Originally posted by ETK
I think cloning can be seen through so many filters. Cloning cannot be defined by one example alone.I will let God, my immune system, and my own anatomy tell me when my time is up. I don't need science to extend my life. The will of the mind will also keep me healthy.
Without science the human lifespan would be significantly shorter than it is today. Every time you take medicine to cure an illness science is extending your life. Why not try to extend it more?
I still don't quite see the argument behind if we were to get to the stage where humans could be correctly cloned it would be bad because they wouldn't have souls. How could they not? Unless one thinks clones would be like that Sixth Day movie a clone would end up being a distinct individual. Sure, our "soul" is what we are, our personality and so forth, but our personalty develops, grows and is shaped by our life, a clone would be the same. It may have the same genes, but its mind would be distinct. It would not have had our parents, it would not have had our friends, it would be being created in a different world to the one we were born into. I think it would have just as much a "soul" as the rest of us. Unless you could clone memories, which considering the brain is barely understood now, is unlikely.
If they clone individual organs, that is good, as it will save lives.
However, it is bad to clone just to make copies of people, as this will prevent natural evolution. Humans are not perfect, so why bother to make an exact copy of an imperfect human.
Genetic engineering, however, is something entirely different. When they have fullly harnessed genetic engineering, that will be good, but until then.
Technically humanity, in terms of evolution, has slowed down, as we have put our selves above natural selection, being "imperfect" in human society is not a death sentence for ones genes. Likewise there are almost, almost, natural forms of cloning, that of asexual reproduction, which works well for some species with limited long term evolutionary problems.
Originally posted by Imperial_Samura
Technically humanity, in terms of evolution, has slowed down, as we have put our selves above natural selection, being "imperfect" in human society is not a death sentence for ones genes. Likewise there are almost, almost, natural forms of cloning, that of asexual reproduction, which works well for some species with limited long term evolutionary problems.
This is true, we as a species have removed ourselves from nature to the extent that biology no longer shapes us, we shape the world around our biology.
Exactly, evolution is of secondary importance to us, whereas in the normal animal kingdom every generation plays a part sometimes, we as humans have managed to avoid it, we are, in a fashion, heading to unchanging states. True, as medical science imrpoves we remove diseases and the impact of illness, which only adds to the way we don't evolve to meet risks and meet the situation, we invent our way out.