• Question: would you like to be a clone?

    Asked by rarr to Meeks, Pete, Stephen, Steve, Tom on 18 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Stephen Curry

      Stephen Curry answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      I think I would be very uncomfortable either being a clone or knowing a clone who was derived from me. I suspect that full human cloning will be considered highly unethical for some time to come.

      Have you seen the movie ‘Moon’ (released last year – directed by David Bowie’s son, Duncan Jones) – it touches on this question in a very interesting way.

      One possible advantage would be to use cloning to generate spare organs for transplant – this is one of the possible promises of stem cell research. An organ generated in this way would not be rejected by the immune system since the organ has effectively come from the donor.

    • Photo: Steve Roser

      Steve Roser answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      Not sure on this – very good question – there’s lots of stuff to do with the psychology of twins, which shows that they can develop quite differently, but still retain a lot of similarities – I guess it would be too weird to have someone who was EXACTLY like you even in teh way they thought, but sort of ok to have someone very like you. Hmmm.

    • Photo: Marieke Navin

      Marieke Navin answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      I wouldn’t like to be one but I’d like to have one! Someone who could help me out at work and with childcare – that’d be great

    • Photo: Tom Hartley

      Tom Hartley answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      Yes, I think so. It would be exactly like being an identical twin, and I can imagine that it would be nice.

      If the clone was made at a different time though (so the two individuals were of different ages) it could be a bit spooky, I suppose, but not much different from a normal sibling. I wouldn’t want to live in a world where human cloning was routinely done, except if for the benefit of the clone him/herself, and I can’t really imagine those circumstances. But I think being a clone (or identical twin) would be interesting. I wonder how different their brains are? And how different are their thoughts. Doing this sort of experiment with twins, is a good way to find out whether and how our characteristics are determined by our genes, the environment we live in, or both.

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