Assignment #1: An informal response paper, mostly about cloning human beings--do I think it's right, blah blah blah.
The assignment was to answer the following two questions (I left out the third, which involved drawing a "concept map" ::shudder::) [taken from the notebook they wrote]:
A. How has one of these inventions (ATM's, cellular phones, genetic engineering, computers, the World Wide Web, space exploration, plastic, or GPS) had a significant impact on your future profession?
C. Human cloning has recently become an important topic of conversation. Do you believe it is acceptable to clone human beings? Elaborate on the moral, religious and political ramifications that could surface if human cloning did in fact become an accepted practice.
Grade: 100%
A. My future profession is in biotechnology, so without genetic engineering, I'd be in the English department writing my seventeenth research paper on the social mores of Shakespearean dramas. Biotechnology--at least the part I want to enter--is almost entirely based on the knowledge of genetics and DNA. By transferring genes from one plant variety to another, or even from one species to another, plants can grow stronger and healthier with more nutritious and better-looking products and better fulfill their role in the cycle of life. Genetic engineering is such an important part of biotechnology that the two labels are often used interchangeably.
C. I don't really know what I think about cloning human beings. It seems like such a far-fetched idea, even in the light of recent scientific breakthroughs, that time consumed seriously contemplating the emotional health of a Tamogotchi would be just as well spent. It just feels like a subject better left to evil scientists, eccentric dying billionaires, and science fiction writers than politicians, but I am comforted by the fact that at least in America, there will always be influential and wealthy lobbyists on both sides of the issue to grease palms and impede progress, ensuring that nothing gets too far out of control. Still, I'll give the discussion a shot anyway.
I don't think I have any moral objections to actually cloning a human being; none come to mind right away, anyway. Cloning isn't creating life any differently than normal reproduction is; scientists aren't using anything other than the materials that God or Mother Nature or whoever you like put on earth specifically to make creatures multiply. I just don't see the point of human cloning, although the first team that was successful at it would definitely go down in history as major leaders in the field. There are already far too many people on the planet that we can't (or rather, won't, using a variety of political excuses) feed, clothe, house, or provide medicine and work to, and more arriving through more natural means every minute. Why do we need to make more people in addition?
It certainly wouldn't be right to think of clones as "subhuman" when in reality they're like identical twins, so using them to perform dangerous feats to spare "real" humans would be out. On Space: Above and Beyond, which I believe was set in the mid 21st century, humans were fighting a costly war against some alien species and were desperately in need of young bodies to put into uniform, hence the use of individuals whose genetics were, if not cloned directly, at least mixed together and grown in a lab. So I guess if a devastating plague ever ravished the planet, wiping out, say, half the population, but enough leaders and enforcers and moneylenders were left alive to keep the labs going, mass human cloning would be acceptable or even necessary. On Mystery Science Theater 3000, there was a movie in which wealthy, high-ranking politicians kept clones of themselves in an isolated compound and used them as "spare parts"--the ultimate donor for a liver, bone marrow, or heart transplant. I suppose, if there are any industrial nations left that are truly governed by a hereditary ruler, this kind of plan would make sense--I would think that a clone would have to be "started" at the same time as its "original" or no more than five years later to be useful for medical procedures or even switching places on occasion... which brings up the Man in the Iron Mask Syndrome (the Leonardo DiCaprio version)--the clone or clones might end up wrestling with the original for power, claiming to be the "true" ruler.
Well, obviously human cloning is a ripe subject for theoretical discussion. I for one, however, am not going to worry about another me walking around someday.