Forums → WEPR → C-c-c-cloning!
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If anyone cared to notice, my thread title is a reference to Chia pets :P -- which leads me to my next thought: cloning pets for commercial use.
It happened in South Korea. I'm sure most of you have read about it, a company actually produced 5 pitbull clones. The company is willing to do the dirty deed for $150,000 US (presumably).
Now, they've been cloning animals for a while now, and I'm pretty sure there have been topics regarding cloning as well. But, my question to all of you: what do you think the ramifications are when this business of cloning slowly goes up the food chain?
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You know what I say to that? There is only one way to find out.
Better yet I somehow doubt that this way to find out will actually resolve anything.
Ah yes, one of the things that will totally be used by kids and teenagers if it will actually work. We can use it skip stuff. It will probably cost a lot at first. We can clone already. Not complex stuff like a taco but we have cloned goats. We can use the cloning machine if we can clone food, to help end the hunger over the world. I just hope it doesn't taste like crap because when you can do something this awesome, it always gets back at you like a monkey on steroids and Meth. Pretty much combining the Flash and Supahman.
Because most, if not all of you lack a medical background, you've forgotten/are not aware of one of the biggest caveats: antigenic shift.
The only commercial cloning I foresee is in the food and agricultural industries. Companies could by selectiv breeding create a "wonder cow" that was the best cow ever. They could clone that cow and give everyone the joy of eating a "erfect" cow.
If this were to happen it would be highly likely that the meat industry would be wiped out due to a massive epidemic. Part of the value of genetic variability is in the immunological adaptation to pathogens, of which the antigenic presentation is constantly changing in their own struggle to maintain and expand their presence.
One response to this could be to attempt to control pathogenic distribution or attempt to eradicate them entirely but I view this as a constant cat-and-mouse battle which we could not possibly win. For one it would require an unfailing clockwork society in which no individual did anything to raise their risk profile above the barest minimum, and for another, microbiota- be it bacteria or parasites or fungi, as well as viruses, still do play an integrated role in our ecology, regardless of whether they cause us ill or not.
Therefore one of the issues of cloning are in the genetic issues we should already be aware of: in general, a global shift towards genetic uniformity is counterproductive to survival. Better to think about cloning not as a mass-reality but as a special-cases application for the time being.
Who are you talking to Strop? Also, I wasn't trying to be professional.
chowdollas, imagine u or ur parents were jews and u lived in europe and there was a second hitler guy. with enough research put into cloning he could clone millions and billions of nazis and try to take over the world. the chances of thios are slim but with the neccesary reseach of cloning he probably could acconplish it!
The thing with that, verran, is that we don't know whether or not the 'mind' of the original would be passed on to the next generation, so to speak. Sure, the clone may have the DNA composition and may look exactly like the original, but will it BE like the original? That's a question we have yet to answer.
And I'm not entirely sure what Strop is talking about, but I did understand this:
Better to think about cloning not as a mass-reality but as a special-cases application for the time being.
Better to see how cloning can progress before going too crazy with it...
I was think this for a long time, what happens if your body is dieing and you wanna make a clone of you and the clone doesn't have a brain and when your body dies the doctors put your brain in the clone's body will you be alive still? because if you are that either means there's no such thing as a soul or the soul can be transferred to another body
can anyone please try to answer my question
I was actually addressing everybody because there are a number of things that even scientists forget that, if you know your basic cell biology, you should be able to predict.
* Dolly, the first live animal clone, died from degenerative conditions associated with ageing, despite the fact she was only the equivalent of an adolescent. Can anybody tell me why?
* My previous point: if enough people/animals were genetically the same, you'd be seeing more epidemics because germs change and our adaptive immune system, which is almost entirely determined by genes, requires change to keep up.
* Also part of my previous point: interaction between clones would have to be regulated because a reduced genetic variability in the population would raise the chance of consanguineous reproduction (otherwise known as incest though it wouldn't be exactly the same thing here). Fortunately I don't forsee that many social circumstances in which this would be a significant concern.
I was think this for a long time, what happens if your body is dieing and you wanna make a clone of you and the clone doesn't have a brain and when your body dies the doctors put your brain in the clone's body will you be alive still? because if you are that either means there's no such thing as a soul or the soul can be transferred to another body
This implies that the 'soul' is somehow embodied by the brain. Do you mean to say that your soul is related or equal to your personality, and it is this that is transferred over?
I can't really deal with the question in a literal sense as the answer would be very complicated. For example I would need to know whether it's possible to preserve the brain while transferring it without it being damaged from lack of oxygen, or whether the neural connections are possible to restore anyway.
A lot of the time it is easier to deal with these questions without having to think about the 'soul' in a literal sense because of its somewhat antiquated place in history and therefore incompatibility with more powerful models. But that's just my opinion.
I was just asking, anyway that got answered and if anyone else want to reply to my comment please do
in fact,i see no advantages in cloning animals or humans.cloning extinct animals(not endangered) is the same as introducing a new animal to a food chain.introducing new animals to another foreign food chain can produce terrible results.if i introduced the mammoth to a food chain ,say in a forest that consist of birds,frogs and chicken,there will be no predators of mammoth and it could just mass produce.
CLONING GENIUS CAN HELP IMPROVE THE WORLD.
totally wrong.it's how the geniuses are nurtured that they can be genius,not through birth that decides it
You make a good point there shermzx but not everything can be solved with cloning
just throwing this out there: what if every person born were given their own clown that was used to provide spare organs and such when the original needed it. It'd make a gnarly sci-fi book.
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