The first cloned human baby is on its way. A fertility doctor has performed the feat in a country that has no ban on the procedure.
Is this baby going to send religion into a tailspin?
Does cloning fit in any way to the creationist’s theory of life?
After all this proves that life is not a miracle but simply a chemical process that can be set into motion by human beings themselves.
There is no longer any need for a deity to grant it to us!
Except Mr. Antinori refuses to provide any credible evidence that there is a cloned baby on the way. He made claims like this some time ago as well, in fac, I believe his first claim was that there would be a cloned baby born in mid-November.
The medical/scientific community is largely skeptical of Mr. Antinori, and say there’s no reason to believe his claims.
not that i’m religious or anything. But since when did creationists insist that life was unduplicatable by human hands? I only see that implication for the original lifeform.
A million others here woudla done it. I just got here first. =)
By the way, a cite for my claims, just so no one asks.
That is exactly right. For the most part, theists (creationist or otherwise) do not claim that human life can not be duplicated in a laboratory. However, this simply does not compare to the creation of the original, complex lifeform.
I mean, get real. If you know anything about the cloning process, then you must surely know that they don’t build clones entirely from scratch. Rather, they start with preexisting cells, complete with genetic material and myriad microcellular complexities. Clearly, it’s a foolish and tremendous leap of logic to say “Aha! We can clone humans from a set of donor cells. Obviously, we can build entire humans using nothing but a bunch of chemicals!”
Or, since he mentions the Creationists theory, creating humans through God-like will.
Attn: Thunder, I never said humans could be made from a bunch of chemicals. I said it was a chemical process that does not require any divine intervention. If you knew anything about cloning yourself, you would realize that all that essentially is needed, is donor cells!! That was my entire point!! It was never a leap of faith, in fact it was more of a faith reversion.
The only leaps needed were in the technology department!
Ok would the clone have a soul in the eyes of those theisits as it was not created by natural means?
I mean even a test tube baby has the basic components from both parents so I’m sure that can be given a miss. But what about this clone would it have a soul in their eyes?
I’m not sure I understand where buzzz_kill is coming from. Assume for a moment that a human being has been cloned. What this shows is that, given a living organism, we can create a distinct individual living organism without divine intervention.
So what? This is not news. We have already cloned other, non-human, living organisms. And we have created distinct individual living humans without divine intervention (through sexual intercourse). And we have observed the creation of human clones through natural processes (identical twins).
This may be a significant breakthrough in reproductive technology, and it certainly has substantial ethical implications, but I can’t see how anyone could think that it has profound implications for the validity of theistic belief.
Would theists consider the clone to have a soul? Well, not all theists necessarily believe in souls, but let that pass. Yes, from a Chistian viewpoit an artificially cloned human being would have a soul. Why ever not?
They watch too much TV? (and believe what they see)
[God]Silly Humas in their Labs, with their test tubes! I gave them the tools for this YEARS ago! Nothing more than a Penis and a Vagina! WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?[/God]
I can’t really see what the dilemma is. As far as I can see, there isn’t really much difference between a clone and an identical twin except for the fact they they can now be born years apart. With regards to the soul, why shouldn’t clones have them if identical twins do?
In which case, you’re still misrepresenting the theistic position (which, as I said, is not exclusive to creationists). In the mind of the theists, the real miracle isn’t that one can create new organisms from cells. Rather, the real miracle is that the cells came about in the first place.
Besides which, life is NOT just “a chemical process.” It is a complex series of closely interacting processes, both chemical and structural.
And besides, there’s no real reason yet to believe the veracity of this claim that a human baby has been cloned.
I’M NOT MISREPRESENTING ANYONE. I am simply asking creationists if this event throws a monkey wrench into the gears of their theory!
I simply wanted to hear their point of view.
As for with this statement “Besides which, life is NOT just “a chemical process.” It is a complex series of closely interacting processes, both chemical and structural.” Are you really this dense? or are you simply the most literal person in the world?
Once again your clouding the question, I figured that if you were to get this deep into hi-jacking my thread you would have at the very least understood the inquiry!
PeaceLove&Happiness
If humans can be created from something other then eggs and sperm then we have essentially produced a machine that can create humans. Humans who’s parents are the machine.
These machine-humans are distinct from human-humans in that they can be regarded as another race of people, by themselves and others. i.e. parentless with no family lineage or ancestry.
Does machine-human X look like her parents?-------Is a non question.
These machinians may perceive themselves as totally alienated from blood-to-blood humans which includes their own offspring.
So there is a significant distinction between creating humans from egg—sperm --------and/or creating them from cell/chemical combinations in a lab.
Machinians are not incubated nor do they emerge into the world from a vagina. How will/would they feel about their own bodies.
Would there tendencies be schizophrenic? I.e.an alienation of mind from body
The theists issue is that gods(?) hand is one step removed from machinians creation. God, rather then creating them directly has gotten a servant, essentually a flawed god, to do the job, a servant who doesn’t quite know what it is doing, as it does not know it’s own true nature.
Iamthat, don’t be silly. Cloned babies would have parents, just like other babies. The parents would be the ones who had the clone created. Even if we take the position that the parentage of a cloned baby is murky, we have a simple solution that has been around for millenia. Adoption. If it is decided that the cloned baby doesn’t have parents, the baby can be adopted by willing parents.
Say it with me. Cloning produces a human baby. Nothing more, nothing less. A HUMAN baby. And a cloned baby would definately be incubated in a womb and would emerge into the world from a vagina, unless they were born via c-section.
Cloning does NOT involve growing babies in vats. Uterine replicators are a completely separate technology from cloning. We have no idea how to go about creating a uterine replicator. With just a little more research we could easily clone human beings. But the cloned embryo would have to be implanted in a human uterus, just like babies created through in-vitro fertillization.
There is no such distinction between egg-sperm created babies and cloned babies. They would be identical. Cloning a human creates a human. Why, oh why can’t people understand that?
The reason I ask whether it would be considered to have a soul is because it is created by man and not a natural creation. If God (or whoever is the creator) does not have a hand in the creation would the clone have a soul. Or is the soul just something that is biologically inate in all humans no matter how they were concieved.
I don’t personally perscribe to any of these ideas but I am curious if others consider these factors.
Atheists (such as my self) don’t believe that any living being has a soul. There would be absolutely no difference between a cloned baby and a naturally conceived one.
Insofar as a clone being a new race of people, that is utterly ridiculous. What would be the intrinsic physical characteristics that would distinguish a clone as being any different from another human?
It was not clear from the scanty details released thus far which kind of clone this is supposed to be.
There are basically two kinds of clones:[ol][li]Clones grown from eggs that have been fertilized in the normal manner, where the egg was given some kind of impetus to divide into an identical twin; and[/li][li]Clones grown from the DNA of adult cells transplanted into an egg that has had its original DNA removed.[/ol]The first type of cloning was first used successfully to clone a mouse over 2 decades now. The second type of cloning is much newer, and was the type of cloning used to make Dolly the sheep.[/li]
Which type of cloning is Severino Antinori supposedly using?
Tracer, considering he hasn’t provided any evidence whatsoever to support his claims, neither.