The technology exists to clone Stephen Hawking. Although no one has had the nerve to do it, the same technology that was used to clone other animals would work on humans. Various governments and religions have taken a stand declaring cloning humans to be immoral. But I’ve never heard a reason why cloning should be banned.
So I say let’s clone Hawking. Yes, I understand that the clone will not start out with the knowledge or skills of Stephen Hawking. It’s like having an identical twin separated at birth by both space and time. But – is there something genetic about Hawking that would make his clone have the same abilities as Stephen himself? What if the clone were raised in an ideal environment where he was trained by the world’s leading physicists. Would the clone pick up where Hawking left off?
Whether it worked or not we would at a minimum learn a great deal about cloning. The possibility that his skills might live on in the clone would be a gift to the human race.
So – I’d like to open up a discussion as to why we shouldn’t do this. Thoughts?
In effect, we are all imperfect clones to a degree of our parents. As long as the child is raised in a nurturing family and Hawking approves of the process, I do not see an ethical issue. As to the outcome, that is a different matter.
There is a reason for the saying that “greatness skips a generation.” Generally, it has to do with living up to the expectations of a parent who is great at something. Would Hawking have turned out as he did knowing he had to live up to a legend? In addition, the boy would be an orphan if not raised by Hawking’s family. He’d have to come to grips over the idea he was incubated instead of consciously created by loving parents. Many children have to come to grips with similar psychological speedbumps but obviously this would be unique. Greatness is not purely a product of nature nor nuture but both.
A very naive idea, one that ignores the high percentage of birth defects found on cloned animals – extra appendages, missing organs, etc.
Are you really willing to roll the dice on building a human being?
Hubris
#26 here we go again. You stupid religious nutjobs deliberately misquoting the whole “god plays dice…’ crap because it suits your own purposes.
Remember, one of the 10 commandments is to NOT LIE (bear false witness) and by repeating the quote out of context you are deliberately breaking that commandment.
I hope they DO clone him just to piss you off.
There are at least 3 separate and distinct issues…
1. The ‘moral’ one – which is an opinion?
2. The ‘genetic’ one – Is a ‘clone’ an exact, un-mutated DNA/RNA copy of the original and is it solely the source of apparent intelligence?
3. The ‘Skinner’ one – Can a human developmental environment be duplicated or uniquely improved to get a predictable result?
Answers to these and other subsets are as difficult to resolve as the act of cloning itself.
Cloning a human would be like having the same hardware, with another software running the show.
Call that software soul, mind, sense of self, own personality, DNA roll of the dice, etc.
Let’s do something simple, like, maybe we should ask Stephen if he wants to be cloned.
Clone him! Clone him! Clone him!
Ask him! Would you want yourself cloned?
I wouldn’t do that to another being myself…
25 years ago there would have been no intelligent commentary on a subject like this.
Humans have displaced biological evolution with a style of enlightenment-based evolution.
Same Homo sapiens species as in the year 1000, but now they can all read and communicate with each other constantly across great distances.
Perhaps the invasion should be postponed.
#41:
“Ask him!”
Does that even matter? Do you ‘own’ your DNA? If someone takes your DNA and flips a few bits in it, do you have any special claim to it?
Is this any different than someone lifting your fingerprints and soring them for themselves?
Why is no one considering that the clone might turn out to be evil?
He could team up with evil cloned versions of Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Ben Franklin and start a secret society of super-villians and cause havoc across the globe.
Sometimes technology should simply not be used because the risks are too high.
With all the fucked up people on this planet, I don’t understand why we want to attempt to make a copy of another human, animal, bacteria, etc… The purpose of life is to continually change and evolve (hopefully for the better), not to maintain status quo.
Just because we have the ability to do something doesn’t mean we should just to say we can.
noname makes the point. There has to be established a legal structure for determining who can be cloned, under what circumstances cloning can take place, and ensuring the clone’s welfare after formation (the adoptive parents). The ownership of the cells to be cloned would have to be determined, and it seems to me would have to be defined within a country’s Constitution.
Given that we haven’t addressed these issues legally, on top of the logical and practical issues involved in cloning, it seems to me we’re better leaving it alone. Which means we won’t be *able* to leave it alone.
ONLY if the clone was completely unaware of their “father”, and the people who raised him/her were also unaware of the relationship.
You do not want a clone (or any child) raised with expectations and foreknowledge of a predecessor. This would mess up any possibility of the person building their life up and becoming a healthy individual.
This would be true from a scientific standpoint as well — scientists would certainly be interested to know whether nature or nurture is more important to development of skills later in life. If the genes are there but they are raised by a mechanic and his boyfriend, will the kid still be interested in science and higher form mathematics? Or will he be totally into rebuilding mustangs? Or a combination of both?
I’d say you clone him ten times, give the clones invitro to ten distinct families, and then seal the information. After 30 years, you unseal the information, find the clones and see what their lives are like in comparison to each other and their originator.
Would certainly be an interesting experience to talk to younger clones of yourself and see what their experiences were like. I’d sure do it, as long as I could talk with them once they were above a certain age.
He should definitely be cloned.
I’m the SEO of a startup that plans to clone humans on a vessel in international waters, although Stephen Hawking doesn’t really fit my particular concept I think it’s a great idea to clone the brightest minds of our planet.
I’m sure the avantgarde of our generation is ready for human cloning, let’s replace human evolution with human revolution.
Wasn’t there a movie where one of Hitlers doctors created several clones of Hitler and placed them with families around the world. The doctor was played by Gregory Peck I think. He was caught because he was going around and killing the fathers of the clones because Hitlers father was died when he was 7.
Interesting premise. One of the final confrontations was where the guy who was pursuing the doctor, a jewish guy, got to one of the families as the doctor was going to kill the father. The clone was there also and the tension was whether the clone was going to act like Hitler or as a kid who loves his father. He chose the father.
Why would we want to make a clone of a person. Would a person want to be a donor in order to achieve some kind of immortality? Would you do it to reproduce someone great like Marc is suggesting? Who would decide who gets to donate? Personally, I can’t think of anyone that I’d trust to do this including myself.
“is there something genetic about Hawking that would make his clone have the same abilities as Stephen himself. What if the clone were raised in an ideal environment where he was trained by the world’s leading physicists. Would the clone pick up where Hawking left off?”
There’s no way to know if the clone would be like SH but based on brain research we can make an educated guess. My understanding of the current research says that there are some parts of the personality that seem to be a part of a person and not learned. But who a person is and how they learn is very different. Everyday, thousands of little experiences combine to shape the person.
Again, why would we want to do it? Because you can? To see what would happen? To reshape society?
If you clone Stephen Hawking, you could give him a really great motivational speech when he is a teenager:
“You have Stephen Hawking disease. By 35 you will be an invalid. Your only chance is to cure this disease and you must do it in just 10 years.”
Suggested listening: We’re All Clones by Alice Cooper.
We have a lot of ideas here about what might happen. Why don’t we do it and find put accepting that failure is a possibility. If it doesn’t work then we’ll at least know that.
Someone has to be first. Hawking is interesting from a lot of perspectives.
We won’t know what happens until we try it..
good luck!
Why don’t we ask him if he wants to be cloned..
We have plenty of up and coming scientists ready to release the next genie.. please stand by
Lets assume for this discussion that he’s OK with it. If not him then we find someone who is. In fact – I’ll do it.
so far i think the best explanation comes from quantum physics theory..
to be an exact replica is impossible at the level..
so far as we know
in the third dimension
We know far, far too little about the genetics and epigenetics of reproduction for cloning a human to be at all ethical right now. For example, there are genes that are expressed only if the DNA came from the father’s contribution, and there are genes that are expressed only if they came from the mother. We know this, but we haven’t catalogued them all. We only have the slightest handle on how gene promotion and suppression work. There are still volumes to discover even about the homeobox genes. My guess is that a human clone at this point would only have a few percent chance to survive to term, and even if born, only a few more percent chance to survive to the age of ten years.
I very much doubt any shadowy government agency or corporation has cloned any humans. For one thing, why would they want to? With all the cost and difficulty, plus the need to raise, feed, house, clothe, doctor and educate the kid, it’s so much cheaper just to put an ad in the paper or on Craig’s List…
#59:
“I very much doubt any shadowy government agency or corporation has cloned any humans. For one thing, why would they want to?”
Brain transplants into new bodies = kind of immortal.
Utopian hogwash again.
Why not clone George Washington or Abe Lincoln or Gandhi? How about Jesus? I hear they have finger bones of his.
Sold in packs of twelve of course.
Cloning is of no real use unless your population is at the brink of extinction.
Throw your money into stem cells and grow new parts, attach with no concern about rejection.
The name of the game is Total Cellular Regeneration.
Effectively living forever. Unless you get killed outright or tire of the world and off yourself.
Though for those that want immortality, they are most likely working with the fear of death and will be at great pains to commit suicide.
Cursor_
As the article at the top of the page says ‘It’s like having an identical twin’
An identical twin is a clone of the original fertilised cell – it could be argued that it is done by god so why shouldn’t we.
I’m against it though because
1/ Too much pressure on the clone to be a genius
2/ Clone would probably choose the most fruitful area of work when he gets to make choices and that is likely to be biology rather than physics
and I wouldn’t like to guess whether having the genetic attributes to be a great physicist would lead to a great (or even good) biologist
I think if the choice is to be made then Stephen Hawking should be the one to make it
#26 – Alfred1,
#23 Not me…his classmates…knowing he is clone of a very odd man…
Oh yes … of course not you … it would be those other fucking wackos.
I’m not convinced Alfie. You called him that here and in public while he was still merely hypothetical. Apparently, his “classmates” are indeed you.
As for the rest of your post, it didn’t parse out to anything that had meaning. I have no idea what you were trying to say.
Are you saying that you don’t believe in the quantum mechanics that make your computer work? Do you think your computer was made by prayer?
#31 – FRAGaLOT,
You have some excellent points here. However, you are missing the point that morality exists outside of the bible perhaps more so than in the bible, which is why non-fundamentalists can make the moral decision to ignore parts of the bible like where it says that we should kill people for such transgressions as working on the sabbath or wearing a garment made of linen and wool.
So, it’s not just the religious right questioning the morality of cloning. The rest of us should be as well. There is a real moral issue to creating a human being, especially if one is planning to attempt to shape their lives to be like those of the prior owner of the genes.
Of course, I would argue that there is morality in deciding whether to breed or not as well. One should make that decision only if they are willing to assume the responsibility of proper parenting which should including putting one’s children ahead of oneself in importance.
I have chosen not to breed. I believe many who do breed do so for bad reasons or without any thought at all.
My real point though is that with or without the bible, there are real moral decisions to be made. I’m not sure how I feel about cloning humans; I’m probably mostly against it. I think we need to consider the rights of the clone, which may include the right to non-existence. Perhaps the same is true for naturally bred humans.
#33 – sea lawyer,
“Where does the religious right get off saying that cloning is immoral?”
morality in a society may have some religeous origins, but they certainly aren’t dependent on them.
Even more likely is that religion has some moral origins, though not enough. Some fairly complex morality, though less so than in most humans, does exist in a wide variety of species. So, it predates our own young species by quite a bit.