Human Cloning

[Dene]

Yes or no? I want straight answers. If you aren't sure, then just pick what your intuition tells you at present. Feel free to discuss.


EDIT: Sorry I wasn't clear on exactly what I was looking for. I was actually referring to the ethical concerns regarding cloning, and not the practical concerns. Please redirect discussion towards this end, thanks.

 

[masterofthebass]

what benefit is there? Don't we have enough people already to not start copying the ones we have? All this will do is create more people, so no point.

 

[Edward]

Depending on the use, yes (or no :s)
I guess I'll go with yes. Usually science like this at the very least has good intentions (i think).

 

[iasimp1997]

Nope. What Dan said.

 

[RyanO]

I have to agree with Dan. I'm something of a Malthusian myself, so I think an extensive reduction in the human population by plague or some such disaster would be in humanity's long term interest.

 

[JBCM627]

what benefit is there?

I doubt people would be studying it right now if there were no use at all...

 

[anythingtwisty]

I vote no. Something tells me that a new form of slavery might occur.

 

[Dene]

I edited the original post to make clear what I meant by this poll. Sorry about the confusion.

 

[Kian]

I have to agree with Dan. I'm something of a Malthusian myself, so I think an extensive reduction in the human population by plague or some such disaster would be in humanity's long term interest.

Malthus could not have possibly been more wrong about many things. His belief that disease or famine made the planet more tenable for human life was silly. He failed to account for many factors that allow us to sustain greater and greater populations with higher and higher quality of life.

Anyway to the questions at hand. There is no difference between a cloned person and a non cloned person, but frankly I don't see why cloning a whole person makes much sense. I understand the research implications in cloning organs, but I'd have a serious problem with cloning people and making them organ farms if that how they have to go about it. Basically I have no problem with cloning parts of people but cloning a whole person I just don't see how that is helpful.

Edit: Started this post before the edit from the OP. I don't really care about any ethical concerns (apart from using people as organ farms), if that's what you're getting at.

 

[rachmaninovian]

no, i think human cloning is bad. it violates much of our morals, from my point of view.

 

[IamWEB]

It would be cuh-razey, of course!

We, humans, can reproduce on our own, and it's the only way we've ever made more humans. Essentially manufactured people just aren't the same (yet they are the same because they're clones), having them live amongst us like regular people is just a very weird thing to adapt to, knowing they didn't get here the way all of us have.

This probably isn't a very good basis, nor do I want to debate it, but I suck at conveying this in text.

Bottom line, nah. It'd be cool to know we could (and potentially dangerous), but why do it?

 

[Weston]

Does human cloning include human organ cloning?
Because if it does, then yes.

 

[RyanO]

I have to agree with Dan. I'm something of a Malthusian myself, so I think an extensive reduction in the human population by plague or some such disaster would be in humanity's long term interest.

Malthus could not have possibly been more wrong about many things. His belief that disease or famine made the planet more tenable for human life was silly. He failed to account for many factors that allow us to sustain greater and greater populations with higher and higher quality of life.

Malthus' timeframe was wrong, but I would argue that many of his assertions still hold true. His failure to predict the Green Revolution made his claims seem debunked for a while, but as technology begins to plateau, the expansion of population in proportion to food supply once again becomes problematic. You may be content with your current quality of life, but for most people, living conditions are pretty poor.

I don't really have a problem with cloning body parts for medical use, but I do have a problem with cloning a full person. In general, I'm against most things that discourage diversity.

 

[IamWEB]

Does human cloning include human organ cloning?

 

[Kian]

I have to agree with Dan. I'm something of a Malthusian myself, so I think an extensive reduction in the human population by plague or some such disaster would be in humanity's long term interest.

Malthus could not have possibly been more wrong about many things. His belief that disease or famine made the planet more tenable for human life was silly. He failed to account for many factors that allow us to sustain greater and greater populations with higher and higher quality of life.

Malthus' timeframe was wrong, but I would argue that many of his assertions still hold true. His failure to predict the Green Revolution made his claims seem debunked for a while, but as technology begins to plateau, the expansion of population in proportion to food supply once again becomes problematic. You may be content with your current quality of life, but for most people, living conditions are pretty poor.

I don't really have a problem with cloning body parts for medical use, but I do have a problem with cloning a full person. In general, I'm against most things that discourage diversity.

By every measure we are better off then we were 100 years ago. My living condition may be much, much better than others, but life expectancy, general health, access to drinkable water, are up across the board.

Anyway, we don't need a mass disease or anything of the sort to balance population. Success is doing that already. While we don't see the results quite yet in many places, economic prosperity lowers birthrates dramatically. As more and more nations reach that plateau we will essentially even ourselves off. In fact, we may see a great reduction in population in the next, say, 1000 years, if we don't do anything about it.

Basically my point is this, there are obviously a limited number of nonrenewable resources on this planet, but technology continues to expand exponentially while population will eventually taper off. I see no reason to believe anything Malthus said was accurate.

 

[RyanO]

While we don't see the results quite yet in many places, economic prosperity lowers birthrates dramatically.

This is true. However, one of the the problems with things like humanitarian aid is that we are increasing life expectancy without improving economic conditions in the developing world. While quality of life may have improved for the average poverty stricken individual there are an ever increasing number of those individuals.

Humans are pretty much the top of the food chain, seeing as there aren't any natural predators that remove humans from the population with anywhere near the rate of replacement. This leaves things like disease, natural disatsers, family planning, or war to keep the population in check. If the population were low enough, it would actually be feasible to eliminate poverty and hunger.

I know we're supposed to be discussing moral rather than practical issues regarding cloning, but for me it's hard to seperate the two. I feel a moral obligation to do what is practical.

 

[SebCube]

No! The clones might turn against us, lol.

 

[eastamazonantidote]

My gut says it's unethical. But my mind says it would be useful. Then it tells me we already have overpopulation problems. So I go with a tentative "no" here.

 

[Edward_Lin]

Just don't clone Feliks.

 

[Hadley4000]

I thought this forum was against knockoffs.