From: J. R. Molloy (jr@shasta.com)
Date: Tue Jan 16 2001 - 14:40:39 MST
Max More wrote,
> I just wrote about
> some of my concerns regarding human cloning (by people who don't
understand
> that they are not replicating people) on the Wired email list.
I couldn't find any concerns regarding human cloning on the Wired email
list, but I found:
"'The scientists are trying to play God!'
http://sopris.net/mpc/interrupting_aging.html
That is the knee-jerk reaction to almost any biomedical breakthrough:
cloning, tissue regeneration, cures for lethal diseases, immortality. When
a sheep named Dolly was produced by cloning, a world-wide cry of fear and
revulsion rose from politicians, religious leaders, and media pundits.
The president of France, Jacques Chirac, called cloning 'a degrading
attack on humanity' and suggested a ban on such research throughout the
industrialized world. Pope John Paul II also inveighed against human
cloning, fearing that scientists will attempt to 'play God.'...
When Pope John Paul II invoked the 'playing God' cliché, His Holiness
overlooked the fact that the medical attention that has more than once
saved his own life is surely 'playing God.' Otherwise he would be among
the angels now. Every time we take an aspirin or an antibiotic we are
'playing God.' What else is the coronary bypass procedure that saves a
heart attack victim from imminent death?"
-------------------------------------
I really can't figure out what it is about the prospect of human cloning
that triggers hysteria in some people. Does it threaten their belief
systems? Their ideas of the human soul? One woman I know went ballistic at
the mere mention of actually cloning a human. This I find interesting
because she's been involved in social engineering via primary education
for decades. So, what's the big deal with crossing over to
bio-engineering?
Stay hungry,
--J. R.
3M TA3
Useless hypotheses: consciousness, phlogiston, philosophy, vitalism, mind,
free will
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