30 December 2002

Today's special: A mini-rant about cloning.

In an undisclosed location outside of the United States, a company of dubious origin and even more dubious scientific capability, called Clonade, claims to have successfully produced the world's first human clone.

My radio station was letting people call in on the subject this morning, and the callers were both furious and hysterical.

Mind you, my drive is only about ten minutes long, and some of that was filled with commercials and music, so I only heard about three callers. I don't know if anyone was calling in with a dissenting viewpoint.

But I very nearly started shouting at the radio. Get a grip, people!

Here's my take:

The human race has, since its very inception, distinguished itself by its use of intelligence and science. Many other species use simple tools - but only humans make tools when we don't need them and set them aside for future use. Only humans attempt to improve upon the tools we already have. (Say, this sharp-edged rock is pretty handy for skinning game. I wonder if I could make it sharper.)

This is technology. This is science. This is what we do.

Only humans, of all the species on the planet, are truly self-aware. Only humans are capable of moral judgments of right and wrong.

This is also what we do.

We evolve as a species through the use and advancement of science.

It doesn't always happen that we learn things correctly. We don't always get them right on the first try. And sometimes we do terrible, terrible things with the things we learn, to ourselves or to others.

But you don't stop a child from learning to walk because it might fall down and hurt itself, and you for certain don't smother a baby in its cradle because it might grow up to be a murderer.

Every new idea is a child of the human race, and it needs our time and patience and guidance and understanding in order to grow into something that will make us better, something that will make us proud. Every birth is accompanied by pain. That doesn't make it intrinsically evil.

Thirty years ago, artificial insemination was considered an enormous moral question, and now it's a routine option for couples who are having trouble conceiving in the more traditional way - or for women who wish to be single mothers.

Perhaps thirty years from now, cloning will be another alternative, just as viable.

I'm not saying we shouldn't put boundaries on it. I'm not saying there aren't any moral questions. I'm not even saying the world is quite ready for human cloning, yet, and I'm certainly not saying I think Clonade is the right choice for the job.

I'm saying that to reject this idea because it's new, because you have preconceived notions about what it is and what it means, to reject it simply because you're afraid... It's just ignorant.

Before the fall of the Roman Empire, most buildings had plumbing that was not much less sophisticated than we have today. Some homes even had flushing toilets and hot-and-cold running water.

But then the Empire fell, and out of fear and ignorance and anger their libraries were burnt, their scientists persecuted and killed, and it was a thousand years before plumbing was re-invented in the Western world.

I'm not saying that the human race should whole-heartedly embrace every idea and scheme we invent. I'm just saying I don't want another Dark Age.

--Liz