From: Jeff Davis (jrd1415@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Oct 24 2002 - 13:51:34 MDT
Extropes,
--- Eugen Leitl <eugen@leitl.org> wrote:
> On Wed, 23 Oct 2002, Jeff Davis wrote:
> > ... all the
> > fuss about the problems with cloning...
> Uh, what has cloning to do with germline
> engineering?
Sorry, I failed to make clear my sense of the
connection.
Both germline engineering and cloning are
biotechnology. Genetic engineering. When one branch
of this technology suddenly and unexpectedly becomes
'easy', why may not a similar thing happen in a
related branch? And, in fact, the science is so new
that just such major discoveries leading to major
technological capabilities are ***to be expected***.
The genes-inserted-easily-into-sperm development seems
to me yet another announcement of this situation, a
lesson in perspective on the larger process. Right
now, advanced degrees and fancy high tech tools
notwithstanding, we don't know squat all about this
stuff. But, at the same time, we're in the steep area
of the learning curve, and on course to develop a
whole honkin' huge lot of know how in a very short
period of time.
The ease or difficulty, safety or danger, of cloning
lies, I predict, not in the cloning, but in the state
of human know how. Shortly, the precise set of
factors that make an embryonic cell embryonic will be
specified. This amounts to knowing where you want to
go, and knowing where you want to go is a big help in
plotting a course to get you there. Shortly
thereafter, I expect, resetting an adult cell will
become 'easy', and therapeutic and reproductive
cloning will become both routine and safer than the
old 'natural'/conventional therapy/reproduction
techniques. Then in (relatively) short order, expect
therapeutic correction, improvement/upgrade, radical
enhancement, and complete (?) morphological freedom.
This view is partly technophilic enthusiasm and partly
my sense that genetic materials are INHERENTLY EASY TO
MANIPULATE.
Of course, I could be wrong. It could be even easier
than that.
Best, Jeff Davis
"Everything's hard till you know how to do it."
Ray Charles
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