Here is our 7th blog topic, cloning/human cloning proposed by two of your colleagues, Yatin and Xiaomeng. And here are the articles to read in order to form a knowledgeable opinion about the topic:
http://www.actionbioscience.org/biotech/mcgee.html,
http://www.creationdefense.org/106.htm,
http://mensnewsdaily.com/archive/c-e/epstein/2005/epstein052305.htm, and
http://www.publicpolicy.umd.edu/IPPP/Fall97Report/cloning.htm.
You have until November 7, next Friday to read the articles, compose your list, and post your comment.
Happy Halloween,
Kinga
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13 comments:
I really despise cloning. The articles where pro cloning but they did not manage to change my contempt for cloning in any way. The only part of cloning that would appeal to me is the benefits it might provide for humanity. But, the articles failed to mention those in detail.
The two benefits from cloning mentioned in the articles where: increased food supply by genetically enhanced crops, and clones might provide organs to humans. Both benefits were barely mentioned in the article, since the articles dealt more with the ethical values related to cloning instead of the physical. However, mentioning the benefits in more detail would have been a really strong suit for the author’s to defend their stance towards cloning.
The author’s contradicted themselves often. In two of the articles, the author’s allege that clones have souls and should be treated as humanely as possible. Further down the article, the authors mention how clones could donate organs, hence implying the idea of systematic clone manufacturing for use of their organs, i.e. the most inhumanely treatment possible.
Not even the authors are sure what to make of cloning. Their contradictions indicate that they are unsure. Unlike them, I am sure that cloning is incredibly stupid. According to the articles I have read from respected scientist and not from liberal media, cloning leads to nothing good, at least, until now. Even if in the future scientists achieve immense benefits through cloning, it would not surprise me if they are accompanied by worst secondary effects.
Cloning is one of the most disturbing issue i have come across. I really applaud the scientists efforts to come to a point where they can control the traits and many other things of tht unborn baby. But i am strongly against the fact that we should do cloning to destroy the life.
It is unethical and cruel to perform various tests on the cloned baby, it does not matter wheather it is human or animal. However, in the case of plants cloning proves very helpful because we can eliminate the diseased plants from the plant and can increase the yeild per capita. This cannot be applied to the animals because if we elliminate the disease genes the mortality will decreased and that can bring a very adverse aftermath. it is always better to do things naturally without interfering The Nature.
I do not want to talk about in the religious point of view because religion is very dear to most of us and it can be very controversial to include religion in this. We should approach this topic scientifically and with common sense.
Analyzing the information I've just read from the articles, I am against the cloning. Cloning should not be used as an alternate way of human production, even on a small scale. In my opinion, a full-fledged use of cloning technology is prohibited because it may cause lots of problems. Maybe cloning is permissible in case of plants as well as in case of animals except human beings. The extension of cloning to human beings would create extremely complex and intractable social and moral problems. It may cause disruption in nature, due to possibilities of overpopulation and famine. Cloning is not perfect, most clones are with defects and the major reason is that cloning is unnatural - a way of reproduction that is contrary to what God has given humans. I am totally for development of science, but not for cloning humans.
Human cloning is a new reproductive technology. It will be another option of create baby. As far as I know, ethical standards changed though out the history. And a new technique often became a target of public attack. For example after X-ray had been put forward, many critics use moral standards to blame Roentgen who discovered X-ray. Because they held the view that if the X-ray been wildly used, the women cannot protect they bodies from be seen. But nowadays, the X-ray has been known as an effective way to disease diagnosing. So I think the human cloning will be used as a kind of treatment one day, though this technique is not mature. When it is proved safety in the future, it will be a new treatment to sterility and give couples another option to have a child. I myself do not appreciate attaching religion meaning to scientific research.
Cloning as a new technology has been exsisted in the world for a long time ,and people discuss it all the time. I think cloning is not a mature technology now even
it has been created by lot of scientists and there are some succeful examples in animal cloning, but i am still worried about human cloning, which is not as simple as animal cloning.Image that, if a child is born as a genetic copy of another, this child will face lots problems, how this child intergrate into the society, and how people accept this child are very serious problems. And cloning itself is not a mature technology, the aricles showed that the genetic copy of animals, but they are all short-lived, if this happens in a child who is cloned, i don't think this child will be worth living. And for instance, the fear that a clone would not be an "individual"
but merely a "carbon copy" of someone else, genes determine everything about us, and that environmental factors or the random events in human development are insignificant.
I don’t agree with the concept of cloning, as it is not only a biological and medical risk to the clone but also psychological and social risk as well. Cloning deprives the cloned child of his natural parents, for he does not have parents in the usual sense of the world. From a genetic point of view, the biological parents of the clone are the parents of the nuclear donor and the clone’s sociological grandparents. These changed relations will have an emotional and therefore developmental impact on the clone. Therefore, human cloning will clearly disturb family relationships in a serious way. It is hard to justify such large-scale disruption (both at the familial and societal level) for the rare case when parents wish to reproduce a child who died at a young age. Confusion regarding family relationships is not good for children, who benefit from stable families. Even though, voices are against the human cloning, the progress of cloning technology is still growing.
In discussion, the definition is the most important thing. People has different definitions on everything and arguing is an way of exchanging those definitions. Let me define a organism, it is a living matter, “living” means something that is subjective on change, in other words, cause of change or leading change. Humans, who knows how to use materials or other organisms, are living. However, their skills have developed and we call this skill “technology”. This skill is at the level which can control make their own, not reproduce. But technology itself is not bad, I think cloning cannot be useful to anything because it is just new process of reproduction. As long as clone, is treated and accepted as a human, not a thing, there is no problem. What is a difference between having a baby out of a tube and having a baby in the incubator? As long as it is used in right purpose, it is moral.
I think that there is nothing wrong with cloning unless it doesn't harm the environment. The articles provide good piece of knowledge on cloning, its benefits and disadvantages. Particularly, the last article discussed the issue in detail and even mentioned some useful outcomes of cloning. Some of the ways in which human cloning might prove useful are:
* Consider a terminally ill child who can only be saved by a bone marrow transplant. A human being cloned from the cells of the dying child can prove to be a perfect match for bone marrow transplant.
* Somatic cell nuclear transfer might also be used in the future to create skin grafts for people who are severely burned.
* Somatic cell nuclear transfer could potentially be used to cure diseases by replacing a defective gene in a person’s body with a normal gene.
If cloning can save a life, why not go for it? We shouldn't start discouraging human cloning by just looking at its bad side. Every thing has a good and bad side. We can’t brush aside the negative aspects that cloning poses, but we can just try to extract the positive points and dump the negative ones.
zAs a human being, I think everyone should have his specific existence in the world. Because we are emotional beings, although cloning is one of the biggest invention of this century, but I think we should not just marvelling at the significance of the science, but we should pay more attention on the moral case. There’s no a mature law of cloning released out, and I am really worried about cloning. Though we can get some benefits from it, but if cloning is used illegally, the results may beyond everyone’s imagination. Furthermore, suppose a man is born by cloning, what would he feel that he has no natural parents? The only relation between him and his parents is just some genetic similarity, and what about the man who is been cloned? I think cloning is acceptable while it is used for curing disease. But to this case, I believe, a specific law is needed.
Personally, I am neutral to the cloning and human cloning issue. I believe cloning can be used in many good ways. However, people should understand why the nature has been evolving toward complexity and diversity. In long term, cloning can bring negative result in long term.
Jared Diamond’s bestselling book “Guns Germs and Steel” emphasizes the importance of diversity. In science, having diversity means “More chance to survive”. For example, if all the members of a species share exactly the same genetic code, as clones, they will be extremely vulnerable to epidemic. However, since there is the genetic diversity even in the same species, some members can resist against the epidemic and survive while others die; eventually, that species can survive. Because every individual has different genetic code, survival possibility of that species goes up. If every people has the same genes, history of humanity might be ended at 14th century; when black death spread over the world.
I, as the proposer of the topic, waiting two days after the deadline of this topic to conclude my opinion, is because the topic itself is controversial enough, but the opinions my colleagues hold is far more compelling. Analyzing the every body's idea is the thing hat I really want to do.
As far as I observed, in the ten person who joined this discussion, the opinion is controversial and diverse. Among them, four people clearly stated their attitude of "against human cloning". And five of them consider further developments need to be discussed when applying this technology, such as the maturity of this technology, relative laws, and the purpose of use. Only one person I saw a potential attitude of conceding the cloning.
According to this statics, I found that most people hold their attitude of neutral. On one hand, they did agree that this new technology could bring the development of human race medically. On the other hand, they questioned the side effect of using it, ethically or biologically.
Another interesting study of my colleagues is the relationship of their opinions and their background. Students major in science or biology related are easier to understand the benefit of human cloning. The students with religions are more possible to show negative attitude of this technology since it strongly challenged their religions. These observations give me a idea that education and religions are the factors influence people's opinion of human cloning most.
In order to give people a clear view of the human cloning, we should not only increase their education of it, but also provide more religious concerns.
Cloning is referred to as the process of making multiple copies of a DNA fragment (gene of interest) or making multiple copies of an organism, most commonly bacteria. This is a highly effective technique used in various biological experiments to study gene structure and function. Invention of cloning definitely revolutionized biological research. But how effective is human cloning? Firstly, human embryonic cells would be used for research and therapeutic purposes, the fetus would not be used not be used. The embryo is a collection of cells, that will specialize further development various organs and tissues to actually form the fetus. So the cells that are used are not the developed baby, they could develop into a fetus in the future, hence there is no "killing" involved. Now these extracted cells from the embryo are stem cells and have tremendous scope in medicine as they have the ability to divide and differentiate to form different specialized cells. Hence lets look at a scenario where a person have a particular disease condition which can be cured through stem cells. So now can we let him die, by letting the embryo grow, which is not even living, it only has the potential to live, but is not currently living? According to all religion, killing life is a sin. So many people loose their lives because of certain diseases, now if stem cell research can prevent this then how is it bad? And no one is playing God here either, scientists are not creating entire babies and killing them or using them for research.
I have always had a negative attitude towards the cloning topic. After reading these articles, I have learned more in depth the process of cloning. With the scientific process, comes the moral and ethical issues of this controversial move. The fact the humans can be created in a lab is very freaky to me. Why would anyone want to do that?
The reality is that cloning is becoming a regular process when speaking of other animals. The food industry sees it as a very profitable move since it alters the ending result of a regular animal. Animals like chicken and fish are genetically engineered to grow bigger faster, so it's definitely convinient. I personally eat free ranged foods, proving my support against animal and human cloning. This is a minor example when compared to human cloning. If a couple has fertility problems, and cannot conceive a child, I don't believe cloning has to be an option. What would they do if there was no technology for this? Find a way to fulfill their wish, without altering a natural circle, like adoption. Cloning is morally, ethically, and everything incorrect!
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