The ethics of cloning/genetic engineering

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Adam

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Registered Senior Member
As you all know, Clonaid, a company run by the Raelians, claims to have produced a cloned human. Also, an Italian doctor claims to have a clone baby coming soon.

My aunt has osteo-genesis imperfecta. All doctors attribute this to the nuclear weapons used in Japan and those tested in Australia, as it never showed up before in any of our family and has developed only in one of her children. Prior to the nukes, there were two cases in the world, so she says, and now it's all over the place. It started from that aunt, and is now in her bloodline; no other family members show markers for it. She has broken bones hundreds of times throughout her life, breaks ribs by sneezing, et cetera. She has lived most of her life in a wheelchair or on crutches. She absolutely loves the idea of genetically screening such problems out of all humans.

I have heard of cases in which deaf parents, for example, which to deliberately make their child born deaf, or else refuse treatment which would give the child hearing.

Think of all the hereditary illnesses out there. And birth defects such as malformed hearts and missing limbs and more. Eventually, if the religious nutters and self-proclaimed ethical experts stop sticking their uneducated noses in, these problems will be eradicated.

Would all this knowledge and ability be used to wipe out white people so there is only one pure black race or some such idiocy? I think most scientists are smart enough to reailse that the human race has the greatest change of survival long into the future if there remains great diversity. Politicians and businessmen may be stupid enough to try it, though; in fact insurance companies in England tried as early as two years ago to introduce genetic testing for new clients to decide what the insurance policies would be. Yay Gattaca.

Through genetic engineering we will soon be able to replace or regenerate damaged body parts. Perhaps eventually if we cut a finger off it will simply grow back as we watch.

The important points:
- We can eradicate very nasty problems.
- Scientists, I would think, a smart enough to realise we need variety.
- Politicians and businesses may abuse the ability.
- The benefits for health and medicine are just groovy.

So, what are your thoughts on the matter?
 
i say we should only procreate the all natural way:D unless there is no other possible way to have a (Your name here) Junior then I dont think its ethical
 
But there is nothing particularly special about nature. Nature is just something that has taken billions of years to get to this point.

With intelligent intervention we can now make our own choices and not be ruled by a largely random and long winded process, known as nature.
 
i say we should only procreate the all natural way unless there is no other possible way to have a (Your name here) Junior then I dont think its ethical
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I personally see nothing wrong with me/else being cloned. I woundn't mind seeing mine clone.. Hell, maybe he would help me take over the world! :)
What do you think is wrong with it?
 
Nature is something that has taken bllions of years to get to this point.
Supposing you could eat a burger or a hot dog. assuming they both tasted the same, and you had no bias towards either one except knowing what they are made of, would you rather have a burger made of 100% ground beef, or would you have a hot dog made of... Im... not sure...:p You can tweak the hotdog to make it appear or taste different, while the ground beef in many peoples opinion is just fine the way it is. (Leave it to me to compare something to food!)
 
i say we should only procreate the all natural way

Might not be a viable option for long. A report within the last 10 years, I can't remember exactly when, in the American medical journal was saying that because of the pollution levels, stress, and other factors causing the decrease of healthy sperm levels in males, that within 15 years the majority of the population wont be able to conceive a child.
 
that gives us a range of in 5 years to in 15 years hehe. Sides, im not affected by stress at all pretty much, im always ridiculusly happy all the time hehe
 
I don't think there is anything wrong with exploiting technology, and I also don't think there is anything wrong with exploiting ourselves. Self-refinement has been practiced consistently for as long as man has lived(from clothes to reading glasses to artificle limbs).
 
Technology has created these problems that Adam spoke of at the begining of the thread. Osteo-genisis Imperfecta was pretty much CAUSED by someone wanting to do the right thing. Nuclear weapons were never meant to be. Einstien never wanted it to be possible. What we have learned over the centuries, is that when new technology is made, it becomes a weapon at some point. The chinese had gunpowder, it was never actually meant to be a weapon. Technology allowed us to create vaccines to combat diseases, but now we create diseases with all sorts of biological weapons. Eventaully genetic engineering and cloning will be used the opposite of what it is meant to, as most other technologies have already followed suit...:(
 
I think that's a pessimistic way of looking at it, that science makes things possible, which are then turned to evil uses. Should we have discouraged metalworking, simply because it eventually was used to make swords?

Science is a tool, nothing more. It is up to people to determine the proper use of that tool for the benefit of society.

I would rather the science of cloning and genetic engineering be fully explored and the uses debated, than shun any research as evil and then have some rogue developer try out his experiments on society, and society not have a clue where to start researching.
 
Then we get to another point; do we even need technology so advanced that it is unimaginable from ten years before? I could get along just fine with what technology we have now.
I would rather have the science of cloning and genetic engineering explored and debated, than shun any research as evil and have some rogue developer try out his experiments on society, and society not have a clue to start researching.
Humans have recovered from vast destruction of civilization and knowledge before. We know there has been two dark ages in the last few thousand years, where most economy, civilization, and knowledge was burned and scattered. The burning of the library of Alexandria may have set us back 200 years according to some researchers. Humans have always found a way to get back to where they were and take off from there. Weve advanced quite a bit from the medieval ages after all, havent we?
Even the best of intentions have turned out the wrong way at times... But i mean theres no way that one little old technology could follow the path everything else has taken :rolleyes:
 
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