Hey, how do we know Tomato plants aren’t aware? AOFKT was a documentary?
Cloned animals are more prone to abnormalities presumably cloned people would be too. This is from the European Food Safety Authority.
Unlike sexual reproduction, in which the fertilized egg is totipotent (capable of becoming all cells in the resulting organism), in SCNT, the activated embryo containing a differentiated somatic cell first must be “reset” to totipotency, so that it then follows the same path as a fertilized embryo and is able to complete embryonic and foetal development. This process called “reprogramming” changes the biochemical signals that control gene expression. Failure of the epigenetic reprogramming, which may occur to varying degrees, is the source of potential adverse health effects which may affect clones and may result in developmental abnormalities. The production of healthy clones is the main indicator of the successful functioning of epigenetic reprogramming.
I’m not sure about cows, but they’ve already grown fish meat in a lab.
I’ve never understood the resistance to eating cloned meat. I mean, it’s just meat, it’s exactly like the meat you’re already eating. Exactly the same!
Now, I can understand the apprehension about cloning in general. Genetic diversity is good. Cloning humans raises all kinds of ethical and religious quandries. But come on, if you put a cloned steak in front of me, the horse (or steer) is already out of the barn. Pass the A1 sauce!
What are the arguments against eating cloned meat? I can’t see why I’d have a problem with it.
Human cloning, though . . . I don’t think it’s taboo because people think god will blow up or anything. I’m an atheist and I don’t think I’m comfortable with it. The way my high school biology teacher explained it to me (yes, she was very religious but apparently they say things that make sense sometimes too) was that it would devalue human life. What’s to stop people from eventually “growing” clones just to harvest body parts, etc? And as scifi as it sounds, don’t you think people would ultimately be a lot more comfortable with sending a clone army to war than an army of “natural” humans? How much are you worth when someone can make an exact copy of you in a lab?
Hell, and just speaking as a guy, how many women would forgo sex if it got easy and cheap enough to have babies without it? 
For some reason, it would just gross me out if I knew I were eating cloned meat. I don’t know why, but it would.
Are you kidding? I’d love it! Imagine, foie gras grown in a vat. All the yumminess and none of the guilt-inducing force-feeding. Why, if I could get vat-grown foie gras, I’d probably eat … just as much of it as I do now, except minus the tiny little nagging voice in the shadows at the back of my skull. Wait, I don’t have a nagging voice. Fuck the ducks. But I bet the stuff would be cheaper. Win win!
I wouldn’t mind at all. All meat is good meat. (Except for elk. Yick)
When come back, bring worcestershire.
Good. More for the rest of us.
Well, the federal government won’t let us butcher and eat humans, either.
Laws against murder, to start with.
Only if we concluded that clones of human beings weren’t themselves human beings. Which would be a nonsensical conclusion to make (although admittedly humans have come to nonsensical conclusions before). Clone armies would also only be viable if it were more cost-effective to raise a bunch of soldiers from infancy than it would be to just go out and recruit and train a bunch of bored, idealistic, impressionable or patriotic 18-year-olds.
But a clone is not an “exact copy”. Now, a matter replicator, that might be a different story.
Arthur Dent: Bit cruel to the geese, isn’t it?
Ford Prefect: F**k 'em. Can’t care about every damn thing.
I’d eat cloned meat, especially if it had NaCl tolerance and genetically engineered SPAM spice producing capabilities. The food product would have to be molded into a parallelepided or truncated pyramid,. Yummmm, cloned SPAM! I just bought an 8-pack of spam at Costco! It’s in my end-of-the world kit, but I am also going to make some SPAM kimchee fried rice!
Pass the cloned ketchup.
No, I would not mind eating cloned meat unless it was from a clone of myself.
I’d eat cloned meat. I’d also order a clone of myself put on ice for organ harvesting. Brain dead only, of course. Any cloned humans with an actual consciousness are human beings, and should be treated as such. But a body without a mind is just a bag of flesh, and belongs to whoever ordered it cooked up.
Human cloning is kindof silly at this point though, since we still need mothers to carry them and give birth to them. Though i’m sure if you had enough money…
Btw… am i the only person here who would try a steak of themselves? :eek:
I don’t think cloning people for parts or armies are very likely outcomes of human cloning or genetic engineering. They’re still people and people are still afforded certain human rights. More likely, I’d see genetic donors–akin to sperm and egg donation now–for people interested in cloning kids for the ultimate in stage mothering. Why go through all the trouble of letting chromosomes mingle for a potentially fugly brat when you can clone America’s Junior Miss of 1999? Or an Olympic athlete? Or a mathematical prodigy?
There’s still no guarantee the kid will meet the potential of the genetic donor and might hate his or her parents at adulthood, but I could see that being a risk people would be willing to take. And it still wouldn’t be a very widespread practice, just as very few people without fertility problems go through the trouble of picking out donor eggs and sperm to make a speshul snowflake, when they could just as easily make a kid the old fashioned, cheap way.
This is a really, really good point, and nobody ever brings it up when the issue of cloned meat comes up.
I’ve always wanted to taste eagle but it’s illegal. With cloning, all can enjoy.
No, it won’t happen anytime soon, but who knows what the future holds? If we started cloning today, a hundred years from now, cloning could be the old fashioned, cheap way.
Did you ever hear the joke . . .
There was a man who was spotted by a park ranger one day, sitting alone in the woods, cooking a spotted owl over a campfire and eating it. The ranger arrests him and takes him in. He’s facing thousands in fines and up to a year in federal PMITA prison if convicted. When he gets his day in court, he goes in front of the judge and pleads,
“Your honor, I was out on a backpacking trip by myself and got lost. Several days went by and I found myself completely without food. Just as I was about to give up this spotted owl lands on a log next to me, looks at my for a few moments, and then closes its eyes and peacefully passes away from old age. I thought about my situation and, realizing this was a gift from god, I cooked and ate him. As an animal lover I felt horrible about it, but it was just enough sustinance to save my life. If the court will grant mercy upon me I give my word to never harm another animal, endangered or not, as long as I live.”
The judge thinks for a few moments and says, “Son, as an avid backpacker myself, I understand your situation, and due to the circumstances I’m going to dismiss the case against you. You’re free to go.”
At that time the court takes a recess and the judge runs into the man out in the hall. He says to him, “Hey, you know, just out of curiosity, how did that spotted owl taste, anyway? I’ve always wondered.”
The man looks at him, smiles, and says, “Eh, kind of like a mix between California condor and bald eagle.”
Why would cloning lead to more bald eagles in a way which, say, bald eagle farming would not? I mean, as I understand it, it’s not a magical duplication process; it’s just surrogate birth, with some fancy stuff done beforehand to ensure genetic similarity.