What is up with cloning??

Question

Why do people think they can play God?

Answer 1

Cloning in what context?  Cloning jut means copying.  If you run PCR from a blood stain at a crime scene, you're cloning that piece of DNA.  Medical and genetic tests require it.  Cloning cells is needed for research.  Cloning is a huge, broad topic.  You should narrow it down a bit.  

Answer 2

What has cloning got anything to do with God? its scientific breakthrough that we can take a small piece of tissue from a animal and clone it to make another of the exact same animal.

Its great for farming, since farmers can pick their best sheep, cow, pig etc with the best meat and clone them so they get the best meat from that animal over and over again.

If you were talking about Humans, thats a very hot topic to discuss.

Answer 3

It's because humans have been "playing God" ever since they started altering their environment.  Divert a river into an irrigation system?  You've played God by changing the landscape.  Domesticate animals and selectively breed livestock?  You've played God by guiding another species evolution.  Develop new medical technology?  You've played God by interfering with the natural progression of events.

The idea of cloning a person and ending up with an adult carbon-copy, memories and all, is total science fiction.  In reality, a clone would start as an embryo generated from an adult, then would be implanted into a surrogate mother.  The embryo would grow, develop, be born, then grow and learn like any natural child.  If you're so opposed to cloning, then are you also opposed to in vitro fertilization (which has been successfully performed - without adverse side effects - for nearly 30 years)?  With the exception of the first step, they are the same procedure.

In other words, if I were to clone myself, the clone would effectively be my identical twin, albeit 27 years younger than me.  From the many twins that I've know, I know that some remain nearly identical, while others diverge.  My clone would not be tied to me in any way other than DNA, and would be more likely to differ from me, since we would have had different conditions and experiences during our formative years.  

The point is, the clone wouldn't share my memories and would be free to develop like any other human being.  Neither of us would be diminished by being genetically identical any more than a pair of twins would be (which is to say, not at all).