@cystic:
- F_alk et al. - you guys are guilty of the slippery slope fallacy. Developing the ability and will to clone animals will not necessarily lead to human cloning (it may make it easier). This alone is not reason enough to cease research in this area, but rather to make us more cautious and impress limits on research as far as human cloning goes (within ethical limits).
It will not necessarilz lead to clonign humans, true. Just as (see the GUn Control thread) owning guns does not mean you will use them. But, i can assure you: Give a human any tool, and he will use it with a probability very close up 100%.
I agree on the being cautious and impress limits, but these should be made beforehand. Mankind can surely live another few years without cloning, while it makes up its mind and thinks about what can happen, which risks we are willing to take.
And the dangers we might face (including “gene hopping”) are much serious than those we faced from the other 2 classical sciences.
(Look at histroz: We had the “chemical” age, which lead to the first use of WMDs in the trenches of WWI. Then came the “physical” age, with the nuclear bomb ending WWII. I am sure we don’t need a war to see what the “biological” can give us, and that is what scares me most)