While The World Is Pre-Occupied The Cloning Goes Forward.
During the past 25 years, I have taught a contemporary moral dilemmas course to high school students. This half-year elective was divided into two ten-week quarters. The first quarter was dedicated to a survey course in the history of moral reasoning and during the last ten weeks each student was required to invite a speaker who dealt with moral dilemmas as part of their job, family situation or personal conviction. I believe that 1200 speakers made presentations. One particular presentation by a biology professor presented some twenty years ago keeps appearing in my thinking. This full Professor of Genetics said that he seriously doubted whether we would ever have the ability to clone anything more than simple celled animals. As far as the possibility of human cloning, he had difficulty even putting it in the realm of good science fiction. "Humans are just too complex to be the subjects of the techniques available.
To paraphrase The Association's big hit of the 1960's -"Then Along Came Dolly." We used to show our tenth grade students a film on creativity (Why Man Creates) when we reached the Renaissance in the history curriculum. It's funny what you remember from a film, but the narrator made the point that whatever mankind imagines it can produce. I am not going to direct this study into the realm of 22nd century clones fighting wars on Asteroids, but they are now discussing the possibility of cloning human body parts in animal carriers or possibly cloning human babies to serve as body part suppliers.
This is not some hysterical nonsense from the Religious Right; this is being examined at major research institutions. [A Spark of Science, a Storm of Controversy- http://www.princetoninfo.com/clone.html ] Following the announcement about the cloning of Dolly the Sheep, the President (Clinton) directed the panel to review the implications of cloning for humans and report to him within 90 days. Science advisor, Dr.Shapiro released a written statement to the press after White House spokesman Michael McCurry announced the directive: "It is very important for us to think extremely carefully about what ethical considerations arise when we even consider the idea of cloning human beings
Since the advent of the industrial revolution, technology has lead morality in the race to determine "how far is too far?" Scientists feel most enraged when the government or some governing body attempts to impose limits on the pursuit of knowledge. I believe that the scientific community has frequently engaged in the classic consequentialist quagmire-has the pursuit become more important than the end? The controversy involving this Pandora's box is so crucial that it was the subject of a Presidential executive order and testimony from leading experts in the field. (Presented previously)
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