Can a fully grown adult human being be cloned in 2008 ?

Question

I'm not here to raise the ethical issues surrounding human cloning, but I'm wondering how far has cloning research come from the days of Dolly the sheep.

I find this very disturbing on some many levels, especialy as we are trying to play 'god'.

Is there any need for cloning a human being ?

To a lesser extent, i don't mind if cloning is used for things like growing back a body part or something where it means you can save another persons life, but i just think that nobody should endorse nor fuel the need to one day 'clone each other'.

I'm interested in your opinions on this matter, so post your answers and let me know what you think.

Answer 1

In your opening sentence, you say you're not here to raise ethical issues of cloning, but the rest of your statement gives your personal opinion. So which is it?

I'll stick with your initial question. I don't think a human will be cloned in 2008, because the Raelians are the only group who have shown any significant interest in cloning humans, and they have not presented any evidence that they've done so despite their outrageous claims.

Although cloning a human shouldn't theoretically be much harder than a sheep, there are inherent problems in the early cloning process that complicate the attempt. Most cloned embryos are inviable, and many that do develop in the womb do not survive long into the pregnancy or after birth. It seems that the more complicated the organism, the more problems embryos have in their early development during the cloning process. Because humans give birth to one of the most helpless offspring of all animals and because humans have the most sophisticated brains of all organisms, it is likely that there will be many more complications with attempts at human cloning, such as early abortion, stillbirths, birth defects, and mental retardation.

Finally, a FULLY GROWN adult human cannot be made out of thin air -- it needs to be grown from an embryo like any other adult. Science fiction like the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie "The Sixth Day" gives some people the idea that cloning an adult is possible, but that movie takes place in the distant future. Current technology requires the insertion of an adult nucleus into an embryo at the single-cell level, and it would take thousands or millions of scientific breakthroughs in order to develop a fully grown adult human from scratch. So even if a viable clone was developed in 2008, it would not be an adult until 2026.

Answer 2

Hi. I just finished my MS in biotech and have worked in the industry for 7 years. Technically, we do currently have the technology to clone a human--it is possible. But there are problems, such as exhibited with Dolly. For instance, in orcer to clone a human, you must have human cells to use as astarting material. But once the humanclone is "born" it's cellular make up will be the same age that the person who donated the original cells will be. So if a 40 year old gives DNA, the "baby" clone with have cells that think they are 40 years old, and thus will die at a very young age.

The only actual need to clone a human is for organs or tissues, but that raises eithical issues no one wants to touch. Currently we are trying to "clone" just the organs that are needed, without the rest of the person attached.

So we can clone a person, but there is no reason to, and many many reasons not to.

Personally, I don't think there will be any need to clone people. Except for rare instances, like Einstein. If we could clone someone who was so smart that they might be able to solve problems no one else currently can, do you think we should? I would like to see Einstein cloned a couple times--but no one else.

Answer 3

I do not see the need to clone an 'actual' human being. I can definetly see how cloning a body part or organ would be useful, but how would a cloned human being serve any purpose?

Anyone seen the movie 'The Island' that's quite interesting and explores this topic a bit more.