a couple's child who is killed by a car and bringing him back. Any thoughts?? Moral, ethical or otherwise?

[-Demosthenes-]

You can't replace someone like that. They wouldn't be the same, it would just cause them problems, and remind them of who they lost.

 

PS: Wlcome to the Forums

[BubbaGump04]

I agree. I don't think it is the same person. Maybe physically, but it can't go beyond that. Does anyone disagree?

[greg1917]

Personally I think the specific application of bringing back a dead child is completely misusing the technology.

 

Ive yet to form a solid opinion on cloning - as a technology its in its infancy in terms of the level banded about the press. I like to think of myself as open minded but Ive been quite hostile to the notion of cloning in the past. perhaps that will change, perhaps not. It clearly has immensely practical uses such as organ donation but that brings with it a host of ethical issues.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Bringing back someone is worthless-you can't clone a personality.

[Sayonara]

Do you know that, or is it an opinion?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

I know that. It's been said by scientists before, so I think it's true.

[iglak]

i have no problems with cloning, as long as it's used to farm, or make lab animals. and i suppose bringing back to life a newborn bayby that only died from an accident or something... or for that matter creating a new baby if one is incapable of normally creating one.... ANYWAY, i have no problem with cloning for the sole purpose of farming organs or anything like that. it doesn't present ethical issues in my mind because we would be breeding them to die, and we already do that with beef and pork and things. humans is just the next step, and i don't care.

 

the argument "What if it were you?" doesn't really apply. if we treated them like we treat me, or other humans now, then we wouldn't be breeding them to die, we would be breeding them under the false impression that they will live, and THAT is unethical. if we keep them in a coma or something their entire life, and just put the needed nutrients directly into their blood, then it's just a plant waiting to be picked, or a cow waiting to be slaughtered.

 

P.S. we need a devil face smiley...

[iglak]

Cap'n Refsmmat said in post # :

I know that. It's been said by scientists before, so I think it's true.

my AP Bio teacher said differently, but i agree with you on that (although i believe the underlying personality is genetic)

[Sayonara]

Cap'n Refsmmat said in post # :

I know that. It's been said by scientists before, so I think it's true.

Isn't it true that science constantly revises what we know?

 

100 year ago space travel was impossible.

 

The fact is that we don't have an anywhere near complete understanding of personality yet, so we can't predict accurately whether we will ever be able to store or duplicate it.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Just the genetic code does not determine personality, but if you can take someones conciousness and transplant it, then yes, it's possible.

[Sayonara]

So is cloning still worthless?

 

(We can't safely clone humans yet, so if you assume we have acheived one technology for the purposes of this discussion, you may as well assume we have the other.)

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

You can clone a near-extinct species, to save it. That is actually done ocassionaly.

[Glider]

As so many of the characterstics that form a personality are learned and formed through experience, I think it's fair to say that personality cannot be cloned. I think it would be a bad thing to clone a 'replacement' child. Not only would it serve to "remind [the parents] of who they lost", but it would mean the new individual being exposed to a preexisting set of expectations by the parents.

 

The parents would expect the 'replacement' to behave in the same way as the 'original'. Whenever the replacement displayed a behaviour that did not meet, or deviated from these pre-determined criteria (even if the new behaviour was valid and 'good'), the parents could not help but show, on some level, dissapointment ("that's not what our son/daughter would have done"). This would be extremely confusing (and possibly damaging) to the replacement. The whole non-conscious parent-child reinforcement dynamic would be out of whack.

[ke86]

I think the only positive affect of cloning would be the scientific and medical help that it offers. I don't think that a personality can be cloned. Also, the clone may not be exact, as with Rainbow and Cc. They were almost complete opposites in appearance and personality.

[Sayonara]

Cloning a personality in the biochemical or neural sense is unlikely to ever be made feasible, if it's even possible.

 

But we should at least consider the possibility that at some point we may learn to duplicate personality and store it elsewhere, perhaps even imprint it later into a "blank" clone.

 

Much as I hate referring to the dumbed-down, often wrong, popular sci of the movies, 6th Day had some interesting ideas.

[blike]

Assuming personality could be transferred, it'd be interesting to study the psychology of it all. Would the parents eventually accept the new "clone" as the original?

[Sayonara]

That was the best question AI asked, just before it went all "Hollywood irrational".

 

(Except not with a clone, obviously.)

[BubbaGump04]

I think in the movie, the couple does have their dead son cloned, but he is not the same at all. Totally different person.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Exactly like it would be.

Oh, and CC didn't look the same because in cats genetics don't determine looks.

[-Demosthenes-]

A good idea for cloning is to clone indangered species, I think, but not people, it seems immoral.

[Sayonara]

If the species is endangered due to insufficient adaptation, cloning individuals won't solve anything.

[-Demosthenes-]

What about the ones dying because they can't adapt to people taking their homes and making cities out of them?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Cloning is good if, for example, those pesticides are killing the babies, so if you make LOADS of them (since there are like 2 left) they can survive easier (after you remove the pesticide). We all know having more makes the population grow faster.

[Sayonara]

-Demosthenes- said in post # :

What about the ones dying because they can't adapt to people taking their homes and making cities out of them?

Making more of them just means more will die. If you aren't adding anything new to the gene pool, they won't magically get over it.

 

Cap'n Refsmmat said in post # :

Cloning is good if, for example, those pesticides are killing the babies, so if you make LOADS of them (since there are like 2 left) they can survive easier (after you remove the pesticide). We all know having more makes the population grow faster.

A population with only two genotypes is a recipe for disaster, although the basic idea could be made to work assuming the right conditions.

 

(Also, in the case of pesticides, something that was so shoddily tested and applied that it kills the local non-pest wildlife is likely to have many other effects on the ecosystem too - possibly persistant effects - so there are other factors to consider.)