I see what you mean now. The phrase could be read as:
[Create them] as an exercise to see if it can be done and then raise them to adult-hood, as a lab experiment = use a lab to create them, then raise them to adulthood.
Or
[Create them] as an exercise to see if it can be done, and then raise them to adult-hood as a lab experiment = the raising is a seperate part of a lab-experiment.
You can’t promise that human babies will be able to function in modern human society. Especially when they’re born to older parents. Yet we manage to take care of autistic babies, and downs-syndrome babies and severely physically handicapped babies. I don’t see this as being any different.
No we do not clone humans with technology as a reproductive technique. Natural twinning is not a reproductive technique.
And compared to that somewhat questionable potential technology there are other issues - the Neandertal individual would without question have a future with more potential for major problems. We have no idea what language capacity there is and how well (s)he could adapt to the needs of the modern world, even without dealing with the attitudes of others to him/her. If someone wants a child there is no need to intentionally impose those issues on that child.
So both known and unknown risks of suffering placed upon that child that a sapiens child would not have to face. With what ethical justification? That is, with what reason why?
I think your scenario would be much more unethical as there is no way to know that they would survive on “an island”. Imagine doing that to modern human clones.
Would it be ethical to intentionally go out of your way to make sure you were giviing birth to an severely autistic or otherwise severely handicapped baby just to see what they’d be like? The issue is inceasing the risks to the child by choice, to satisfy our curiosity.
That scenario is far more unethical, is it’s excluding the Neanderthals from the protections of and participation in society, based purely on their status as a subspecies. That is far worse than using our existing systems to deal with those that cannot look after themselves.
Neither was in virto until a few years ago. Offering up the fact that we don’t do something as a reason not to do it in the future is not really a compelling argument.
But it produces the same result.
I think a human clone would have no more stigma than an in vitro child, which is to say none. Louise Brown is doing just fine.
Every time we reproduce there are risks. There are any number of people who have high risks of producing a child with all sorts of developmental problems, and yet we don’t forbid them from reproducing. I don’t see any real problems associate with the Neanderthal. If anything, he’d be a celebrity!
If there are ethical risks, they might be more along the lines of potential diseases a Neanderthal could introduce to us. I think we’d have more to fear form him than he from us.
No, but that’s not really relevant. We don’t know that the Neadnertal would have any sort of mental or physical deficit compared to moderns.
A more relevant question would be whether its ethical to risk an increased chance of a child being handicapped. But people take such risks all the time by waiting till their thirties or forties to have kids. Or having kids when they know they carry genes that carry increased risks for handicaps.
Before there’s any thought of cloning a Neandertal baby, we’ll have lots of experience with everyday cloning of modern humans. All the hysteria and misconceptions about cloning will be cleared up when people realize that cloned babies are human babies like any other baby, who just happen to have much older identical twins.
So the cloning part won’t need to be addressed. The biggest problem is finding intact nuclear DNA from a Neandertal. That isn’t as easy as it sounds, you know. So long before anyone tries to clone a Neandertal there will have been lots of such experiments reviving species that have a much greater likelihood of success, species that have only been extinct for a few decades and have carefully preserved tissue samples and extant modern relatives to be the somatic egg donors and gestational mothers.
People with Down syndrome are human. They look human. A Neanderthal might look completely unlike any modern human. If he can’t use speech, you’re dooming him to a life in a facility.
As an aside, I don’t think you should clone people with profound developmental disorders either.
Do you think they’re ours to nursemaid? They’re a race of men that aren’t us. I’d think they deserve to build the society they’d want to, not try to fit into our society that may never work for them.
If they can’t speak or fit into our society they’d be much better off forming a society of their own than being unable to function in ours.
In that those who can’t care for themselves are the responsibility of society at large, yes. Though I don’t think Neanderthals would qualify on that basis.
Excluded middle: a society where they fit in doesn’t require abandoning them on an island to fend for themselves in the brutality of nature! That’s the cruelist possible way to achieve that end.
Reread that. It isn’t saying they definitely had speech. It’s saying that they might, maybe have had speech. I’m saying if it turns out that they don’t, it’s shitty.
Like I say, if you’re gonna clone someone to live in our society and it turns out they can’t speak, read and look like a monster, you’ve done a very evil thing.
We care for people who have ended up unable to care for themselves. We don’t generate them on purpose.
I’m not necessarily for complete abandonment. I’d be okay with some monitoring. Vaccines and whatnot. But if you’re going to make some, and it turns out that they can’t fit with us, you need to make enough that they can build something together.
And I’m guessing you’ve never lived on an island, I’m from Hawaii, and trust me, that’s the least brutal nature on this planet.
