Can anyone give me the simplest explanation to how cloning works and reasons for and against cloning? Thanks
BaL
You take the nucleus of a cell from a fully developed animal. You put it into a cell from an ovum of a female able to “host” its development. You do some stuff to it. (scientific stuff is good, or magic, or something like that.) If you are lucky it develops into another animal with the exact same genetic identity as the first animal.
Reason why you would want to do it: Lots of horses like Secretariat. Lots of dogs like Lassie, or Rin Tin Tin. Lots of Condors, or Pandas. Lots of goats with milk that includes human insulin as a componant. Lots of absolutely identical lab rats to experiment on.
Reasons why you would not want to do it. Lots of big dumb hard working humans to work in your fields. Lots of fetus farms to get cellular material for your lots of Nobel Laureate clones to work on. Lots of designer children for your lots of beautiful people to shop for in your lots of cloned sycophant shopping malls.
Aren’t sheep enough alike as it is? People are already offering storage contracts for your dog’s cells so when the technology is perfected you can keep Fido around for your whole life. Yeah. I loved my dog so much that I cloned him. That way I don’t even have to take all that good care of him, you know. I mean if the kids forget to feed him, so what? A new Fido is just like the old one. “Aw gee, Mom, can’t we get one with three heads this time?”
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Other reasons against –
Low sucess rate: It takes a lot of tries (and therefore a lot of money) before you have a sucessful embryo going
Genetic issues: Didn’t they say Dolly was suffering from some form of chromosomal damage or pre-mature aging? Some scientists think that chromosomes are set to “die” at a certain age. If your average person has a life span of 73 years and you clone someone at 40, your clone might only have a chromosonal lifespan of 33ish years ahead of it. Then again, this hasn’t been proven either.
Genetic Issues Part II: Lack of genetic diversity. As has been evidenced in the botanical field (no pun intended) many times in the past, a lack of genetic diversity means that a germ which can kill organism A1 will be able to kill organisms A2, A3, A4… etc without any problems. Lacking diversity means none of them have a chance of resistance.
Various Moral Issues: Does the clone have a soul? Was it correct to “play God” and make another person this way? Who is the person’s parent(s)? Is the person their own entity? Can we use the new person for colleecting organs, etc? So on and so forth. Until some of these are answered, cloning will be a hard sell with the public.
“I guess one person can make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn’t.”
bsb176 - will you let us know what grade the SD team get for your homework?
Russell