[X] My Assistant

[Sarge]

Should human cloning be allowed? By which I mean, anything from simple organ cloning to cloning entire human bodies.

I don't know much about this debate, so I'm going to let you guys take it away and jump in whenever I feel ready.

[Kai Reddtail]

Nobody has ever found an argument to convince me against it yet. Mostly I see this phrase: "They're playing god."
But I don;t believe in a god, so that's not going to convince me any. It's potentially very helpful and it doesn't hurt anybody, correct me if I'm wrong.

I don't see why not.

[King Calamity]

Nay

i may not fully believe in any god, but i do believe that cloning is wrong to a certain extent. i can understand if someone were to be brought back from a wrongful death, like if they were murdered or died of some terrible accident. however, the cloning would be TOTALLY taken advantage of by humans. we would use it to bring back old people who died of natural causes and really dont need to come back at all, not to mention the clones could be altered in some way to fit the needs of someone else, which could be used for evil intentions, not to mention, we already have a population problem as it is. how would keeping everyone alive help that at all? has anyone else seen the movie called "The 6th Day"? watch it and youll know what im saying. the power to bring back any human is something that man is not mature enough to use without exploiting it, some people were just meant to stay dead, and thats the way it is.

This post has been edited by The Enigmatic Trainer: Jun 3 2009, 01:34 AM

[Tiamat]

Depends on the purpose. I don't care about organs being grown to replace organs, but entire humans? You'd better damn well treat them like people, because clones aren't just copy-pastes of the original. They have their own personalities, like identical twins.

But if you're just cloning an organ/tissues? Knock yourself out. Preferably before I get to the point where I need it. *half expects autoimmune issues due to family history*

TET: Clones don't have the same personalities/memories as the original. :| Do research into cloning rather then just believing what the media throws at you. The media is WRONG.

This post has been edited by Tiamat: Jun 3 2009, 07:02 AM

[Flamer]

Yeah, Tiamat's right, you can't use a clone to bring people back from the dead. Also, you can't just replicate something there and then. It needs time to grow, just like any human.

Also, I may be wrong about this, but I don't believe there is anyway to clone a indivdual organ/tissue by itself. Like I said above, clonning doesn't just magically make a duplicate appear, and I'm not quite sure how a liver, heart etc could grow outside of a human body. Surely you'd have to make a full clone of the human and then just take the bits you need?

I might be completly wrong about all of this. I no longer do biology, and we only touched on clonning during GCSEs. To be honest some facts in the first post may have been helpful for this debate. But, if my understanding of it is right, then my answer would be a defintive no, for the obvious reason that you can't just one life to save another.

[King Calamity]

Depends on the purpose. I don't care about organs being grown to replace organs, but entire humans? You'd better damn well treat them like people, because clones aren't just copy-pastes of the original. They have their own personalities, like identical twins.

But if you're just cloning an organ/tissues? Knock yourself out. Preferably before I get to the point where I need it. *half expects autoimmune issues due to family history*

TET: Clones don't have the same personalities/memories as the original. :| Do research into cloning rather then just believing what the media throws at you. The media is WRONG.

if anyone knows how wrong the media always is, its me, i dont listen to them for unbiased facts because they dont have any. fox is republican and everything else is democratic and the drive-by media.

but if they cant have memories and such as the originals like you said, that only proves my point even further that they could be manipulated for someone elses wrong doing. you just actually help prove my point.
so my point stands, clones is something humans arent mature enough to use because we would completely exploit it.

This post has been edited by The Enigmatic Trainer: Jun 3 2009, 12:10 PM

[Flamer]

I'm sure we would exploit it, but I don't know how bad the exploition would be. I don't think we're going to see any 'clone armies' popping up to be honest. Unlike in Star Wars, real clones won't be completly obident drones. They will be just like any other humans. Granted, if thier rasied in a certain enviorment they will most likly turn out a certain way, but you could bring that argument forward for normal human beings. Also, I do think that in general the human race does have principles. I think raising clones to be soliders or whatever would have such large ethical impacts that goverments would never get away with it. And in the poorer countires where they most likely would, well, they're poor countries, and therefore won't have the resources to create armies of clones.

[TTD]

Organ cloning is fine, but a full human, I say nay. Those clones could and most likely will be used for war. After the wars are done, where do they go? They will take up room wherever they go. If they come to live among us, there will be no more housing room. And what will they be like? If you have watched Casshern, you would have an idea. If you have seen Star Wars, you would have another idea. I say no way to full human cloning.

EDIT: Plus, making clones is like playing GOD, and being that I am Calvinist Christian, I believe those that play god should go to hell.

This post has been edited by Renji Tsukyomi: Jun 3 2009, 03:41 PM

[Sarge]

i may not fully believe in any god, but i do believe that cloning is wrong to a certain extent. i can understand if someone were to be brought back from a wrongful death, like if they were murdered or died of some terrible accident.

How do you know you would really be bringing that person back? A clone is basicly a twin, but twins have individual sentience. If you pinch twin A twin B will not feel it (unless they are conjoined).

I've thought about this a lot, and it seems to me that achieving 'immortality' with full human cloning is impossible. You would still die, but you would be replaced by a carbon copy of yourself. It looks like you, it talks like you, it might even think like you - but it still isn't your conciousness in there.

EDIT: Tiamat is right, though even if you could create a clone ala The 6th Day, it still wouldn't be the same person, which I think is one of the points in that movie.

This post has been edited by Sarge: Jun 3 2009, 05:06 PM

[Atom]

I agree with Tiamat about cloning organs. It seems like just another way to get organs rather than having to completely depend on organ donors. I'm all for it.

I'm not too sure about full human cloning though. As has been said, a clone would basically be a twin, so hoping to get the "original person" back is simply impossible. The clone has its own personality and experiences separate of the other person.

What reason is there to clone a whole person anyway? Even if there are no valid arguments against it (and I don't know much about the cloning debate either, so I'm not knowledgeable about any of the arguments really), are there any good arguments for it?

[aythrea]

You said something that I'd like to focus on. In the process of cloning, one's memories and personality aren't captured. It's not simply taking a snapshot of someone since experiences make our life. That said, if say James (random name) dies, and is cloned, James2.0 could easily go by as Kieth, or some other persona. It's really just twinning in the long run.

Nay

i may not fully believe in any god, but i do believe that cloning is wrong to a certain extent. i can understand if someone were to be brought back from a wrongful death, like if they were murdered or died of some terrible accident. however, the cloning would be TOTALLY taken advantage of by humans. we would use it to bring back old people who died of natural causes and really dont need to come back at all, not to mention the clones could be altered in some way to fit the needs of someone else, which could be used for evil intentions, not to mention, we already have a population problem as it is. how would keeping everyone alive help that at all? has anyone else seen the movie called "The 6th Day"? watch it and youll know what im saying. the power to bring back any human is something that man is not mature enough to use without exploiting it, some people were just meant to stay dead, and thats the way it is.

[shadowpuppette]

Also, I do think that in general the human race does have principles.

Not really, the human race is just more subtle about it than in Hollywood movies.

But seriously, full-human cloning rubs me the wrong way. I'll do more research on it, but for now... we have too many damn people in the world in the first place, there's no need to create physical replicas of people.

[Kareki]

Umm.. hmm... my opinion.. I'm not strongly opinionated, but...
Awesome science... but spooky lol. I'm not sure about it, but wow what leaps in science.

[Reyo]

My view on it is that if something has such potential for benefit, why dent it for reasons that are not held on the same scientific principle? So far, the best excuse I've heard for denying human closing is "It's unnatural" "It's immoral" "It's playing God" or even "It's just plain wrong." You shouldn't be judging scientific situations with moral standings. Human cloning is a science. You need advanced knowledge in Genetics, Biology, Anatomy and oh so much more. Why should a field that requires such knowledge be denyed for reasons that wouldn't hold to the same scientific community? NASA wouldn't halt the space program if a religious zealot were to walk into the CEO's office, slap the guys wrist and say "Space flight is immoral" would they?

[Dazmi]

Organ cloning. You can make new hearts, livers, maybe even food without having to kill another being. We're not at that point yet, but it's a nice idea.

Cloning entire beings... I have nothing against it. If we perfect it and we're able to chose if we're cloned or not...then why not?

This post has been edited by JohnRichard1991: May 17 2010, 09:09 PM

[Flamer]

My view on it is that if something has such potential for benefit, why dent it for reasons that are not held on the same scientific principle? So far, the best excuse I've heard for denying human closing is "It's unnatural" "It's immoral" "It's playing God" or even "It's just plain wrong." You shouldn't be judging scientific situations with moral standings. Human cloning is a science. You need advanced knowledge in Genetics, Biology, Anatomy and oh so much more. Why should a field that requires such knowledge be denyed for reasons that wouldn't hold to the same scientific community? NASA wouldn't halt the space program if a religious zealot were to walk into the CEO's office, slap the guys wrist and say "Space flight is immoral" would they?

I think thats a bit of a flawed argument. Morals does not equal religion. You don't have to believe in a God to be able to say what is right and what is wrong. Secondly, don't you think some morals in science would be a good thing. Look at atomic boms. They're brilliant pieces of science, and carry what they're made to do very effictivly. But thats just the problem. They're too good at what they do. If people had some morals when making them, a lot of lives would have been saved. Now this is just an example, and I don't what to get into a debate about atomic boms, but at the end of the day, scientist don't operate in a vacum, and they need to consider the implications of thier creations. I personally think moral arguments are just as valid as scientific ones when it comes to subjects such as this.

[Reyo]

My view on it is that if something has such potential for benefit, why dent it for reasons that are not held on the same scientific principle? So far, the best excuse I've heard for denying human closing is "It's unnatural" "It's immoral" "It's playing God" or even "It's just plain wrong." You shouldn't be judging scientific situations with moral standings. Human cloning is a science. You need advanced knowledge in Genetics, Biology, Anatomy and oh so much more. Why should a field that requires such knowledge be denyed for reasons that wouldn't hold to the same scientific community? NASA wouldn't halt the space program if a religious zealot were to walk into the CEO's office, slap the guys wrist and say "Space flight is immoral" would they?

I think thats a bit of a flawed argument. Morals does not equal religion. You don't have to believe in a God to be able to say what is right and what is wrong. Secondly, don't you think some morals in science would be a good thing. Look at atomic boms. They're brilliant pieces of science, and carry what they're made to do very effictivly. But thats just the problem. They're too good at what they do. If people had some morals when making them, a lot of lives would have been saved. Now this is just an example, and I don't what to get into a debate about atomic boms, but at the end of the day, scientist don't operate in a vacum, and they need to consider the implications of thier creations. I personally think moral arguments are just as valid as scientific ones when it comes to subjects such as this.

Hold up, I think you misunderstand. I know that morals need to be considered when performing scientific actions, but if you're going to use morals as an excuse to not do something, then the reason needs to be better then just "It's wrong." At least with the atomic bomb, people had excuses like radiation, the massive amounts of damage caused by the explosion and the use of dangerous materials. I agree, we're not robots, but moral reasons need to be held on the same standard as scientific reasoning. Now if someone were to say that it's bad because the clones have a 70% risk of homicidal behavior, then I would understand, but so far all anyone says on the matter is "It's immoral" without giving reasons as to why it's "immoral."

Humans were given these advanced thinking capabilities to be able to understand and explain about 90% of the universe. Surely we can explain why we believe something is "immoral."

[Flamer]

Opinions on whats immoral and what not differ from person to person. I personally think that its immoral to create life just to serve the needs of another being, something which clonning may well be used for. Also, I believe its immoral to force peope to do something against there will, or 'brainwash' them into obidence, something that will likely happen if 'clone armies' are created. After all, if your created to be a solider, then I don't see you'll have much option not to be one. Continiing with the whole 'clone army' thing, I think its immoral to create a being with the sole intention for it to kill others.

Whilst I'm don't believe it being unatural is a good excuse of why not to do it, (after all, we do many many unatural things already), it is unatural. And by this I mean life isn't naturally created in a test tube or whatever.

So yeah, I think the arguements against it are far more than complex than, 'its immoral' or 'its unatural'. There are infact reasons people say such things. Whether these reasons are right or not is a completly different matter, but it is safe to say that arguments about the ethics of something can't be proved with stats or figures. They are very much personal opinions, and simple statements do tend to have reasoning behind them

[Reyo]

Opinions on whats immoral and what not differ from person to person. I personally think that its immoral to create life just to serve the needs of another being, something which clonning may well be used for. Also, I believe its immoral to force peope to do something against there will, or 'brainwash' them into obidence, something that will likely happen if 'clone armies' are created. After all, if your created to be a solider, then I don't see you'll have much option not to be one. Continiing with the whole 'clone army' thing, I think its immoral to create a being with the sole intention for it to kill others.

Whilst I'm don't believe it being unatural is a good excuse of why not to do it, (after all, we do many many unatural things already), it is unatural. And by this I mean life isn't naturally created in a test tube or whatever.

So yeah, I think the arguements against it are far more than complex than, 'its immoral' or 'its unatural'. There are infact reasons people say such things. Whether these reasons are right or not is a completly different matter, but it is safe to say that arguments about the ethics of something can't be proved with stats or figures. They are very much personal opinions, and simple statements do tend to have reasoning behind them

Then you would be one of the more logically thinking individuals to debate this subject. I've had a church lady stand up in front of my church congregation and say "It's wrong, it's immoral, and it goes against GOD!" for five minutes and nothing else. Those are the types of people I'm talking about, not you. And there are obviously some drawbacks to the science of cloning, but the same can be said about any type of science. An example could be the science of curing some ailments that plague the human race. So far, the best known FDA approved "cure" for most bacterial infections is to use an antibiotic. You take a pill and tyhe sickness is gone, right? There's a drawback to this. Using antibiotics to cure some bacterial infections has been known to cause those bacterial infections to develop immunities to the drugs. The infections are becoming "superbugs." Thanks to the creation and use of antibiotics more resilient strains of some horrible bacterial infections are coming to existence. Does this mean we should halt the use of antibiotics?

And let me ask you something...what if someone were to create life for the purpose of saving even more life? What if someone were to create a type of microscopic organism that is able cure someones terminal cancer? Is that immoral?

One more question, if these sciences are so "evil", why does God allow them to exist? If I didn't see something as right and was able to make it go away (being omnipotent), why wouldn't I?

[King Calamity]

i may not fully believe in any god, but i do believe that cloning is wrong to a certain extent. i can understand if someone were to be brought back from a wrongful death, like if they were murdered or died of some terrible accident.

How do you know you would really be bringing that person back? A clone is basicly a twin, but twins have individual sentience. If you pinch twin A twin B will not feel it (unless they are conjoined).

I've thought about this a lot, and it seems to me that achieving 'immortality' with full human cloning is impossible. You would still die, but you would be replaced by a carbon copy of yourself. It looks like you, it talks like you, it might even think like you - but it still isn't your conciousness in there.

EDIT: Tiamat is right, though even if you could create a clone ala The 6th Day, it still wouldn't be the same person, which I think is one of the points in that movie.

ive aparently already been proven wrong about them having the same memories, which i was never completely sure about in the first place. MY point is that the clones could DEFINATELY be used to replace other people in the world and not even have anyone else know about it. imagine if china were to create a clone of Obama and raised it to replace our president secretly and take down the entire US from the inside. that is a COMPLETLEY possible senario if we had clones.

You said something that I'd like to focus on. In the process of cloning, one's memories and personality aren't captured. It's not simply taking a snapshot of someone since experiences make our life. That said, if say James (random name) dies, and is cloned, James2.0 could easily go by as Kieth, or some other persona. It's really just twinning in the long run.

even so, my point that im making above still stands.