Scientists hail stem cell breakthrough. South Korean scientists create the first human embryonic stem cells designed to match sick or injured patients. [BBC News | News Front Page | UK Edition]
This is the tip of a very large and very deep iceberg. Forget for the moment the ethical issues (I will get to those) and think about this question - why is everyone surprised? Not about the controversy, but about the fact that someone finally did it. Cloning or genetic manipulation has been going on for eons. You don't believe me? OK, there was this guy, his name was Medelsohn. He theorized (scientific use) that there were a limited number of combinations of plant crossings that would result in a limited set of results. So he grew some beans. Turns out he was right. Today, we know it as the dominant/recessive gene theory. If your parents have brown eyes and you have blue, there was not milkman involved - the gene for eye colour comes in two flavors, brown and blue, with brown being dominant, but each gene has two helpings of eye color allele. So, like a game of matching socks, if you have two brown and your mate has two brown, your offspring has brown. The fun begins if you have a brown and a blue and your mate has a brown and a blue. You have brown eyes, but your offspring have a 1 in 4 chance of having both blue alleles, and thus blue eyes (green eyes are a mutation and hazel are issues of shading - I am simplifying it, but it works, trust me).
OK, so maybe you think that smacks of evolution and you strongly believe in intelligent design (an oxymoron worthy of Shakespeare himself if I ever heard one, but that is a different issue and one I will not waste time on). Try this on for size. Most farmers breed their livestock for desirable traits. Usually it is the ability to do something better, whether that is give more milk or get fat quick or be a better hunter. Pick the trait, but it is nothing less than genetic manipulation (kind of like evolution right?).
So along comes Dolly. You remember Dolly. She was the first cloned sheep. Heck she's been around 10 odd years and other than some genetic deficiencies in her line, she seems to have survived quite well. Oh, but that would never do for humans. Hate to break the news, but what is a test tube baby? How about artificial insemination? Nothing more than genetic manipulation. Cloning is just the last step in the process. Instead of mixing genetic material, cloning is nothing more than photocopying the genetic material. You will note here that I did not say copying the individual. If you belive an individual is simply the collection of his (or her) cells, then I have to say you are sadly mistaken. One of the greatest philosophical statements about what man is cogito ergo sum -- I think, therefore I am (not to be confused with cogito eggo sum -- I think, therefore I am a waffle...which describes many of the intelligent design people...). This and other deep thoughts is what Plato and Pascal and Nietzsche in all their strivings to define what man is separates us from mere video games or a simple collection of cells.
I have been reading a collection called Popular Culture and Philosophy, covering such deep things as the Simpsons, the Lord of the Rings, the Matrix and Star Wars. One of the topics in the Star Wars book discusses using clones as soldiers. It is timely for several reasons, least of which is the release of the Revenge of the Sith. For starters the essay, written by Richard Hanley, begins by looking at the crux of this whole matter: When is it OK to do bad things? He is looking at the issue from the standpoint of when it is OK to engage in warfare and, more importantly in my mind, how to recruit and train your own troops. Something that the United States is having a tough time doing with the current debacle in Iraq. None of this is new. What is interesting though, is the discussion, spurred by the second movie, of using clones as troops. After all, they are living thinking humans and as depicted in the movie, designed to learn and mature quickly, follow order and yet retain enough humanity to be able to think their way out of situations that a simple droid is incapable of. There are several dozen different directions this discussion can go, but I wanted to focus on his comments about clones. He asks the question:
Can it be permissible to produce clones of whole organisms? Can it be permissible to manipulate the process to engineer clones' characteristics? And in warfare, can it be permissible to use a clone army, rather than typical human beings?
He argues yes, and quite convincingly. I will not spoil the whole article, but I want you to think about the following. We already manipulate and engineer genetic material, even within humans. It may not be done in a petri dish, but almost every human seeks to create an offspring that is better than they were, whether that is through genetic pairing or improved environment. Hanley argues that cloning is not bad. It may be wrong, but there are different questions that have to be answered to assert its wrongness. He argues that if cloning is not inherently bad and harms no one, it is not wrong. The argument for why it is not bad is a fairly solid one. It is based on the concept that we have been doing this for generations as I mentioned, so it is only the next logical step. It also points out that there is nothing bad about having a living genetic copy of yourself. After all, what is an identical twin by a naturally occurring genetic copy.
So cloning is not intrinsically bad and several arguments can be made for the positive benefits. What the ethicists have to wrestle with (and which there is very little new ground left to be plowed) is the whole concept of life and that is something that will continue to be debated for generations to come.
9:21:31 AM 
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