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The Dangers of Cloning

Jurassic Park was more than a movie. In some ways it was a prediction of the future. I am not saying dinosaurs will be re-created, break loose or terrorize the population, I am saying is it is only a matter of time before extinct animals, probably including dinosaurs are reproduced or should I say cloned. I am not so sure this is a good idea, because a lot of these animals probably had diseases which are no longer with us today. We certainly don’t want to resurrect these diseases which could wipe out millions of people. Some scientists say it would be impossible for these animals to be infected when they are born. Maybe that is true, but that doesn’t mean something which seems harmless to us might cause them to get a communicable disease. Even if the disease didn’t affect humans, it might be able to affect our domestic animals. The problem is bringing back extinct animals is irresistible to some scientists. They just can’t resist the challenge.

A very famous physicist has stated it will be possible for us to bring back a lot more animals than just the woolly mammoth. He suggested not only could we bring back dinosaurs, but we could bring back Neanderthals. Talk about scientific ethics. Bringing back Neanderthals, if it worked is just plain wrong on so many levels and no doubt would lead people to think about bringing back those who they have lost. Neanderthals were the closest relatives to humans so what are we talking about here? We are talking about bringing people back to life. If we could do this today it would not mean we would bring back the exact same creature that was lost. We would be bringing back that type of creature, but as we improve cloning it may become possible to bring copies of humans who existed in life. A little DNA can go a long way. Once we start doing this scientists will probably want to bring back famous people in history if they have enough DNA to do that.

I think we all know what that would mean. God forbid scientists working for white supremacists would get a hold of a little DNA from Hitler. I’m sure most of us would never want to see that guy back. This is only one example of what I am talking about, there are a lot more nefarious people who died, some people would want to bring back. There are all sorts of possibilities. If a clone had the memory of a person who actually existed, some of the people who are rumored to have buried vast treasures would probably be brought back in clone form and questioned about where they hid these treasures. Every country would be bringing back their most famous and intelligent people. Think about this logically, who wouldn’t want to bring back Albert Einstein? The problem is there would be those who would want to bring back Napoleon.

Even if we just brought back Neanderthals and not modern humans, would it be fair to them? They certainly wouldn’t fit into society and they would probably be put on display somewhere. It would not be a very happy existence. If we could get the DNA we probably would clone our ancestors and bring them back also. It seems there would be no stopping this procedure. For now let’s concentrate on what it would be like to bring back dinosaurs. In Jurassic Park these creatures were kept on an island which would probably be a good idea in case there was a problem. People don’t necessarily do things which are good ideas. I’m sure there would be zoos in countries containing these creatures and somewhere along the line one, two or more would probably get out. Remember when a gorilla escaped from one of the large zoos and how much havoc that caused, can you imagine what would happen if a T-Rex escaped. There is a reason these huge creatures disappeared and the reason was humans could not have existed very long with a planet full of huge flesh eating dinosaurs.

Since Dolly the sheep was cloned twenty years ago, at least eight more animals have been cloned. Four sheep which were cloned after Dolly are now in their old age and doing fine. We are on the verge of cloning a woolly mammoth. Woolly mammoths are closely related to the elephants of today so bringing one of these creatures back to life may not pose any threat. A team of Russian and South Korean scientists claim they on the verge of bringing back the woolly mammoth. One of the leading South Korean scientists claims the team has reached the initial stages of cloning. The team is said to be working with genetic material which was obtained from the blood and soft tissue of mammoths which were preserved for tens of thousands of years in the Siberian permafrost.

One of the problems with this cloning is if it becomes common there will be people who will want to bring back their deceased loved ones. As I said before the clone will not be the same person and probably won’t have that person’s memory and may not even look like the person. We probably won’t know any of these things until a human is cloned. And if we start cloning humans, people who are not able to conceive may want to go down this route and get themselves cloned. One has to wonder if eventually this could upset human evolution. Then there are those egotists who want to clone themselves because they think they are the greatest. They may be in positions of power like the leader of North Korea

Sometimes a discovery leads to something which is not a good thing. Take the discovery of the atom bomb for example. It has created a world on the verge of destruction. Will scientists decide to clone entire armies? If the opportunity is there it will be hard for the military to look the other way. There are just so many reasons to avoid cloning. Some say it might be a way to increase the world’s food supply, but for this to happen it would have to be extremely cheap to do and the results of eating cloned food would have to be studied. I guess there will be no way to avoid cloning, because even if governments don’t do it private individuals and companies will.