I’m sure you’d actually be right about the inadequacy of any analogy you catch me using; for the life of me, I can’t understand why I keep on resorting to analogies when they repeatedly so miserably fail to communicate my thoughts. However, I think your suggested analogy is also deeply flawed too; we’re not talking about children here, we’re talking about zygotes.
**Then we agree? - we allow the research to continue until someone suggests an implementation?
I must admit, I had grave reservations about posting that phrase, but are you sure about the democracy bit? Democracy (at least as far as I understand it) doesn’t consist of allowing the public to dictate every detail of policy and action.
It wasn’t a comparison so much as a demonstration. I wasn’t trying to equate Russian roullette with scientific research. Simply passing off someones objections as childlike (summing them up as “it’s scary”) does not demonstrate that the objections were so.
Great. So make a positive case.
I have a feeling this means quite a bit to you, but it doesn’t seem to say very much to me. Do you mean that the potential is likely to remain only a potential? Please be more explicit and explain why your assessment of the future is more sound.
Yet ethics are in the realm of the public and scientists are not the final arbiters of ethics (nor should they be).
Do you wish to make the case that opposition to cloning simply represents a knowledge gap?
This is a waste of time; I said I don’t think there is necessarily a burden of proof, meaning (as I have repeatedly said)that I don’t feel it is necessary to justify research by speculating about possible future benefits.