Well, perhaps this belongs in GD, but really, what IS the difference between an identical twin and a clone? One is made by humans via the God-sanctioned miraculous holy event of ejaculation into a female in the fertile third week of her cycle, and the other one is made by humans via some other process? Is there something special about an egg splitting by accident versus one where it’s not an accident?
To me, the problem is ignorance of what cloning means or is. Too much pop culture acts like a clone is a carbon copy of a human being, rather than (as is suggested here) a twin of a different age. That’s exactly the metaphor I use to explain what a clone really is.
So, is this a bad time to bring up Drs. Stewart and Cyril Marcus (inspiration for the movie Dead Ringers with Jeremy Irons? You know, if they cloned Jeremy we could have a double feature)?
And what about identical cousins? They laugh alike, they walk alike, sometimes they even talk alike - you could lose your mind.
Jackmannii-- Ogun will smite you with a heavy iron object.
Ogun smash!
I thought this cliche had died once viewers figured out that the goatee always flagged the evil half.
Anyway, very funny OP.
There is the possibility of a twin being delivered late at night on one calendar day and the other one being delivered in the early AM of the next day… but yes, they’re probably just being stupid.
[hijack] This actually reminds me of a great story I heard from a FOAF at some point. Teacher was telling class about the statistic that in a group of 37 or more people, odds are better than 50-50 that two of them have the same birthday. Student offers to bet that two students in the class have the same birthday. Teacher points out that the class has only 20 students, so odds are not in the student’s favor, but he insists. They start going down the rows having students announce their birthdays, to see if they can find a duplicate. Entire class starts laughing when this process gets to the two identical twins sitting quietly in the back row. [/hijack]
And I agree about the whole cloning thing. When pressed, people who get all freaked out about the moral implications of cloning usually don’t have the foggiest idea what those moral implications are, in my experience. (I had great fun one day in Family Law when we got onto this topic.)
Except that a twin happens randomly in nature and has parents. The problem people have is that a clone is a miracle of engineering and not of life, as they think it is and it should be, and is not a child of a loving (or non-loving, as the case may be) parent, but is a manufactured product. People can handle the engineering of bacteria, viruses, plants and even animals because they’re consider lesser than humans. The same goes for anything that can improve your life but doesn’t make another you (even if it’s not really you, which is consider paradoxical to most others).
You shouldn’t and I may have been rash in suggesting the opposite view since this is to every effect your Pit thread, but in my mind there’s always two Pit threads: the one that is created (in this case, by you) and a mirror/parallel Pit thread, where all factors given are inversely proportional to the original. Say, and this simply is a method of illustration, monstro starts a thread pitting matt_mcl. In my bizarro/quantum mind, there is a thread just like it where matt_mcl pits monstro and that should be expected and pondered before the original is created.
I don’t know, that’s my thing, I guess. 
Googols of dissertations could be written on this subject and still the answer will remain silent to most all of us. So, I’ll be honest: I don’t know. However, it is a question that rests uneasily on my shoulders. Reflection is a bitch. And don’t even get me started on refraction!
…
Yeah.
Ugh. That is horrifying.
People get even more shocked when I say we don’t look a thing alike. I’m a girl, short(er), round and redheaded with green eyes. He’s a 6’2 brown-haired fuzzy muscular dude with brown eyes. That’s sibling variation. God bless it. My little bro looks just like me! (well, there’s that tall fuzzy dude part again, but he’s still round and red-headed!) I get to watch their ears steam when I say that we’re completely different in opinions, tastes, political affiliations and life interests.
Actually, the “clone”, as soon as it’s implanted in a uterus (as it still must be, given our current technical limitations), is an embryo and then a fetus, and as soon as it is born, it is an baby. So far, the only cloned babies have been animals, but as soon as someone clones a human, that infant will be a human child, the same as all the other human children who were conceived in any other way.
And in case you think that technical advances will make an artificial uterus feasible in the foreseeable future, the same fact remains: once a child is born, it is a human being just like any other, no matter the circumstances of its conception and gestation. A baby is a baby is a baby. I remember hearing the same horrified arguments about “test-tube babies”, and Louise Brown seems to have turned out all right (word is that she got married last year).
I really don’t want to hijack this thread any further, but I’ll try to clear a couple of things as summarily as possible.
I’ll relate that to this:
In matters dealing with the reproduction of human beings via cloning methods, there’s one question that must be answered so that a satisfactory debate can take place, and that is of course the very purpose of cloning someone in the first place. Why would anybody need a clone? Sadly, there aren’t many realistic scenarios we can base this on, so sci-fi will have to do. In an even sadder turn of events, most of the sci-fi stories out there having to do with clones suck. Big time. Let’s pretend for a moment they don’t. We can render various options from these fictional scenarios, ranging from creating armies to replacing someone’s kid or the more feasible consequence of amoral cloning: your very own organ storage.
Ok, so relying on cheap sci-fi is not a good basis for an argument. If we move up the ranks we do find where the moral implications of cloning stem from, it’s just that we find it in stories about robots. The opening scenes in A.I. sum it up pretty well: if you create a being that is human for all you know, are you morally responsible for it? This is where things get tricky. Who is responsible for a clone? If someone clones me without my consent, am I spared responsibility for its well-being? Let’s say you’re okay with having a clone because, in the end, it’s like having a twin. What if your clone disagrees? Is that akin to a child blaming its parents for conceiving him? As a matter of law, who’s the “parent” of the clone? Has he any?
So, in this respect, the moral implications of cloning have to do with responsibility. On the other hand, if you want to get religious for a moment, Christians and Catholics (and dare I say Hindi, Muslims, and Jews?) believe you can’t (or “aren’t supposed to”) kill yourself or others and sell your liberties and freedom away because people are not absolute masters of their lives. Surely, they will extend this to creating life by means the real master did not intend. While some may see the logic in that a test tube baby is still the union of sperm and eggs, and they’re basically the same means to the same end, they will not be as forgiving to a cell being placed in an egg to cause growth for an end which it was never designed for (bear in mind the times a stem cell is supposed to reproduce in such a fashion).
On the purpose of cloning, it can only be attested to the expansion of scientific knowledge. Must this knowledge be obtained by practicing it? I say this can only be true of scientific knowledge because once you contest clones are human, they will have rights and thus will most certainly not be used as slaves to suit whatever purpose we’ve set our minds for them to do.
It is my opinion that human cloning, when not dealing just with human parts, is completely devoid of purpose unless you can strip clones of their humanity, creating a moral outrage that will only add to the other moral and practical conundrum of responsibility. I don’t think it’s worth it. I’m no authority, though.
Nah, I think it came from here
Ah, come on. You knew somebody was going to do it…
Danny Glover got a lapdance from underage twins? Does E! know? 
Cloning isn’t playing God much more than a lot of other assisted reproductive techniques. And I think its main use will be as an assisted reproductive technique. A lot of infertile people want a biological child - they aren’t interested in adopting. And sometimes the genetic material of one partner is inadequete for IVF - or the person is single. Cloning would fill this need, and I don’t see it as being any ookier than IVF.
Now as the mom of one adopted kid and one bio kid, I have to say that there are definate advantages to having a child who is not a package of all your faults (seeing your personality imperfections reflected back at you with a small child - blown up by immaturity - is my least favorite part of being a parent). Having a child that you at least couldn’t blame the stubborness on your husband might be worse.
Thanks for the invitation, capybara!.
It gets old after you have worked/attended church in the same area for years and people STILL cannot tell you apart. It’s true my brother and I are identical, but there are sufficient differences that you can tell us apart if you make a half-hearted attempt.
I am also pretty sick of the double-takes I get when my brother and I go out, which are always followed by an annoying attempt at humor. Examples:
“I thought I was seeing double!” <guffaw>
“I was worried I needed new glasses!” <chortle>
Then there was the time the owner of the comic book store I go to asked me “Did some freaky girl ever want to get it on with you and your brother at the same time?” :eek:
I also get annoyed when people ask us “Are you twins?” I want to respond by looking over at my brother and screaming “Oh my God! You look just like me! Who are you!!!”, but I haven’t worked up the nerve yet…
And I can’t leave out my all-time favorite annoying question: “Do you know what he’s thinking right now?” To which I always answser “No”, but always think “Yes I can. We are both thinking that you are a moron for asking such a dumb question.”
Try going to a high school reunion without your twin and see how much fun you have.
Old Classmate: “Which one are you again?”
Me (feeling hopelessly awkward and embarrassed): “I’m you with the face.”
OC: “Oh, okay.” Awkward silence. “Where’s your sister?”
Me: “She’s in Florida.”
OC: “What’s she doing now?”
Me: “She just graduated with a PhD in biology and does work in the Everglades.”
OC: “Wow. Does she like it?”
Me (in my thoughts): WHAT ABOUT ME??? Can you please wake up and realize that I, you with the face, exist as a unique and singular person who has achieved some great and wonderful things that are worth hearing about, too? Why can’t you treat me like a regular human being! Do you not care how I’m doing? Why must you make the focus of the conversation all about my twin, as if talking about my sister is equivalent to talking about me? You make me realize why, all things considered, I never really liked my high school days. I didn’t really exist back then because I didn’t have my own identity. Thanks for reminding me how it feels to be a non-person!
Me (out loud): “Yeah, she likes it”. (Scuttles off to get more punch, quietly dying inside.)
That’s how non-twin men make conversation at reunions, we ask about your relatives first so that it is not really obvious that we are hitting on you, and later we try to get you drunk and get it on. If you’d given him another minute you’d have found this out.
I have lots of cousins and friends who are identical twins. And only one set (and only one of them) really get annoyed that I do not immediately know which one they are. Get a clue, dudettes, you are identical twins and look exactly the same. So I just wait a bit to see if she gets annoyed if I don’t use her name. If she does, it’s Kirsten, if she doesn’t, it’s Karen. Only takes about 15 seconds. Boy, did Kirsten get really pissed off when she found out how I was telling them apart.
Got room for a mom of twins?
Nurse in the NICU, “So, are your boy/girl twins identical?”
Me, “Except for the genitals.”
(no, I wasn’t actually that quick; try repartee 24 hours post-delivery see how you’d do)
Most strangers are truly nice, they’ll hold doors or offer a smile, a story. I get a lot of compliments because of course my twins are absolutely adorable. I appreciate the support.
But the “double trouble” remark got old months ago. Number one, it’s not original.
Number two, they’re no more “trouble” than any other set of siblings, probably a lot less than some since they’ve been adjusting to each other since day one.
Number three, looking at my kids, the LAST thing that comes to my mind is “trouble”. I’m not troubled by them. I cherish them, even while they occasionally drive me batty.
I’m not a twin, but my friend Matt is one of an identical pair (I don’t know his brother that well). He had a co-worker ask him for a picture of his brother once. I’d tack on extra stupidity tax for that one. Tho’, to be fair, said co-worker might have thought Matt was lying. No matter, the result’s the same: co-worker’s an idiot.
Am I being whooshed here?
What if Matt’s brother has long hair, eyebrow piercings, and wears contacts instead of glasses-- I’d want to see a picture of him even if I knew Matt quite well. Just because two people are genetically identical doesn’t mean they have identical taste in grooming and dress.
Corrvin
who looks astoundingly like Dad, but will still show you a picture rather than simply explain that he’s taller and has grayer hair…