...or at least they would be if someone had cloned a person by now.
I've missed the last few "Ask a Science Blogger" questions, which I now regret. I can easily describe the qualities of an excellent science teacher, or discuss how the new science behind chaos and complexity has affected policy... but in order to answer this week's question, I need to pull out my views from the past. Ten years ago, to be specific:
On July 5, 1996, Dolly the sheep became the first successfully cloned mammal. Ten years on, has cloning developed the way you expected it to?
Ten years ago, I was rather shy about science. I didn't expect anyone cared about my views, so I never bothered to think them through. That would soon change... I was 20; everything was about to change. When I entered my first ethics class in college, I realized my opinion mattered--I was the only one in the class who knew anything about science. Stem cell research was a hot issue, so when we came to a unit on the ethics of cloning and biological enhancements, everyone was curious and full of questions. I ended up doing a research project on the subject, and sharing it with the rest of the class.
In my research, I found that general paranoia about cloning far outweighed the abilities of science. People seemed to fear the worst... someone making a clone of Hitler, or someone making a clone of someone else without their permission. They seemed to think that Dolly, this mammal, not that different from a person, was some sort of plastic, alien facsimile... a photocopy. What if someone made photocopies of people? What would they be?
Personally, I felt that any living thing, whether born of a somatic nuclear cell transfer or the old-fashioned way, is a unique living being. Whatever it is that makes you or I, or my cat, or the bacteria in his snot unique would exist in a cloned being. (One could argue that the bacteria was cloned.) But there was no easy way to tell someone who feared cloning that. So... I went right to the heart of the issue. I called up the Denver Catholic Archdiocese, and asked for the "Respect Life" office.
My question: If someone brought in a child that had been cloned, would you baptize him/her?
Their answer: Kids born by methods of in-vitro fertilization, begun in a petri dish, are kids. When human life comes into being, by whatever method, it is looked upon as human life.
I never expected cloning to advance very quickly, nor did I ever expect it to suddenly be a threat to anyone. As for Dolly, I hear she's been stuffed and is now on display in Edinburgh.
Life, however it comes into being, goes on.
Image via National Geographic News
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Hi there.
Nice post. And what a coincidence: just two days ago I got into a heated debate with one of my friends about just that issue. It started of as a talk about science fiction and the scientific flaws in it (you know, like sounds of explosions in space). At one point, I said that cloning is also very misrepresented, with rapid aging in cocoons, and ... wait for it...the ability to reproduce the personality, not just the genetic makeup, of a person.
Boy did I get frowned upon for that. My friend immediately went into the"cloning Hitler"-argument, and I could not make it clear to him that exactly the same genome allows for many different outcomes, depending on the circumstances it faces during development. I thought the analogy with twins would be a strong enough argument to convince him, but no.
After a while, I gave up the scientific reasoning, and tried to probe the emotional side. Aha, there it was.
Turns out that he had a strong aversity and fear against the "unnatural" meddling of man with nature, "playing god", if you will.
With this in mind, I thought back to a few discussions I had about evolution with other friends of mine. Allthough none of them are creationists or IDiots, all of them did draw a line between "animals" and humans, with our oh so wondrous moral and intellectual abilities.
I realized that there was a similar pattern: the fear of science overthrowing some deeply held moral beliefs.
I think that fear is a very important motivation for rejecting or not even wanting to listen to scientific arguments, however sound they may be. They just get blocked out.
Just my two cents.
Cheers, Kim
Oh no!!
Sorry about that!
I went clicketyclick when I should have just gone click.
Kim, don't worry about the extra clickity, I've posted things twice a few times, myself. I deleted the extra one for you. I must agree with your comment, though... I think it's very hard for people to let go of their feelings of superiority and see themselves as a part of nature.
By the way, I've been meaning to ask you... do you read my site in Dutch? I've always wondered how well my stories and poems translate.
Karmen,
I wouldn't dream of using an internet translator, especially not for poems or stories. The only times I might consider it is when I'm reading a technical paper in german or so.
Translating is indeed very tricky business, you can lose the feel of a story very easily.
(Belgium is one of the few countries where all foreign movies and shows are subtitled instead of overdubbed. You should see me shouting in frustration at another bad translation. Not worth the frustration, I know, but I'm a bit of a language-nitpicker.)
But I'll give it a go and get back to you.
see ya.
Remember me being a language nitpicker?
When translating "Rosemary" just now, I almost threw the computer out of the window. Horrible, truly horrible.
The story I enjoyed reading so much was transformed into a load of gibberish. Horrible.
One example that says it all: "Free Will", the category name, was translated as "Vrij Zal", which corresponds to "Free Shall", or with "will" in the sense of "I will do that tomorrow".
Shudder.
I'll go read Rosemary in english again now, as an antidote.
Bye
Oh, and if you find some mistakes in my english comments, please correct me. I'm pretty good at english but there's always room for improvement.
Kim, I didn't think that the feel of the stories would quite come through in an internet translator. It would take someone who understood the subtle nuances of both languages to translate something like "Rosemary" or "Paper Dolls", otherwise the best parts would be lost. To give the translator a bit of credit, "free will" is a rather murky concept to define. And by the way, I've always thought that your comments were quite well written.