Cloning and Man's Best Friend(s)

[mr_pikachu]

Company offers to clone dogs for 5 highest bidders

Quoted from US biotech company offers to clone man's best friend

Dogs are arguably the most difficult mammal to clone, according to BioArts.

If that's true, will future scientists work to clone humans? Or perhaps more correctly, will this breakthrough bump up the inevitable timeline?

What about this incident itself? Do you like the idea of bringing back a lost loved one, or does it feel a little too much like Xeroxing?

Is this the dawn of a new age or the beginning of the end?

[RedStarWarrior]

Did they give any reason why dogs are 'arguably the most difficult mammal to clone?' Last time I checked, humans are mammals, so whoever made the statement at BioArts is retarded. Also, cloning doesn't reproduce memories so your loved one would be a different person completely due to the effects of environment on development.

[firepokemon]

^ Hey WC/Redstar/too many names good to see you posting round here for a change.

I think human cloning is wrong and so I don't like it but I really do not want to talk about it, since I don't believe my country or any other country is likely to approve of cloning humans for years. One could get into cloning tissues etc for medical reasons but I don't wish to get into that either to be honest.

I'd much sooner talk about mans best friend since my family lost one of our pets last year. He was a Black Labrador and sadly got run over. While I didn't get to see him much in the later years as I only see my family christmas/new years it was always great when I got to see him. Now I loved this dog and I cried many tears when I found out about his death. Which is ironic, because if one of my family members died, I probably wouldn't cry for several weeks or so. Though I dunno, as the last person that close was years ago.

But anyway the thought of bringing back Storm as a cloned form would be wrong on so many counts. Yeah it would look the same and I'm sure I would like it/love it but it would never be the same as Storm and anyway natural breeding can often mean same looking animals, except they are never clones, they are original animals.

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Anyway lets go to the human side again since really thats what you were asking. I think we're the same as we were say five years ago. Yes one day inevitably someone somewhere will clone a human, it may be five years away or it may be ten or more. But I don't think western style governments will allow it to happen. Because its not just the conservative right against it but you even have liberals against it. I don't see how you can justify it or why there needs to be cloned humans. Thats why I for one am pretty much against it. I don't really have a lot to say as evidenced by what I've said. But I will take an interest in this thread and see what others have to say.

[RedStarWarrior]

fp, I read a lot instead of posting.

I agree with you on the idea of cloning organs...that could definately prove beneficial.

[Weasel Overlord]

It wouldn't be the same dog... Say what you like about them, but dogs have their own special little mannerisms that can't possibly be down to genetics. Like, one of mine has a habit of sulking in a corner if there's too many people round our house. That can't possibly be a product of genetics. So as much as the cloned doggy might LOOK like your dead one, it would not be the same. Personally, the thought horrifies me. How weird would it be, to accept that your best friend doggy just died, and then to have them cloned, but very slightly different, just wandering around the house... *shudders* No, I don't like it.

Probably been watching too much Full Metal Alchemist, with all its "human transmutation is WRONG"-ness, but still.

[Blademaster]

This is an issue I'm kinda torn on. On the one hand, I can see cloning as being the biggest breakthrough in biological history if successful.

But on the other hand, there's enough fucking people on the planet already! Clone the dogs and leave the clothed monkeys alone!

Or better yet, clone stuff that we can USE, like chickens and cattle. Or fish. Clone the endangered creatures that man has fucked over for centuries - pay back the planet a bit before it gets pissed off. Replace the tigers and whales and shit: Cloned dogs just means more kill shelters for the 'imperfect' ones.

[Heald]

Bin dun

As the film The 6th Day demonstrates, Arnie doesn't want to clone his dead dog before his child gets home because then his child won't deal with death. Imagine if the same thing happens: Ol' Yeller kicks it while little Timmy is at school, so you clone him and get him home before Timmy sees the dead dog. I realise the cloning technology isn't that sophisticated yet but it could well be in the future.

Cloning could be beneficial for pets in order to eliminate genetic defects that blight generations of domestic animals, which would cause a vast downturn in veterinary costs and visits. It would also mean that breeders would probably go out of business as once you have a range of 'perfect' dogs, just clone them instead of breeding them. Likewise, the best race horse in the world could be cloned.

The only reason why this isn't the case yet, and why it is so expensive is because religious nutjobs that think cloning is immoral are too powerful to stop at the moment. Someone ought to ask them to point out where it says 'Thou shall not clone animals' in the Bible/Torah/Koran/Kama Sutra and when they can't, tell them to shut the hell up.

Cloning is eventually going to be a normal thing, but it isn't going to be the doomsday scenario people think it's going to be. Whether you can clone a human, and bring them back as they were the day they died, memories, age etc. and whether it will be legal is a different story entirely. Let's say by the year 2300, you can buy a life insurance clone that periodically you update the memories of (like in the 6th Day), and then one day you fall off a cliff and die. Your clone gets activated and continues working at your job, caring for your kids and banging your moderately hot wife*, who is probably banging your neighbour. This clone is essentially a stranger to you. Would you feel comfortable that, even after you're dead, you can still support your family with a clone of yourself, but that clone is going to be banging your wife?

To be honest, I'll be too dead to care.

* - If you're a woman, pretend in the future, you're a lesbian, and then this will make sense.

[Magmar]

My uncle's trying to get his dog cloned via this program "Re-pet". I thought it was a joke but look it up!

[mr_pikachu]

Two things I'd like to add to this. First, I really wanted to reference The 6th Day in my post but couldn't remember the movie's name. Very unusual film... intriguing outlook.

Second, we're a lot closer to human cloning than we were just a few years ago. In case you hadn't heard, a group of researchers at Cornell genetically modified a human embryo last year.

British newspaper The Times reports that Zaninovic's feat was announced at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine annual meeting in 2007, but was only publicized recently when the United Kingdom's reproductive technology regulators reviewed the research. The House of Commons is about to consider legislation permitting this and other controversial reproductive technologies, such as the creation of chimeras -- human-animal hybrid embryos.

Weasel, welcome to Full Metal Alchemist. Shall I clone you a Mustang?

[RedStarWarrior]

First off, cloning would be nothing like The 6th Day. That isn't simple cloning to begin with and if we were capable of that, then I wouldn't mind getting my pet cloned. The problem is that we don't have the basic understanding of how our brains work (or other creatures' brains, for that matter) to even begin to work towards the memory storage and downloading portrayed in the movie.

Second, altering a human embryo and cloning a human are two different things. The complexities of reproducing an identical copy of a person are much greater than simply adding fluorescence to a undeveloped embryo.

[firepokemon]

Heald:

Imagine if the same thing happens: Ol' Yeller kicks it while little Timmy is at school, so you clone him and get him home before Timmy sees the dead dog. I realise the cloning technology isn't that sophisticated yet but it could well be in the future.

- LOL lets protect the children by never ever knowing what death means. I can imagine this for some people. The way some families treat children in that they must be protected from absolutely everything is undoubtedly bringing up brats. Yeah sure theres always been brats, but think of your own age and your own childhood and then look at the youngsters currently growing up. Many of them are going to be problematic or are already problematic and what is this going to do in the future. Most of us Generation Yers already and considered non-ambitious and basically trouble. Imagine what the next generation will be like. So yeah I can see that happening.

Cloning could be beneficial for pets in order to eliminate genetic defects that blight generations of domestic animals, which would cause a vast downturn in veterinary costs and visits. It would also mean that breeders would probably go out of business as once you have a range of 'perfect' dogs, just clone them instead of breeding them. Likewise, the best race horse in the world could be cloned.

- Most genetic faults in domestic animals is exactly because they are cross-breeds and are typically bred by other cross-breeds and thus are not protected from most of the genetic faults that such breeds have. The whole point of breeding in many ways is to breed them deficient of genetic faults. I don't really see how cloning will fix this. In fact rather what you are looking at in the future, is breeders moving towards more artificial breeding with the removal of certain genetic traits and the like to remove abnormalities and genetic faults. This is also happening in human births as well. Thus I don't see how Cloning improve things. And also will Cloning say a champion winning horse means it will be a champion horse. I would have thought it wouldn't be much different from what we already have which is champion horses being used as studs etc.

Thus I am not sure cloning would provide anymore benefits that current breeding systems have already.

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Redstar/WC/Raven:

First off, cloning would be nothing like The 6th Day. That isn't simple cloning to begin with and if we were capable of that, then I wouldn't mind getting my pet cloned.

Hmm I found this bit interesting that you mentioned. When I think, clone a pet dog that looks just like my pet dog and then shift memories and that to it. Is it still the same dog? Or is there merely an artificiality to the whole thing? I still maintain even if THAT was possible. I still wouldn't go for it.

[Weasel Overlord]

@fp: I'm not sure about most faults being in cross-breeds. In dogs, mongrels live MUCH longer than pedigrees by the simple fact that pedigree breeders interbreed and interbreed just to get desirable traits. Greyhounds, for example. Bred and bred for long legs and speed, and then the resulting pups end up with leg problems later in life (IF they live that long, but I'll not get into those type of debates here). It's like with those poor doggies who were bred for the wrinkles in their faces - now they're illegal, cos so many of them couldn't breathe due to the desirable wrinkly faces.

[RedStarWarrior]

Hmm I found this bit interesting that you mentioned. When I think, clone a pet dog that looks just like my pet dog and then shift memories and that to it. Is it still the same dog? Or is there merely an artificiality to the whole thing? I still maintain even if THAT was possible. I still wouldn't go for it.

To be honest, I probably would not go for it either. It would look and act like my dog, but I would know that it isn't and that would bother me.

[Dark-San]

As I would to believe, cloning animals are just a start for the general public to accept the whole cloning idea. Soon as Heald would have suggested, moral ethnics aside, would be beneficial to the future of human race as a whole. Like kickstart and jump time to around the year 2500, when man finally realized their dreams of conquering the stars and establishing colonies in space. Given man's tissue expiratory date to reach out to the untouched galaxies, which are millions of light years away, it is impossible. However there are only three possible solutions to it.

1) The human body gains immortality. Something which is probably unheard of except in myths and legends. There is a limit to how much a cell can regenerate itself. And at most with current medical advancement, a typical human could only lived around 75 years old.

2) Just leave it alone and allow the human inhabitants to multiply as left on its own. Now if any future government would to do it, it is as good as a failed investment. There are a lot of issues to consider education, training and stuffs. Besides if there are a case of overpopulation for that community, how is the ship going to deal with it? Moral issues would also be a big issue here.

3) Cloning. As usual, the moral ethics issues to be concerned with.

As I would probably see of the three, cloning is the only real solution to future space travel.

Blah enough of my future nonsense, there are probably not any issues to discuss on since most of them had already been touched. >.<

[Asilynne]

Speaking as a "religious nutjob" 8) I can honestly say that how I feel about cloning has nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with how downright confusing and creepy it would be to have the memory of your pet dying warring with the fact that the exact pet you remember seeing dead is somehow alive and walking around your house like nothing happened. It just doesnt feel right to me.

While the scientist in me sees cloning as a facinating way to close species that have gone extinct (the dodo bird, the passenger pidgeon, the wooly mammoth, hell why not dinosaurs?) in order to study them, rectify the mistakes of our careless forefathers, or just to create a new exotic petstore, when I actually stop to think about cloning as a whole it just doesnt feel right. When something dies out even through human interference its a part of history and apart of the natural cycle of the world. Its a little childish to think that if we break something we can just grow another one just like it and everything would be ok. It would kinda feel like theres no consequences for anything, because if we killed something it would be easily replaceable. Life would lose its sacredness (if it hasnt already >.>).

It reminds me of that movie, I cant remember what its called but it was about a couple lost their kid to some sort of accident so they went to a clinic to get him cloned and acted as if he never died in the first place, but the kid started having nightmares about the moment he died. While I doubt that a cloned child would have those kinds of nightmares in real life the creepiness factor is still there, because the parents were all too willing to pretend nothing at all happened to their little boy because they could easily grow another one of him to replace the dead one o.o
And while theres a big difference between dogs and children, for many people their pets become part of the family, and as Weasel has said already they have certain mannerisms and personality traits that make them unique. My dog lived for 15 years before he died, and while I miss him a lot I think that if I got him cloned I would probably just look at the cloned dog and cry because its not bringing the dead back to life, its making a copy, and no matter how good a copy it is it can never be the real thing.