Re: Reproductive Cloning

From: Edmund Grech (edmund@arclightentertainment.co.uk)
Date: Fri May 03 2002 - 17:49:31 MDT


Eliezer wrote:

> Well, wait just a moment here. There are possible reasons to want to
clone,
> as such, regardless of whether there's another way. All of these reasons
> have to do with wanting a living person who's as similar as possible to a
> previous organism - not maximally similar, of course, because
environmental
> differences will always intertwine with the genetic similarities; just "as
> similar as possible". In the pre-cloning era you could only get a maximum
> of 50% genetic similarity; when cloning is safe (it isn't now) it will be
> possible to get 100% genetic similarity. This is not the total
> one-mind-in-two-bodies similarity portrayed by a foolish and uninformed
> media; it's just a greater degree of similarity than was previously
> possible. Suppose a woman wants to raise a child that is as bright as
> possible. She could get a Nobel Prize winner's gamete from a sperm bank.
> Or - in the future - she could clone a Nobel Prize winner. This doesn't
> guarantee her child will win the Nobel Prize, but it does mean that the
> "average intelligence of the parents" will be higher and that the expected
> intelligence of the child will be higher.

I agreed with this as far as reproductive cloning was concerned in an
earlier post:

Quote:

"2. If the individual has an exceptionally high IQ has, and could, serve
humanity more.
eg Consider if we could have cloned Einstien, Planck, Mozart, any number of
history's recorded geniuses?

This is a forseeable benefit, as succesful cloning technology will present
itself long before genetic alteration to predispose such traits will."



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:13:48 MST