And That"s My Take - Human Cloning
The slippery slope created by those who engineered Dolly, the famous cloned sheep, leads us perilously close to being able to custom design our very own offspring.
Hitler would be ecstatic.
One of the ethical questions revolving around this spectacular leap in scientific knowledge and capability surrounds the debate of just because we have the knowledge, should we necessarily employ it? Granted, there are some sober and solid reasons to follow a path of research to develop techniques of cloning humans.
Certainly, advancements made using stem cells, for example, have provided welcomed treatments and hope for those suffering countless terminal illnesses.
The medical use of stem cells has been equally controversial to human cloning, but enjoys more lenient permission from society generally because of its limitations in 'building' a human being.
It seems much less Frankenstein-ish.
Still, despite the benefits of stem cell research and treatments, it, too, shares the wrath of those adamantly opposed to using science to 'play God'.
Scientists are also now debating and considering the possibility of cloning a Neanderthal, which poses yet another subset of ethical questions.
Can you imagine a Neanderthal existing on Earth during these times? In Canada and United States, the governments and the general scientific community has voiced its opposition to human cloning.
But that does not mean that research and progress into human cloning has ceased.
In fact, it can be easily argued that there is a race on to grow the first cloned human.
And at the front of this race is, perhaps most surprisingly, the Middle East.
One of the principal reasons why the Middle East is such a favored locale for human cloning research is that the dominant religion is Muslim and that the Islamic faith does not share the Christian belief on when life begins, thereby skirting another hot ethical debate for researchers conducting experiments on cells.
The ramifications of successful human cloning are immense, and chief among them are the military implications and the homogenization of our species.
Like so many inventions and discoveries brought to fruition and intended for good rather than evil, it is without a doubt that human cloning will follow similar paths and find itself abused by those with nefarious motives.
Unquestionably, there are some very prominent positive motivations to pursuing human cloning research and the vast majority of these persuasive arguments revolve around the medical field.
Still, one has to wonder that if we cannot co-exist in peace now, then how can we expect to do so with our genetic copies? And that's my take.
Hitler would be ecstatic.
One of the ethical questions revolving around this spectacular leap in scientific knowledge and capability surrounds the debate of just because we have the knowledge, should we necessarily employ it? Granted, there are some sober and solid reasons to follow a path of research to develop techniques of cloning humans.
Certainly, advancements made using stem cells, for example, have provided welcomed treatments and hope for those suffering countless terminal illnesses.
The medical use of stem cells has been equally controversial to human cloning, but enjoys more lenient permission from society generally because of its limitations in 'building' a human being.
It seems much less Frankenstein-ish.
Still, despite the benefits of stem cell research and treatments, it, too, shares the wrath of those adamantly opposed to using science to 'play God'.
Scientists are also now debating and considering the possibility of cloning a Neanderthal, which poses yet another subset of ethical questions.
Can you imagine a Neanderthal existing on Earth during these times? In Canada and United States, the governments and the general scientific community has voiced its opposition to human cloning.
But that does not mean that research and progress into human cloning has ceased.
In fact, it can be easily argued that there is a race on to grow the first cloned human.
And at the front of this race is, perhaps most surprisingly, the Middle East.
One of the principal reasons why the Middle East is such a favored locale for human cloning research is that the dominant religion is Muslim and that the Islamic faith does not share the Christian belief on when life begins, thereby skirting another hot ethical debate for researchers conducting experiments on cells.
The ramifications of successful human cloning are immense, and chief among them are the military implications and the homogenization of our species.
Like so many inventions and discoveries brought to fruition and intended for good rather than evil, it is without a doubt that human cloning will follow similar paths and find itself abused by those with nefarious motives.
Unquestionably, there are some very prominent positive motivations to pursuing human cloning research and the vast majority of these persuasive arguments revolve around the medical field.
Still, one has to wonder that if we cannot co-exist in peace now, then how can we expect to do so with our genetic copies? And that's my take.