It makes me want to violently shit myself by way of my eyes. [Archive]

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King Bastard

03-28-2001, 09:48 PM

While eating diner a few minutes ago, I was subjected to a news report about cloning humans. Seems that it's progressed a bit since I last heard anything about it, and as Holmes would say, "The game is afoot".

THere was a council/debate/bullshit session held today about this in Washington. In typical broadcast news fashion, clips were shown of speakers, and no names given as to who they were. that being said, all of the quotes I use will be paraphrased and subject to my memory. Which, at best, is a biomechanical auto wreck.

The gist I got out of the 2 minute report was that most of these fuckers are opposed to research being done on this, let alone the actual process of cloning. I say this is absurd. The talking heads even spit out that Dubya wants to make this research illegal here in the states.... Go ahead, the Japanese or another nation will just perfect it first. How's that gonna boost national pride?

There was also some dolt who made a statement along the lines of" Since mutations can happen with great frequncy, we cannot subjec humans to such practices." OK then, I guess we shut down all the nuclear, chemical, and other plants and industry that have been shown to add to the chances of random mutation. Great step forward there, Mr. Quick in the Brain.

It's been brought up before here, and I stand by what I've already said about this. I firmly believe cloning technology to be a good thing. (Yes, it can be misused, but so can a pencil RW....) That being said, do you think that the research itself should be an outlawed practice? And why? To the best of my knowladge, no one wants to outdo Mother Nature (yet), Only copy what she can do.

There are about 30 tangents I can see coming from this above rant. I personaly would love to read any/all of them.

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Borne of sin, C',mon in... Andre Linoge; Storm of the Century

Dog Breath

03-28-2001, 10:58 PM

What happened in the movie Frankenstein is more natural than cloning.
People then thought transplants and reanimation of dead tissue was an abomination. I agree. I see the value if transplants but can you honestly say that it doesn't make you a bit uncomfortable to be carrying around a piece of someone else's body in order to stay alive? Make me a cyborg first. I don't have any problem with man made things of stone, metal, glass, wood or plastic. But human flesh is sacred.
That is why it is not acceptable to toss your dead in a dumpster. A modicum of respect is in order.

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Woof.
If it's so sick, why are you laughing?
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Princess_Heather

03-28-2001, 11:29 PM

Man - this week it just seems I can't escape cloning. Its everywhere I turn. In the news, in my magazines, on the forums, in my dreams, brought up in conversations with friends and this week in biology we have to watch "The 6th Day" in class because the professor is in Hawaii...

I have now found myself completely torn on the issue thanks the myriad opinions I can't resist being bombarded by on a daily basis. Opinions which I can't help but consider and analyze. It consumes me and is driving me nuts because NOBODY will shut up about it and EVERYBODY has to ask MY opinion. Fuck, I even have to submit a bio paper about it now, which will ultimately be graded on how well my POV matches up with and supports the professors (mine is actually quite the contrary). UGh - just thought I'd express my personal mental exhaustion of the topic. Anyone else sick of it, like me? Carry on!

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................Red On The Head... Fire In The Hole...
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[This message has been edited by Princess_Heather (edited 03-28-2001).]

MuffyTheVampyreLayer

03-29-2001, 02:57 AM

It's no biggie, the way I see it, it is innevitable. It needs to be staunchly regulated though.. and gee... who better than a bioethicist/health lawyer to do that.

Ha ha ha hahahahahahha.

I smell research grant http://www.thehypertribe.net/ubb/biggrin.gif

Princess_Heather

03-29-2001, 03:14 AM

There is some rich engineer guy who owns an entire island off the east coast somewhere and he had it declared as independant territory so it is basically his own little country with his own little laws... I post more info on him when I find it. Anyway, if you really really wanted to illegally fuck around with cloning and shit maybe you could get away with it there - I dunno - I'm prolly being ignorant and I will admit that I know nothing about laws and international policies.

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................Red On The Head... Fire In The Hole...
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[This message has been edited by Princess_Heather (edited 03-28-2001).]

skalie

03-29-2001, 05:53 AM

Cloning is inevitable, dna data bases are inevitable, basically almost anything fortold in sci-fi novels is inevitable.

There's this italian geezer who reckons he'll have it sorted within two years.

I heard the other day that in two years more people will have mobile phones than have access to clean drinking water, ha.

All this 1984 stuff makes me grateful that I've lived a fair portion of my life already, and leads me to say no to all the wonderful woman who want to bear my children.

Did you know that the Society to Clone Elvis has on of his warts with which to begin with?

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WhiteDevil

03-29-2001, 06:02 AM

Cloning. I hope they get it done.

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Are you a rebel?
Have you ever danced with the devil?

Cruise Director

03-29-2001, 06:14 AM

Cloning will start out innocently enough; just to see if we can do it.

Well, while we're at it... let's eliminate retardation and physical deformities. Who wouldn't want that?

Since we've mastered that, I'll bet we can produce smarter children. The whole world would become a smarter race. Who wouldn't want that?

Now we have noticed that lighter skinned people are more succeptable to skin cancer and other sun-related illness. We'll just darken everyone's skin pigment. Who wouldn't want that?

We've noticed that really short and really tall people are at a disadvantage in our society. We'll make everyone between 5'8" and 6'2" tall. Who wouldn't want that?

Males over the last few centuries have had an advantage over females in most of our societies so we'll strictly produce male children. With cloning, female's will not be needed to reproduce and carry on the species. Who wouldn't want that?

Anybody else see the direction that this will go?

Anybody want that?

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"It's not my fault you're too stupid to flip hamburgers. Blame God for that !"

MAC

03-29-2001, 01:37 PM

I have some background in biological sciences so lets see if I can add something here.
1) point mutations (mutations occuring in a single entity due to a single recombination in the zygote's developement) are almost always lethal. Mutants, normally, do not live. That is because there is really not a lot you can fuck with all at once. The discovery channel shows us tons of examples of creatures who thrived due to a point mutation that reacted to evolutionary pressure over thousands of years (giraffes, zebras)
Mutations in clones are a very dangerous risk. To the life of the clone. But then again naturally born people die, too.
2)PCR's (polymerace chain reactions) are common place in every lab in america now. (that is the replacation of a stand of DNA through a process called annealing. Its so simple that hundreds of strands of DNA can be made in an hour. You can order the polymeraces (chemicals used to located a specific gene when the DNA is unzipped)the from Edmund scientific.
Isolating a gene is easy right now. Recombining it with an existing stand is much harder. Its an incredible mathematical game of possibility VS. probability.The domino affect of changing an existing gene structure.
3) Strictly speaking from a scientific POV any creature that exists in an environment put pressure on that environment. Clones will not be just like the person they are cloned from. They will react to the specific pressures exerted on them by their environment and they will affect it themselves. (see budda's zen equation in the Lessons forum)
4)Speaking from a personal POV you can reproduce a human from my genes but its not me. I watched the 6th day last night and the premise there was that they could copy the brains activity and insert it into the new clone. Wrong! the clone will form its own brain patterns. I don't want to get into an Robert Heinlein discussion here but for you and your clone to be exactly alike you both have to exist in the same time start in the same place finish in the same place and never effect one another.
The real issue here is. We already have the perfect cloning system. Birth. It works and its powerful enough to proliferate a species. We already fuck with genetics by curing diseases and letting people take part in the gene pool who other wise would not.
We have altered dogs and cows and horses over thousands of years through selective breeding. My mother actually bred her own breed of chicken over almost 10 years to have just what she wanted. Frankenhen.
None of this is new or evil. But its application without accountability is horrible. A woman has to pass that child out of her body. That lets her know its real. Thern that kid runs around your house. You know what you've done. If I could pop one in the cooker at the lab and come let it out when its done , how would I be accountable.
Remmeber slavery? Me neither but we'll see it again if we have a human population with no accountability for it. See Gov't.

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My name is Forrest Gump
You can call me Forrest Gump.

squee

03-29-2001, 05:08 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE><HR>Originally posted by theMAC:
2)PCR's (polymerace chain reactions) are common place in every lab in america now. (that is the replacation of a stand of DNA through a process called annealing. Its so simple that hundreds of strands of DNA can be made in an hour. You can order the polymeraces (chemicals used to located a specific gene when the DNA is unzipped)the from Edmund scientific.
Isolating a gene is easy right now. Recombining it with an existing stand is much harder. Its an incredible mathematical game of possibility VS. probability.The domino affect of changing an existing gene structure.
[/quote]

Spoken like a 2nd-year bio geek...trust me, I was there, and you can find help http://www.thehypertribe.net/ubb/biggrin.gif PCR is a big pain in the ass. Thirty to 45-minutes of work to isolate like ten to twenty base pairs. Nooooo thanks...let the lab monkeys do it http://www.thehypertribe.net/ubb/biggrin.gif

Anyway last I heard there was an international moratorium on cloning. I think most people are waiting until practical problems are solved, such as the telomere problem with Dolly the Sheep.

Mac, you would probably love a book by Brian Goodwin called How the Leopard Changed Its Spots. You can have my copy if I can find it, but it's got all sorts of gibberish in the margins http://www.thehypertribe.net/ubb/smile.gif

MAC

03-29-2001, 05:26 PM

Cool.

Actually I spent 3 years in JC piddling and wondering what to do. Then it hit me how much I loved science. Naturally things went to shit. Money, etc. But 2 years later I completed my associates. Now I weld, cut, machine, operate presses & shears, plumb, run autocad, ...
you know biological shit. Just like I love.
Thank God I live in the woods.

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My name is Forrest Gump
You can call me Forrest Gump.