Welcome to our ENGL 10600I blog discussion about various exciting topics.
Our first topic for the semester is Cloning revealed through the following three articles brought to you by Xue:
http://www.dhushara.com/book/genes/genaug/mar98/fclon.htm
http://www.rpi.edu/dept/chem-eng/Biotech-Environ/cloning/bioEthics1.html (be sure to follow all the three links at the end of the page), and
http://www.humancloning.org/allthe.php
Your assignment is to read through the following three articles, create your 20-word list, then post your comments and opinion on what you read and on the topic in general.
The deadline for this topic is Friday, January 23.
Have fun and take care,
Kinga
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13 comments:
Cloning to me appears to be an extremely fascinating topic. I consider it extremely controversial. I personally have always had a specific feeling towards the topic, and by reading the articles presented above my beliefs on the topic grew stronger. I strongly believe that it is not a human’s role, like God, to create and give life to a so-called “created” human body. I believe that God alone has the power to grant a body with life, and take away that life from that body. Now cloning is also ethically wrong due to the problems that may arise in the future.
Now if someone wants to clone a person they loved who has passed away. They are simply being selfish to bringing that person back to life again once he has been taken away from it. Because we are all meant to lose the ones we love to know how much they mean to us. Even though that person will not have the same soul as the person who has left, but the idea of creating a duplicate is just morally wrong.
Another problem with cloning is diseases. Medical illnesses and diseases may be carried in the bodies of these “uncreated” creatures. Thus, once they are released into the world, they may either suffer from an illness they carry, or transfer the disease or sickness to another person.
Now for many of you who don’t know the fears or extent of the severity of the topic, you should seriously consider watching the movie, Godsend, starring Robert De Niro. It ill show you some of the aspects and seriousness of cloning.
I believe cloning is an extremely controversial subject. It borders on a morally grey area. I approve cloning of some animals, perhaps livestock to preserve the quality of a certain type of animal. For example, cloning of cows which produce high quality beef would be fine, however as soon as genetic manipulation and cloning approaches humans, I believe that it is immoral. Who are we to play god?
I know some people cannot accept some problems they may face, death of a loved one for example, however if that person is cloned back to life, can you honestly say that he or she is the same person? Sometimes problems bring out the best in people. It forces you to experience new things and it usually ends up as a lesson for the person. Cloning a person will just be an easy way out which does not solve any problems. Cloning also brings up the problem of stolen identity. If a person is cloned, he/she may not have the same personality as the original person. If a crime is commited by a clone, the true person may be prosecuted or vice versa. The clone may end up as an excuse to commit crime. Anyway as long as cloning stays away from humans, I am ok with that
With the development of society, technology becomes more and more advanced due to mankind's curiosity. Several decades ago, cloning was a mysterious technology, but nowadays, it is known by most people even in my high school biology textbook. I was interested in biology, especially genetics, when I was in high school, so I studied hard on biology and learnt quite a lot about cloning. I became an advocate for cloning as long as it is used for human's development. Someone often worries that the world will be disordered if human is cloned. In my opinion, this view is somewhat ridiculous because most scientists pay more attention to medical research rather than just create an identical man. Nowadays, people suffer from more and more severe diseases. Scientists can polarize stem cells of a patient to form some certain organs so that they can save people's lives. This technology is also called clone. So I suggest everyone should always think about good aspects. I believe clone will be accepted by more people in the future.
Cloning is a really controversial topic to be discussed about. From the religious perspective, it is almost a clear cut that cloning should be prohibited. However, from the social and ethical point of views, it is rather ambiguous. I have just one opinion to summarize all the of point I would like to say about this. By cloning, I am afraid that human will be reduced to just a simple technology product or scientific 'robot'.
Taking example of cloning to replace a husband and only son of a family that died in a car accident, leaving the mother as a widow, cloning will replace this loss, and allow the widow to live happily, and perhaps easier than the way she should live with the loss.
Humans will not gain determination, perseverance and ability to survive in harsher condition, as they will be complacent, as something, even human life, can be replaced easily, just by scientific research.
Another problem that I am afraid will happen, is that since the value of human being is degraded, crime may increase, as just to get some easy money, people will not be afraid to kill, or do genocide, as human beings is reduced to a level of just a technology product that can be produced and replaced easily.
I personally refuse the idea of having my friend came to me and saying that the other me is better that I am. Will you agree the idea that you have to be eliminated because you are less fit and less able compared to your perfected clone, hence you have to be replaced from your privileges and all life that you have been through, to your clones? Having two same 'product' will degrade the overall value of it, just like in the economy market, having surplus will cause the price to go down. Hence, as currently we are the only one exist in the real world with our own names and characteristics, we are precious. Human cloning should never ever exist
From the very day(July 5,1996) on which the first man-made creature (Dolly) was successfully "copied" using a method called cloning(which is probably "copy" in some sort of ancient language), we humans have faced, discussed, and argued a very controversial question that is shall we ever "copy" a human-being using this very method and is that ethic? From my perspective, there's no easy "yes" or "no" answer to this question. We have to take many factors into consideration before give a case-specific judgement which suit the certain circumstance best.
For instance, if a very promising but dying(resulting from accident or incurable disease) scientist needs more time to accomplish something that is very important to our human-beings(such as practical fusion power plant), we may want to clone him/her.
However, if a clone is needed by someone who just "want a child" or something, we may not let him/her do it. It is be better for him/her to adopt a child than clone one from the whole societies' perspective.
All in all, whether shall we use cloning or not should base on the specific circumstance.
I have always wondered how it would be to find myself somewhere I go. By myself I mean me, Diego Casanova. It would shocking, in every single way. What I mean by this is that every person is supposed to be unique, a human being not alike to anyone or anything else. So, morally speaking, I sincerely think cloning is wrong, because it goes against what I think is one of the principles of life: uniqueness. The article that I liked the most was the one about the different point of views of different types of person, like gay people, twins, infertile parents, among others. It was interesting to see different points of view depending on the needs of a person. But the controversy comes when talking about medicine, and how diseases con be treated in the future if they test it with cloning. I don’t know what to say about this, because the benefits it will provide would be really improving. Anyway, the easier and faster way is not the right way all the time. I think that some moral principles are got to be kept in all human history, now at the present and in the future. Another thing that was commented in one of the articles was that cloning could give another opportunity to people that did not have a good life. My question about this is, cloning a person will crate an exact same person? is that really another opportunity or is a new opportunity? we don’t know, and there is no way to prove it. I think that is not in our hands the possibility of creating life, life is a gift of whatever created us and we cannot play to be it. Respect has to be in everything. Human cloning is not in our hands.
Since cloning is a topic that people are most interested in, it is used a lot in movies and fantasy fictions, and still attract public attention. During watching movies, I never thought it's possible in the real world. However, it becomes a serious issue as a matter of fact. From medical point of view, cloning will be very useful. Doctors can cure many diseases that cannot be cured nowadays, such as cancer, AIDS, and other rare diseases. Moreover, they do not need to revive damaged external or internal organs of human body. All they are doing is replace damaged organs with new organs of clone. Then, the average life expectancy of human will be extended by 50years at least or more than that. It will make a lot of moral questions and social problems. We should start to think about this seriously.
Whether it is legal or not to clone human beings is always a very controversial topic. In my point of view, the development of science is an irresistible trend, so promulgate a law to ban human clone is useless. Nobody can deny the benefit of human clone. Thousands of parents are suffering from losing children. They want have children who look same as their previous ones. Also, many infertile couples want clone technology to give them a genetically related child. Even more patients who are suffering from different kinds of organic failure want clone technology to help them cure their disease. Of course, the benefits of human clone are more than these. How can we refuse the benefits brought by such a advanced technology? Is it just because our moral level is not high enough to restrict our behavior? If the answer is yes, it will be too pathetic to us. I think only prohibition is not enough, what we need to do is to lead the development of human clone towards the direction we want it to go. I always believe that one day we can use clone technology to clone whatever we want. But if our moral level is not high enough or the law is not perfect enough to prevent this technology from being abused by the evil, my suggestion is slowing down the research in this area. I hope that such an advanced technology can be used properly.
The article about the cloning that I’ve just read is really interesting. There are pro and contra about this new technology which is to legalized it or not. Some people said that the cloning really contradict with the God religious advice and bible. In other hand, some people said that it is no problem to do that, we can see from the article that a woman lost her only son and husband in an accident and she missed them so much and live by herself right now. In my opinion cloning should be prohibited to human being because, as I’m a religious person I know that every people will be die at their time when they are old and we can’t trespass this fact that the God give to us. Nobody is immortal. That’s the cycle of the world, born and died. Can you imagine if there are a lot of people who are identical? The world absolutely will be unbalanced and world population is going to increase.
When I think of human cloning, I think about the movie "Island".In that movie, the huge medical company made rich people's clones for their medical emergency. Therefore, when a rich person get sick, a doctor would replace a rich person's bad organ with a clone's healthy organ. It is good idea and if cloning work successfuly, this movie can come true. However, in the movie, one of clone meets a person who has same face, and DNA. Think about it. How would you feel if you meet a person who is exactly like you?
I would feel that it is not right. Humanbeing is very special. Even twins are not same. It can cause so many social problems.
As far as the implications of cloning go, lets leave that out for a second. One fine morning I am walking down the street; I come to an intersection and I run into my clone coming from the adjacent road. I cannot help but wonder what my thoughts, impressions or feelings would be seeing myself leading a different life. By different life I refer to a better, even fascinating one (when it comes to humans; the grass is always greener on the other side). Well, that is just me being selfish. But talking about the whole idea in general is a totally new realm.
What fascinates me most is the idea of playing God; or even just pretending to be God; since we are not sure if souls are created by a clone. I believe, cloning would change our lives in a good way, only if it is used in the case of saving a life; not creating one. Living things that have the gift of life, need to comprehend its essence, importance and how amazing it is. That will never be possible if we do not fear of losing it.
Saving lives is a great act. If this involves, cloning a damaged organ, a body part or anything that does not breathe or think by itself, I believe is fine as far as ethics and morality goes. Some people consider cloning as a mean of bringing back extinct creatures. True, it would be a noble act. But, they are extinct, surely for a reason; that is how the cycle of life works. However, if extinction of a specie, results from any excessive and brutal intervention from humans, cloning is definitely an answer. We do not have the right to kill. But, if there is a way to correct it, I believe we should take it.
Cloning is one of the biggest issue that can be discussed in many different way. It is very interesting and controversial, there are lots of voice to this topic. Is cloning ethical? This question is the biggetest concern about this. Cloning is such a fresh and shocking technology of Science. Cloning a human is like creating a human being.In a religious perspective it i not right but for who have lost there loved one or a cuple who are infertile, cloning can be very helpful. Also, there can be people who will "use" human clone in inmoral way.
I don't really agree to human cloning. Even though, by this research, there will be huge evolution in Science for better life and technology, I think it can bring disaster and shock to the world if human clone and "normal" human coexist in one world.
Since the very first time when the cloning had issued, there have been a lot of controversies about its validity. I also have thought about this problem many times, but I never had an answer, because, I think the validity of this problem is totally depending on how you think. The cloning can dramatically improve the level of the genetic-related studies. However, on the other hand it also can oppose human rights because the clones of us are also humans. I somethimes think, what if there are more than one of I in this world? That's pretty scary! Because he can do whatever he wants as another I, while I don't even notice and I might be the one who takes care of what he has done as I. Well, I personally think that by the time a human can make another human without reproducing, humans are no longer humans. By then, humans will treat other humans like dogs or cats that everyone can buy with money and the world will be extremely chaotic.
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