S3RO

Or cloning stem cells if possible would be very beneficial.

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Killerdude500

LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL /FACEPALM

You do realize how costly and time deficient that long procedure is just for parts? You could just take stem cells and grow "parts" in a culture in a time efficient manner, in which the patient won't actually die waiting...

Otherwise, you would have to wait X years for a normal "part" of a clone to grow to adult stage (if patient why was an adult). Also, that clone would have rights as well, which also makes your point invalid.

@uni: Johnny technically has a point, even though it is not about human cloning. Dolly aged much faster than normal sheep. However, that was back when cloning was primitive.

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Agamo

Like it isn't now?

uniquin

there is clearly no denying the fact that dolly died quickly, despite speculation as to how. But if we're going to point to early animal trials, we can also point to some mice and cows that were cloned with longer telomeres/lifespans. You have it right tho: cloning technology was(is?) young.

If there were NO reset for telomeres, then how did yours reset upon conception? A natural reset already exists - so you have no reason to say "there is no reset".

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Round here we talk just like lions...

...but we sacrifice like lambs.

Feel the Magic

Johhny. Please don't get all macho about your knowledge of cloning if you just learned it in school.

and agamo, clioning isn't really primitive; in that it uses a lot of cutting-edge technology.the fact that it doesn't really work much doesn't make it primitive

guys... why are we arguing about how clones (would) age faster than normal people? If we can't even get a clone to last a couple months, we won't need to worry about the condition of the telomeres

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jgb

Nah, we should not clone humans, its against the ethnics...
We should create a giant army of CowHumans!!!
Or ManBearPigs ^^

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Nec

Although I'm late into this discussion, my response heavily relies on "what if" scenarios, and will be short.

I feel that cloning is immoral, but could also do some good. Yet, the good ideas only present themselves with more ethnical questions, and leaves you with more questions than answers.


1.) Let's say we could clone people, and the clones grew at a tremendously quick speed. This would result in a clone of a twenty year old, reaching twenty years of age at four times the speed the original took.

1a.) This could work nicely for organ donations, yet it raises the question if clones can be considered a real person. Also, using a person solely for the distribution of healthy organs, is very immoral.
1b.) The army would go bananas (keeping it clean) if they could clone large numbers of people. An army of two million could reach four million in four years using the example of 1.

2.) If people were to be cloned, there's more questions raised.

2a.) Could if be possible to clone someone with a terminal illness, and the clone would be healthy?
2b.) If someone constantly cloned themselves, could they technically live forever? Would they carry over their memories?


Now that I think of it, cloning really looks to be something we should stay away from. Even cloning animals is very questionable, but I can understand why people are trying to do that. It could possibly save some endangered species, it might be an alternative to food sources (which doesn't sound yummy at all).

Although it has the potential to possibly do some good, the ways it can be exploited is far to much. I would think we'd learn from our past, and things we (the human race) have done.

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uniquin

People seem to have poor ideas of how cloning works, and instead stick in movie fiction instead of science. Some things have already been mentioned in this thread, but I find it important to set things straight.

I could just as easily say: "Let's say we could clone people, and the clones grew rocket launchers instead of arms....". As you can imagine, whatever logic that follows might be sound, given the opening line, but is flawed because we have no reason so suspect that to be the case in humans. We shouldn't point to one mammal (Dolly) who didn't have a full life, while ignoring many others (mice, cows, etc) who have longer-than-normal telomeres. Regardless, lifespan and aging are two different things.

We have no reason to clone an entire person for one organ. Not only would killing that person be illegal (as any murder is illegal in most civilized nations), but because we can simply clone a stand-alone organ instead, at a cheaper cost and less time. A person would take at least a decade to reach maturity - lab organs could be grown in... weeks? (theoretically)


Depends on the terminal illness. You take someone who has metastatic cancer because they smoked like a chimney their entire life, and clone them, then the clone would not have cancer (as that was an induced disease). But if you take someone with, say, Tay Sachs, Sickle Cell Anemia, or Parkinson's Disease, then the clone would also have those, as they are genetic.

Cloning does not transfer memories in any way, shape, or form. If someone gives birth to identical twins (which are a form of cloning), the two children don't share memories between themselves, or their parents. The only thing that gets trasfered is the genetic information that tells cells how to build a human.

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Round here we talk just like lions...

...but we sacrifice like lambs.

Real Deal

This is not cloning the whole person, but if you could use your very own cells to replace tissues, your body will not reject them and they
will fit perfectly into the person's body design. We are not to the point where we can produce a new heart or other organs, but with stem
cell and cloning research, we may be able to see this in the next century or so. I have to point out that science is not able to do any
of this today, but with current research we are beginning to underground how the body is able to develop tissues and organs in the
right places and in coordination with other tissues.