Cloning: Nature or Nurture

[Dylflon]

Originally Posted by Typhoid

Clone refers to DNA structure (I believe) and the way you are raised doesnt change your DNA unless you live in Chernobyl.

+ imaginary rep



BTW, I agree with Typhoid.

A clone is an exact duplicate of someone's genetic structure.

Experience and personality have nothing to do with this.

[Typhoid]

+ Life rep from Dylan himself?



I feel so honoured.


Hey, hey Dylan.


Me, You, Starbucks man, one day next week.

[Professor S]

I recommend that everyone who is interested sees these two movies:

Bladerunner and Boys from Brazil

[Xantar]

Bladerunner is a great movie, but isn't it actually about robots rather than clones? Now I understand that they were produced by some biological process supposedly and had DNA and everything, but I thought the central question of the movie was about the nature of humanity and life. If it was made by human hands, is it alive? The story it was based on was called Do Robots Dream of Electric Sheep?

Anyway, exactly recreating someone isn't going to be possible unless the laws of physics are wrong. It is well known that identical twins separated at birth, who are literally natural clones of each other, will turn out with different personalities. They don't even turn out the same when they are living in the same household, and that's because they don't have the exact same conversations with the same people or the exact same injuries at the exact same times or see the exact same events...and all that stuff is uncontrollable by humans.

Well ok, maybe they'd both turn out the same if you put them both in a blank cell and fed them the same stimuli through a TV or something. But aside from the ethical problems with that, you'd also end up with two very boring clones.

[The Germanator]

Originally Posted by Xantar

Anyway, exactly recreating someone isn't going to be possible unless the laws of physics are wrong. It is well known that identical twins separated at birth, who are literally natural clones of each other, will turn out with different personalities. They don't even turn out the same when they are living in the same household, and that's because they don't have the exact same conversations with the same people or the exact same injuries at the exact same times or see the exact same events...and all that stuff is uncontrollable by humans.

Well ok, maybe they'd both turn out the same if you put them both in a blank cell and fed them the same stimuli through a TV or something. But aside from the ethical problems with that, you'd also end up with two very boring clones.

I've heard some interesting stories though about identical twins separated at birth that both end up having identical jobs and similar lifestyles decades down the line. Of course this isn't the same as having the "same" life exactly, but it's something to think about.

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by Capt. Funnypants

Bladerunner is a great movie, but isn't it actually about robots rather than clones? Now I understand that they were produced by some biological process supposedly and had DNA and everything, but I thought the central question of the movie was about the nature of humanity and life. If it was made by human hands, is it alive? The story it was based on was called Do Robots Dream of Electric Sheep?

I think it was Andriods not Robots , but that doesn't really matter, and in my mind the same themes are evident in the cloning debate. If we engineer as human from existing DNA, does that nake them less human? What are his rights? What if we are actually able to create a human from scratch? What will their rights be? What will he be? If we make changes in their intelligence and appearance, can we use them as slaves or track them in their careers and place ceiling based on their gene manipulation?

Beyond Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick I also recommend Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and it was actually made into a half-decent movie a few years ago.

Boys from Brazil is a great yarn about Nazi's in 1970's Brazil who clone hundreds of little Hitlers and then attempt to control their development from afar to create a new Adolph in both nature and nurture. It stars Lawrence Oivier as an old Nazi hunter and Gregory Peck in a frightening portrayal of Dr, Joseph Mengele.

[Dylflon]

Ooh. I'm quite interested in seeing Boys From Brazil now.

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by Dylflon

Ooh. I'm quite interested in seeing Boys From Brazil now.

Its a really good movie, and the ending is absolutely chilling. Gregory Peck's performances in this and Moby Dick have convinced me that he's one of the most underrated actors of all time.

[GameMaster]

Hmm... I think in the future, memories and other treasures in the brain will be able to be transferred to other brains. In the future we will be able to make perfect clones. Personality, memories, and all!