[Dim]

Hey all, I'm new on the forum and just wanted to get a view on how most posters are. So my question is about cloning

What are your views on cloning? What of the benefits? what of the disadvantages? and most importantly what are your ethical views? No one reacts to a reality as it objectively exists so I want your views on the subject.

[constant thinker]

Cloning humans isn't a good a idea to me. I know what can come out of it, but it's just a bad idea to me.

We've had the discussion on defending science (which you've posted on). Also we've talked about stem cells before. You can find out a lot about the people here by reading some of the topics like that. Generic discussion board is good for all of those things.

Also Welcome.

[Yggdrasil]

I support therapeutic cloning (cloning for the purpose of creating embryonic stem cells for medical uses) but not reproductive cloning (cloning for the purpose of creating babies).  Therapeutic cloning may become a very helpful technique for providing tissues for transplantation which are perfectly immunomatched to the patient, eliminating the risk of rejection and the need for immunosuppressive drugs.  In combination with genetic engineering techniques, therapeutic cloning could also offer cures for some currently uncurable diseases, like Alzheimer's or type I diabetes.  However, I should mention that current research on stem cells is not very advanced, so these possible cures are still far away.  So, therapeutic cloning currently has no use, but it may once our knowledge of how to work with embryonic stem cells advances.

I see no benefit for reproductive cloning, however.  IVF is already an effective, and well established means for infertile couples to have children, and adoption is always another option.

[edit:  I just noticed that this post is #666 for me.  I guess it's appropriate considering some of these views may not sit well with some religious people ]

[constant thinker]

Yggdrasil, that is ironic. 

I forgot about embryonic stem cell cloning. Are we even at the point where we can do something like that, and cause the cells to differentiate into what we want them too instead of something we don't want? Maybe that will be an interesting thing to research (from the chemical point of view) for me once I get to graduate studies, and have a good knowledge of chemistry.

[Yggdrasil]

Figuring out which chemical and biological factors can be used to to get stem cells to differentiate into the proper cell types is an active field of research.  In biology, this is mostly focused on figuring out which signaling pathways activate which intracellular components and how these intracellular effectors bring about differentiation.  I don't follow stem cell research too closely, but I do remember a paper where the authors took adult stem cells (bone marrow stromal cells) and induced their differentiation into muscle cells (Dezawa et al. Science 309, 314 (2005).)

[Bakegaku]

I guess I have the common opinion.  I don't really see what good can come out of human cloning, but cloning organs for transplants or embryonic stem cells for research purposes is fine.

[The Tao]

I agree with the majority here. Cloning for reproductive purposes is not be trusted, unless of course there is a well defined reason. Such as  world domination.