Talk:Human cloning/Archive 1

Archive 1

Raelites

"Groups such as the Raelites? and the Las-Vegas based Clonaid, as well as Dr's Antinori and Zavos verge on fundamentalism in trying to achieve their aims."

I'm unable to figure out where the "fundamentalism" comes in here, so I took it out for the time being. Can we make this clearer or more NPOV? Thanks. -Unknown

I used the word fundamentalism because these groups seemed to be determined to clone humans despite all the risks involved - which the wider scientific community recognises. This maybe wasn't quite the quite word, but I think they are certainly extreme.

What we think is irrelevant. We are here to write a good factual article, not to express our own beliefs. Metamagician3000 03:14, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Regarding personality and genetics

On the other hand, some studies, notably those by [David Lykken]?, have purported to show that "30 to 70%" of a person's personality is due to genetic factors and i think that your mom is a good scientist.[see links below]).

I do not think this and blah blah blah blah im bored.the accepted scientific viewpoint. Even in the introduction to the link by Lykken it says:

scientists, psychologists like Leon Kamin, biologists like Steven Rose, even the odd geneticist like Richard Lewontin, or the odd paleontologist like Stephen Gould, continue to believe with John Locke that the infant human mind is a tabula rasa

These seem to me to be a lot more well-known and reputable than Lykken. -Unknown

That's a second-hand report; no respectable scientist today--including at least Lewontin and Gould (I haven't read much of the others) would ever argue that human minds are tabula rasa. The evidence contradicting that is overwhelming, and has been coming in consistently for decades. On the other hand, no one but Lykken would be so bold as to speak about simple percentages. That too is a gross oversimplification, since learning interacts in a complex manner with predispositions. There is a valid point to be made here; perhaps a wording like this: "While a clone shares only DNA with its predecessor, and not any of the knowledge, experience, or environment that shaped him, studies such as those on identical twins raised separately show that DNA does have a much stronger influence on personality than previously believed." --LDC

These figures are pretty meaningless without a lot more explanation. The number of legs human beings have is accounted for almost 100 per cent by non-genetic factors in the sense that it is environmental factors (such as wars, industrial accidents, car smashes etc) that account for most of the variation we see in the population between people with two, one or no legs. We could accurately say that the variation of number of legs in a population of human beings is accounted for by way over 90 per cent enviromental factors and way less than 10 per cent genetic factors. Yet, it's obvious that we are, in a sense, genetically "programmed" to be born with two legs. There may be a sense in which someone might correctly say that the number of legs I have was 100 per cent determined by my genes, but it is not this sense that the figures we see in scientific accounts are measuring. Our genes control human leg number in a powerful way, but have little effect on variation within a population because they affect almost everyone in the same manner. We need to be very careful in drawing conclusions based on the degree to which variation in a population is explained by one set of factors or the other (which is all that these figures are usually trying to measure). Such figures can be very misleading if they are then offered as a measure of how important a particular factor is, or as an indication of what kind of role it plays, crucial, trivial or otherwise. Metamagician3000 02:34, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Last statement NPOV

Articles is quite NPOV, buth there is serious problem with the last statement:

However organisations devoted to clone humans, such as the Raelites and the Las-Vegas based Clonaid, as well as Dr's Antinori and Zavos, are very hard to control. Many think these groups would shift their operations to other countries, where a lack of regulation could bring dangerous results.

Certainly not everyone shares the belief that it may be any dangerous. --Taw

Scientific community

Referring to the scientific community, from what I've read, the vast majority of people think that attempts to clone humans at this time (which these groups are attempting to do) would be dangerous. The birth of children with genetic disabilities is what they are afraid of. I guess not everybody does though. Could you explain a bit further what the problem is. --sodium

You (or they) mean that The danger is that experimentators won't find all possible problems during zygote phase, and a child with genetical problems will be born, right ? Or are there some other possible problems ? --Taw

Isn't there also some problems with the genes of cloned animals (some aspect of them called the telomeres, or something like that) being old and damaged, hypothetically leading to faster aging and risks of cancer? --Robert Merkel

I.e., the "dangers" or "risks" we're discussing here are risks to the cloned individuals? -Unknown

Yes the dangers to cloned-individuals is the problem. Scientists such as Zavos say that they can deal with all the disorders that we know so far. This is debatable, but the real problem is that we don't yet know all the problems that they could encounter. This is why it is dangerous.

Telomeres

This is what I know about telomeres: Telomeres become shortened every time a cell divides, until they are so short that the cell will no longer divide. Some scientists think that clones will have a shortened life because they will inherit already-small telomeres. However other scientists seem to have discovered that under certain circumstances in cloning the telomeres can be 'reset' - and the clones will have normal or even extended life spans. --sodium

Yes, the telomeres are getting shorter with every cell division. Some organisms have telomerase, an enzyme that can reconstruct the telomeres. Theoretically, it could be inserted into the cloned human. I'm not sure what would happen, though. Also, AFAIK, "Dolly" managed quite well, considering it was the first attempt on such a comlicated organism. --Magnus Manske

Dolly wasn't the first attempt, was she? She was the first succesfulattempt. (Do I remember this right?) Also isn't the general ratio of unsucessful attempts to clone mammals to sucessful attempts something like 4 to 1?

It might be four to one now, but I think Dolly was the only one of over two hundred sheep cells to make it through to birth.

Telomerase typically does its work during meiosis, which Dolly, as the product of somatic cell nuclear transfer, never experienced.

Large offspring syndrome

"If the remaining gene is also turned off then 'large offspring syndrome' (LOS) occurs. However Jirtel claims that it is a case of your LOS, my gain." Ouch.  :-) Maybe Wikipedia needs a general guideline: Keep the puns in / Talk.

Where Dolly was cloned

FYI all, Human cloning originally said that Dolly the sheep was cloned at the Roswel Institute, should read Roslin Institute. (Roswell is something else. :-) )

Magnus seems to think this isn't quite correct, and I don't at the moment know how to phrase what they really did:

After that, an international team produced a clone by accident. The results of the experiment were published in the [1] but didn't receive any atention.

--sodium

The information was published in a portuguese newspaper. One of the members of the team told the newspaper that 3. The newspaper article says: "Só que noutros três ovócitos injectados com ADN de uma célula adulta, a redução a metade dos cromossomas não aconteceu - e começou a desenvolver-se um embrião, até às quatro e seis células. " That's portuguese. It means: "But, in the other 3 ovocits injected with the DNA of an adult cell, the reduction of the number of cromossomes to half didn't ocour - and an embryo started to develop to 4 and 6 cells." From the newspaper article, I was unable to understand if this information was published or omited in article. Joao

Edit conflict

I just got my first edit conflict ever! Here's what I wrote:
From what is described on that page, they made an oocyte with the nucleus of a skin cell, then fertilized it.

1. A human born from that procedure is not a clone, as half of its DNA is from the father, half from the mother (the nucleus donor).
2. Without fertilization, the oocyte probably would have died.
3. If it would not have died, it would have sooner or later turned into either a skin cell or some weird tumor.

Only if you make that oocyte "believe" it has been fertilized, it will develope into a human, which is a clone. That's the key point. Just exchanging nuclei has been done before. --Magnus Manske

Please don't consider this as edit conflict. I agree with number 1. Number 2 is problematic. The scientists claim that 3 of the cells started embryonic development without fertilization (this information comes from the portuguese newspaper, not from the abstract). So, maybe number 3 is correct. But how do you know that the embryo from Advanced Cell Technology is a true embryo. It only divided 2 or 3 times and then stopped. That may be an indication that something was wrong. Advanced Cell Technology was not the first to produce an embryo, but the first to produce a weird tumor calling it an embryo. The following is a comment from a Science article about the Advanced Cell Technology announcement:

The fact that the embryos died so early in development suggests that the inserted nucleus wasn't working properly, says developmental biologist John Eppig of the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine. In normal human embryos, the nucleus begins to express its genes between the four- and eight-cell stage. The embryos' failure to survive to eight cells "strongly suggests that you're not getting gene activation" in the transferred nucleus, he says. "And if you're not getting that, what have you got? Nothing."

-Joao

First, I was referring to the "technical" edit conflict, with someone saving a change here while I was typing! Now, I was just trying to answer the question wether the [2] experiment could have possible resulted in a clone, which IMO it did not. I don't know anything more about the ACT experiment than I know from the news (shame on me!), but they actually tried to make a clone and failed. That makes it even more likely that the three oocytes from the prior experiment weren't clones either.

Whatever ACT made there, it is not too unlikely that they made the clone die after some divisions, just in case the publicity gets too bad...anyway, if they (or others) continue on that path, we'll see if it works (which it probably does, we're not so different from sheep, especially in herds;) --Magnus Manske

Thanks for clarifying Magnus, I should have originally quoted what you said. This technique doesn't really then belong on the human cloning page because it produces embryos with genetic material from the father as well as the mother. It would be relevant under somatic cell nuclear transfer. I should have read the abstract properly, I assumed I would misunderstand it though with my limited AS-level biology :) -- sodium

Legality of reproductive cloning

I believe this is incorrect:

Reproductive cloning is currently illegal in the US also.

Current in-vitro fecondation success in animals is about 40%. In humans, 15%.

Argument of biological nature against reproductive cloning : calling into question genetic mixing. It would imply a reduction in genetic diversity (ethnic diversity). It would damage the human genome as a common heritage.

Also, introducing asexual reproduction (i.e. not-gametic) would undermine the genetic lottery of which the unpredictability would have an intrinsic value for the individual, helping unicity and freedom. The children would not be "given" any more, but selected. It would lead to an instrumentalisation of a human being (the clone) by others which created it for them. Many refer to Kant, for who a human being should never only be used as a means but be an end in itself. The clone itself could suffer from feeling a negation of its autonomy, of its self-determination (by knowing he is a copy of another). Plus incertainties in terms of filiation. -Unknown

Is no one as disturbed by this as I am? Pellaken 06:49, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I'm not. Anyway, I'm already attempting to choose my offsprings' DNA, by dating brunettes, preferably on the taller side. --Charles A. L. 16:17, Feb 13, 2004 (UTC)

You're attempting to influence your offspring's DNA, which is not the same as controlling it. I too am worried about all this -- put me down firmly in the Fukuyama/Joy/Kass camp!

This is not a place to discuss whether or not we approve of human cloning. There are many other forums for that. It is a place to discuss how to improve the factual content of the article. As for the question, my understanding is that there is still no federal law in the US that prohibits any form of human cloning. Some (perhaps many) states have such laws, but not all of them. If I am right about that - and I'm reasonably confident that my knowledge is still up to date - it cannot generally be said that human cloning is illegal in the US, though it may be true that it is illegal in some or many US states. Metamagician3000 02:42, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

POV additions by 198.94.182.12

198.94.182.12 has just added some (worthwhile) content but a large amount of it is POV and the grammar isn't particularly good. I'm not wanting to revert it because of the positive contributions but there is now some text I don't think belongs here. Other opinions? violet/riga 22:55, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I assume you mean this part:

The Whitehead team, however, conclude that reproductive human cloning is not a good idea but they are not telling us why is not a gooid idea. They did suggest, though, that therapeutic cloning of organs should be safer, without offering a good rational. according to their beliefs, this is because the imprinting experienced during culture is less important when cells specialize and start to grow in to specific tissues, which may not be very convincing argument.

Do we have a link to this report to know whether this is even factually true? For example, does the report offer any reason for suggesting that human reproductive cloning is not a good idea. If it actually does, we can resolve this as a factual question. --Rikurzhen 00:20, Aug 12, 2004 (UTC)

Ethic rot

I was going to mention this in my section below, but realised the rot was further spread than Ethics and there was a Talk section here. I'd include the following gems in our newcomer's list of POV accomplishments (I'll highlight his additions, probably in bold; forgive me if I mess up a few punctuation marks).

Wilmut quoted the low survival rate of cloned animals, which has nothing to do about humans, as evidence that human cloning would be dangerous.

Don Wolf, a researcher at Oregon Regional Primate Research Centre and who knows little about the subject of cloning and screening procedures, disagrees.

This is disputed by scientists who say that large-offspring syndrome is just one of many problems that result from cloning. Controlling this gene would not prevent many other genetic disorders which have yet to be fully understood or discovered.However, as one realizes, there is nothing to be said about the safety of cloning that could please the opponents of cloning since their opposition has nothing to do with the technique and the science but rather their religious, political or personal beliefs.

Zavos points out that reproductive science is actually more advanced in humans due to the widespread use of treatments such as in vitro fertilisation (IVF), and therefore cloning in humans is not such a large step as animal cloning was and remains as such today. Professor Zavos has been involved in human reproduction for the last 26 years and has been a true pioneer for a number of new technologies and products in that area.

Dr. Panos Zavos being the most reliable and capable scientist from all of the scientists working on cloning today, claimed on January 17, 2004 to have successfully produced a four-cell stage embryo and transfered it into a 35 year old woman. ... He, since then submitted his findings from this case for publication in a very highly reputable journal for their publication.

Some religious groups defend their anti-cloning stand by saying that it is taking reproduction out of the hands of God. However, Professor Zavos founder of the Zavos Organization (www.zavos.org), claims and very rightfully so, that God never has instructed us to use one mode or another (natural coital method vs IVF)to reproduce. "God gave us the god-given gifts and abilities to think and explore the universe to use them to reproduce and proliferate and make this a better World for all of us" he claims.

Professor Zavos, Director of the Adrology Institute of America, thinks that the world can never agree on banning cloning because no one agrees of the relegious and political definition of cloning and its incredible potential that it has that can change the World, itself.

I've reverted the whole lot. There's too much rubbish (both POV and spelling-punctuation-grammar) in there: if any of it is good stuff, hard cheese. People should learn to write sensible editions, or risk getting the whole lot reverted. If you take a peek at his other contributions, you'll see that he's gone round making highly POV edits elsewhere (like on the page about Zanos, for instance). We have, by my deductions, a nationalistic Greek Cypriot on our hands. He's in no fit state to edit controversial topics where there's national pride and ethics at stake. Wooster 15:27, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC) (Can you tell I'm rather annoyed?)

Ethics: can we have a look?

It's gonna seem an odd question, but is this really the way the debate progresses (taken from the Ethics section)?

An argument given by 'pro-life' groups is that because they believe embryos are already human, destroying them is tantamount to murder. Most scientists protest that this is irrelevant - sperm also have the potential to become human, but millions die during intercourse.

It makes the scientists sound as though they (a) didn't listen to the argument being put forward and (b) don't understand it anyway. Perhaps it's just me being a bit sensitive to how things sound (actually, I come from the pro-life side on this, so "go figure") but the scientists' alleged protests are pointless because pro-lifers claim that embryos are human, sperm merely have the potential. So pro-lifers will agree that sperm have the potential, but will make a distinction of quality between sperm and an embryo. The person who added this either doesn't understand the ethical issues, doesn't understand ethical reasoning or is attempting to construct a straw scientist.

And then these straw scientists claim that because millions of sperm "die" (not the right word, but hey...) it's all right to go an slaughter a few embryos. Are they stupid and heartless? Even I don't believe that. I think most scientists involved in cloning protest that it simply isn't their belief that embryos are already human (if it were their belief, they'd have to arrest themselves for murder). Wooster 15:13, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Sperm cells and unfertilized egg cells are alive and do die. "Die" certainally is the right word. The claim made is that life doesn't begin at conception, it already was present. A fertilized egg cell is a human cell, the issue isn't whether that cell is human, but whether or not it constitutes a human being.--RLent 17:52, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Right-ho. The Ethics section was deleted by someone else, so there's no real need to continue this, er, lack of discussion.  : D Wooster 19:22, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Strangely the idea that clones are essentially Monozygotic Twins (but for the mitochondrial genome) was not absorbed in discussions by ethisists and scientists until nearly a year after Dolly's birth. I've put in a citation which essentially put a stop to the prexisting misconceptions. which might be better moved to the references--Daedelus 10:07, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC). Its worth noting these as we probably still labour under other misconceptions in the field which - when pointed out will become so obvious that we will all say "but I know that all along".

--Daedelus 10:07, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Nobody denies that a human embryo is "human" in the sense of having DNA belonging to the species Homo sapiens. They deny that human embryos have such characteristics as sentience, rationality, self-consciousness, etc., and that they are yet part of any community into which they have been born. In these ways, it is said, embryos are not in any way like human adults, children or babies. They are not the kind of thing that fears death, or that we can feel sorry for (they can't suffer, feel grief or frustration etc) or whose killing disturbs the peace or causes severe parental grief as does killing someone's baby. People who put such arguments say that our concept of murder does not relate to the killing of just anything that belongs genetically to the species Homo sapiens. (In fact, abortion has never been considered murder at common law.) A good way to understand this way of thinking is to do a thought experiment and consider the position of a sentient, intelligent, self-conscious alien that has become part of our community. Presumably if someone killed it, that would be murder. If someone kills one of the X-Men mutants it is murder even though they supposedly have different DNA. If we lived in a community made up of more than one kind of intelligent species, killing individuals of either species would breach the peace, arouse our fears for our own lives, etc, and would have to be considered by the law to be an act of murder. It is not DNA-based species membership that matters but something's actual properties (such as sentience, rationality etc) and social relationships. I'm not (here) arguing for or against this position. But the position should at least be understood by anyone writing about it. Metamagician3000 02:59, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Reproductive cloning to separate article?

This article is a mess, a collection of random bits and pieces. We need to leave here only a brief summary of reproductive cloning and move the details over to a separate article. Paranoid 11:28, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• It sounds reasonable that the stub-article reproductive cloning be expanded and siphon off some of the weight from this article. I just re-stubbed that article to "medical treatments" from "generic stub". Courtland 14:02, 2005 Apr 6 (UTC)

Something missing?

Hey, im sure there is a lot to say about the ethics of human cloning. There needs to be an entire section dedicated to it, or at least a link to a separate article on it. Bananaclaw 09:38, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

See above. I dunno who did it (can't be bothered running through the history) but someone deleted the ethics section. A shame, because, as you say, there should be recognition in the article that this is a controversial area; but nevertheless, until there's someone who's sufficiently up on the issues to write a decent section, I don't think it'll happen. It's simply too heated a debate to live and let live. Wooster 11:20, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Just why is cloning wrong?

Could someone explain to me why cloning is wrong and prohibited by law? like paranoid pointed out, this article is really random and hard to understand. Xunflash 01:55, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Well, there's all sorts of ethical dissagreements with cloning. I guess alot of people think it's unfair to the clone to exist without the diversity we have. Most likely, the government just made human cloning illegal to avoid the riots and stuff that'll come with it.

Alleged identical twin telepathy

I think it behooves the user who brought up the somewhat dubious concept of telepathy between identical twins to provide something more in terms of cites and studies. I dont think cloning is wrong to a exstint what is wrong with it is we dont know what will happen what kind of defects it will have i mean we are playing God when we start fooling with a human life i simply dont belive that we have reached our time to conduct such experiments i think for now we should leave cloning to God untill we are more advanced. -John Locke

God has a cloning laboratory? - The Prophet Wizard of the Crayon Cake ^{Prophesize) 05:32, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Fiction

There's a lot more to be said here, though it musn't be allowed to eat up the rest of the article. I've slightly elaborated and cleaned up this section. Metamagician3000 02:17, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Recombinant DNA technology

It is simply not true to say that, "The third type of cloning is called Recombinant DNA technology. This is when parts of or a whole DNA molecule is created with the purpose of eliminating genetic faults in a human." This might be a purpose to which cloning is put, but it is not a third technique of cloning. A third technique that is not mentioned here (though it is the simplest technique) is embryo splitting. It creates a number of identical embryos that can be implanted. What it can't do is create an embryo genetically identical to an existing adult. Metamagician3000 06:02, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

can we combine Hwang Woo-Suk with the other claims?

Is there any reason this must be a seperate section? --Jonmedeiros 22:18, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Nobody said anything so I did it. --Jonmedeiros 01:03, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

12.144.50.221 This is absolutely right. "Recombinant DNA technology" is the process of using a plasmid or virus to add something new to the genome. It is not the same as cloning.

Females only?

"Thirdly the process of cloning can only be used to females of the species being cloned."

Is this true? I mean, of course parthenogenesis only works for females, but somatic cell nucleus transfer should work for males too, right? —Keenan Pepper 03:50, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes. You put a male cell nucleus complete with Y chromosome into an enucleated ovum. Metamagician3000 03:02, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Deletion

I have deleted the following: "Consider that the chimpanzee genome is more than 98% identical to the human genome, only a 2% difference. A 0.3% difference could potentially lead to much more divergence from the DNA donor's genotype than one may at first believe. It could also spell problems for therapeutic cloning, where compatibility is essential because of the risk of rejection." This is original research and probably inaccurate. The last sentence could possibly be restored if an attribution can be found for the claim. However, the first bit is quite misleading. You cannot compare the 98% figure with the the 99.7% figure. They are measuring different things. Metamagician3000 02:20, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

12.144.50.194 The reason for the confusion is that Dolly was cloned by taking a somatic cell from mammary tissue.

Additional Deletion:

Animal cloning can be a good thing. It can produce more milk, eggs and meat for many people. It can also help the endangered animals not be endangered anymore. Scientists have reaserched animal cloning is a smart productive thing. "I believe we should all be open to animal cloning but not human cloning, animal cloning can help all of us in our own way."- Dr. Wert, Trenton NJ, 2003.

Inappropriate to the section (limits of cloning) and also is not in the same format as the rest of the page. -RebelWithoutASauce

2006

Has there been anything newsworthy about this topic since the beginning of this year? If so, would it be informative enough to place it on the page?--Thumbtax 19:52, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Why do countries ban human cloning?

The article does a service by listing the countries which have banned human cloning. A further service it can make is to say state here why these countries have banned it. Thank you. Lafem 03:01, 4 October 2006 (UTC)yes

The trouble is that many arguments have been put forward and it is difficult to know which ones have swayed particular legislatures. Metamagician3000 15:23, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Less developed nations?

"Organizations devoted to cloning humans, such as the Raelians' Las Vegas-based Clonaid, as well as Antinori and Zavos, are very hard to control. Many think these groups would shift their operations to other countries should mainstream legislation impede their operations, as many less developed nations have no such ban on cloning, so human cloning experiments could (theoretically) be easily shifted to more viable areas." -- I de-linked "less developed nations" here. It was linked to Least Developed Countries, however, Developing country may be more appropriate. Since I don't know what the actual legal situation is in various countries, I think we need to verify this before including it in the article. -- Writtenonsand 05:25, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

These sentences have an air of original research in any event. Now that they are on the talk page where anyone can find them if a source can ever be found, I am half minded to delete them from the article. However, I'll await comments. Metamagician3000 12:53, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Also, the phrasing is biased. Written as it is, it implies that the level of developement of a country can be gauged by whether they allow cloning or not. I don't see any connection between the two. If the claim is ever reinserted, I'd suggest a neutral "shift to countries where clonning is not banned". TomorrowTime 00:27, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I've deleted this sentence: Some think these groups would shift their operations to other countries should mainstream legislation impede their operations, as many less developed nations have no such ban on cloning, so human cloning experiments could (theoretically) be easily shifted to more viable areas. Metamagician3000 06:32, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

On reflection, I've deleted the whole lot. I.e. I've now also deleted: Organizations devoted to cloning humans, such as the Raelians' Las Vegas-based Clonaid, as well as Antinori and Zavos, are very hard to regulate. All this should be sourced and I also tend to agree with TomorrowTime's point if a version is ever reinstated with proper attribution. Metamagician3000 06:34, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Why do some consider human cloning to be morally wrong?

Could an overview of the most common reasons (preferably, divided into those that apply to reproductive and therapeutic cloning, those that only apply to the former, and those that only apply to the latter) for people to object to cloning be inserted into the article? I knew both before and after I read it that some people - individuals and entire organisations - object to it on moral or religious grounds, but I still don't know why. CameoAppearance ^orate 05:58, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

This site is a good source for issues like that: http://www.religioustolerance.org/cloning.htm

To the best of my understanding, conservatives object to therapeutic cloning (creation of replacement tissues, such as cloning just a liver or just a heart) because it uses up a whole embryo, which they believe would otherwise develop into a whole human being. It is my understanding that they object to reproductive cloning (the creation of a new organism, such as Dolly, a cloned racehorse, or a cloned baby) because of the risks. Creating Dolly required the use of hundreds of fertilized ova, didn't it? Creating a human clone, even one that the parents intend to raise like any other child, would involve the loss of as many or more human embryos. In other words, I think that conservatives object to reproductive cloning for the same reason that they object to fertility clinics: they don't like how many embryos go down the drain.

Of course, it would be better if an actual conservative were to answer the question... Any takers?Darkfrog24 18:06, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

brain implantation

The comment about the limitations of human cloning saying that if a brain were to be implanted into a cloned body it would continue to age and suffer from degenerate disorders like Alzheimer's disease sounds scientifically logical but surely the entire concept of implanting a human brain into a cloned body is science-fiction and non-sense! If anyone knows of any sources for such a procedure i would greatly welcome your insight. User:ednus 20:10, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Science fiction it may be (at least in the sense that we aren't presently capable of accomplishing such a brain transfer), but I don't see how it's nonsense. Speculation, perhaps, but not nonsense. CameoAppearance ^orate 22:11, 12 November 2006 (UTC) Are you suggesting that growing a full human clone of yourself to maturity and removing its brain to insert yours is limited only because your brain would continue to age. Aside from this idea being patently ridiculous surely speculation of this kind has no place in an encyclopaedia. User:ednus 16:37, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I think Cameo is suggesting that, as a metaphor, it does a good job of debunking the idea of cloning as a vehicle toward immortality. I think that the word "hypothetically" does a decent job of telling the reader that the passage is a thought experiment. However, if you feel that it isn't clear enough, we could always rephrase it as, "Even if it were possible to transfer a brain from an old body to a new one." Darkfrog24 17:55, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Ethics of cloning: Presidential Council in Bioethics

It seems that there have been a number of requests on this.

I suggest somebody summarizes the points listed here: [3]. It is quite extensive and worthy of an encyclopedic treatment.

Some key points: The ethics of research on human subjects suggest three sorts of problems that would arise in cloning-to-produce-children: (1) problems of safety; (2) a special problem of consent; and (3) problems of exploitation of women and the just distribution of risk.

Procreation as traditionally understood invites acceptance, rather than reshaping, engineering, or designing the next generation. It invites us to accept limits to our control over the next generation. It invites us even – to put the point most strongly – to think of the child as one who is not simply our own, our possession. Certainly, it invites us to remember that the child does not exist simply for the happiness or fulfillment of the parents.

Keeping in mind our general observations about procreation, we proceed to examine a series of specific ethical issues and objections to cloning human children: (1) problems of identity and individuality; (2) concerns regarding manufacture; (3) the prospect of a new eugenics; (4) troubled family relations; and (5) effects on society. Marax 08:38, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

If anyone wants to get into this, I can provide a bibliography. The most forthright defences of human cloning against such claims are probably those of John Harris, a British bioethicist, who has written a couple of books on the subject (I'm surprised he does not have a Wikipedia article as he is a very important figure in current bioethics). His American counterpart Gregory Pence is similarly forthright and has also written a couple of books about it. In addition, there is a huge body of material in the bioethical literature. Nicholas Agar's book Perfectcopy contains a balanced analysis (which does not mean he is correct, of course; the truth is not always in the middle). Metamagician3000 06:29, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

"a pattern of lies and fraud"

This clause in Claims of Success Beyond the Embryo Stage seriously violates NPOV; in addition, that section does not cite its references or sources. 166.113.54.102 21:07, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't cite its sources but nor is it controversial. Still, I've slapped a tag on it. Metamagician3000 08:41, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Categorization

Shouldn't this article be in Category:Cloning rather than Category:Biotechnology? --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 19:48, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Positions of sub-national entities on human cloning

• Delaware, United States: legislation is under consideration in the Delaware Senate that would ban human reproductive cloning; Sen. Robert L. Venables (2007-01-25). "An Act to amend Title 16 of the Delaware Code by adopting the Delaware Regenerative Medicine Act, prohibiting human reproductive cloning, recognizing the importance of stem cell research, including adult, umbilical cord blood, amniotic and embryonic, and establishing a framework for the ethical conduct of embryonic stem cell research". 144^th General Assembly of the State of Delaware. Retrieved 2007-03-14. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 20:24, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delaware, United States: another related piece of legislation being considered in the Delaware House of Representatives; Rep. Joseph E. Miro (2007-03-13). "An Act to Prohibit Human and Human/non-Human Cloning in Delaware". 144^th General Assembly of the State of Delaware. Retrieved 2007-03-14. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:24, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

First Paragraph Destruction/Creation

I think we may have been stealth-edited. Cloning is the creation of a new being, not the destruction of one.Darkfrog24 15:17, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Human Cloning Ban and Stem Cell Research Protection Act of 2005

Should this be mentioned? It was a US bill, and I can't find any other page where it's mentioned, nor a better place to do so. I might be completely off, but then that's the results of a twenty minute search to see if it went anywhere. A draft of the bill can be found here, if anyone's interested. -- Maethon (talk) 17:56, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Proof

Is there any REAL proof that humans have been cloned? 67.72.98.114 04:49, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Horrible section "Claims of success in human cloning beyond the embryo stage"

This section is an outrage to Wikipedia. It has absolutely NO sources and contains blatant unencyclopedic material ("pattern of lies and fraud by Hwang Woo-Suk came to light," who the hell wrote that?!). I am proposing to make this section invisible until someone can come up with some CREDIBLE proof (third party) that ALL of the statements in that section are true. --Soakologist 03:37, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Imprinting and other problems

It seems to me that most people believe that human cloning is possible with today's technology, only that we haven't dared do it yet. The truth is that we can't

For example, genetic imprinting decides which genes are turned on and which are turned off. Which actually to some degree decides how a person/animal will develope. During the cloningprocess, this imprinting is messed up, which is also the reason why cloned animals don't live very long.

Also, the technique used to clone animals, like dolly, won't work with humans. The reason is that the human egg cell can't take that kind of abuse. It might be possible to find an alternative method, but this probably lies far into to the future. Or it would require a heavy amount of rescourses. Maybe the koreans have done, but I seriously doubt it.

Who is John Rick Shelton?

"However, the most successful common cloning technique in non-human mammals is the process by which Dolly the sheep was produced. John Rick Shelton was one of 277 attempts. It is also the technique used by Advanced Cell Technology (ACT), the first company to successfully[2] clone early human embryos that stopped at the six cell stage."

I removed the sentence referring to the gentleman as Google didn't turn up anything relevant to Dolly the Sheep or cloning when I searched for his name. --Kyace (talk) 23:30, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

No controversy?

Human cloning is a very controversial topic. Why is not any entry on controversy and particular opinions or views on this topic cited on the page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 171.69.75.146 (talk) 22:29, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Very much. Possible controversy regarding ethical and religious points of view should be put under such an entry there. Mixing biased points of view into the "prologue" is a very bad idea, therefore I'll revert changes made by 18.96.6.53 on 23:35, 22 November 2007. One might want to revise the mentioned submission when creating such an entry. --80.221.19.39 (talk) 14:17, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

wikipedia needs to have a dicussion about cloning, while i do understand it is a touchy subject dealing with religious beliefs and other factors, i still strongly believe there should be one. I also need some opinions on the subject for my essay Ihave to right for my health class.please feel free to speak up.

• Cl*205.155.5.205 (talk) 16:20, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Identical Twins

The article should address "natural" cloning...i.e. identical twins. Goeggel (talk) 01:36, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Or, to put it more comparatively, explain how "natural cloning" (multiple identical siblings) is often referred to as "horizontal cloning" where the children are born at the same time, and "reproductive cloning" as "vertical cloning" where the children are born after the first "sibling" has already grown to adult maturity. This could help to establish that clones aren't the same person, much like identical siblings aren't the same person, and that "genetic" identity is intrinsically flawed. FinalDeity (talk) (Sorry, forgot to log in)

Definitions

What the hell does "descregligible" mean? "and "persistence cloning" to descregligible SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence)". As far as I can tell, this word doesn't exist anywhere outside of this article and the various websites that mirror it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.131.10.133 (talk) 17:27, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Also, the definitions of 'cloning'/'human cloning', 'clone', 'therapeutic cloning' and 'reproductive cloning' all need work.

There are no documented cases of successful human cloning. 

Directly contradicts this:

Human cloning is the creation of a genetically identical copy of a human being, human cell, or human tissue.

Since ACT (and others) have generated human embryos. However, I can see the confusion, if people are using different definitions of what 'human cloning' meants.

ACT itself complains about people mis-using the term 'therapeutic cloning'; "claiming that employing cloning techniques to create a child for a couple who cannot conceive through any other means treats the disorder of infertility. We object to this usage and feel that calling such a procedure "therapeutic" yields only confusion."[4].

Creation of an embryo which could be brought to term and/or has been successfully brought to term needs a specific name, versus the creation of other types of cells which while able to reproduce and differentiate, cannot be used to create a reasonably undamaged complete organism - which needs a different term.
~ender 2008-02-16 10:58:AM MST

Still being vandalized?

{{Editprotected}} Hmm, just noted that I couldn't add some stuff here.

The first human hybrid human clone was created in November 1998, by American Cell Technologies.. It was created from a man's leg cell, and a cow's egg whose DNA was removed. It was destroyed after 12 days. Since a normal embryo implants at 14 days, Dr Robert Lanza, ACT's director of tissue engineering, told the Daily Mail newspaper that the embryo could not be seen as a person before 14 days. While making an embryo, which may have resulted in complete human had it been allowed to come to term, according to ACT: "[ACT's] aim was 'therapeutic cloning' not 'reproductive cloning'"

~ender 2008-02-16 10:58:AM MST

N Declined. The article is not protected. Sandstein (talk) 23:05, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Ermm.... I think IT IS PROTECTED! 88.105.87.97 (talk) 11:43, 30 May 2008 (UTC) i think the last comment was supposed to be under No controversy??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.100.202.198 (talk) 02:07, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

References

No process of cloning stated?

Why is there no process/theories of Human Cloning stated? -Vincetti (talk) 23:09, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Removal of spam and low quality links from External Links section

I have removed a bunch of poor quality and spam links from the EL section. Note to spammers: putting a link on the page does not help your Google Page rank, see here. Please also note that a .org or tax exempt site does not automatically qualify for inclusion here. See the criteria for inclusion here. Also note that Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links. Skopp (Talk) 06:46, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Removal of links to humancloning.org and associated site reproductivecloning.net

These sites, under the guise of "official" status (not official at all — even the owner is anonymous) are basically ad farms with pages designed to play upon the heartstrings and anxieties of the weak and desperate (e.g. the childless, the paralysed, the infertile, the bereft etc) for donations. The sites attempt to mislead people with unscientific claims and unpublished speculation. To the anonymous owner of those sites: provide footnotes with links to scientific, published papers if you want that site linked. At this stage, your sites feature a long list of pie-in-the-sky "benefits" of human cloning. As it stands, it is misleading and unscientific. Some may even say it is predatory. Skopp (Talk) 07:18, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Weasel words... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.52.144.183 (talk) 18:14, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Wow...

This article is horrible, it's written like a 6th Grade Essay. It discusses events in 2001, and rambles on about aliens... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.155.5.205 (talk) 16:25, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Whatever. Please do not use personal attacks on Wikipedia. See WP:PA for further reading.--Berlin Approach | Lufthansa 533 at FLT230 03:31, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

can a diseased human use his part for cloning and if so what happens to the cloned being

i have wondered how human can be cloned and if they can be cloned why don't scientist clone people with HIV patience and develope clone liver for people with hepathitis B and also get artificial blood for blood transfusion instead of taking blood from people which can end up being diseased infested —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.210.13.77 (talk) 12:49, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean? Someone dead or someone infected? --Berlin Approach | Lufthansa 533 at FLT230 03:32, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Update section on EU Charter

The section about the prohibition of reproductive cloning in the EU is outdated. It states that "...if the Treaty of Lisbon is ratified..." As it stands now, The Treaty of Lisbon, which makes the Charter of Fundamental Human Rights legally binding, has been ratified and goes into effect on December 1, 2009. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.91.179.109 (talk) 19:12, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Totally unclear passage

"With regard to" is a weasel term. Tell me, what does this passage mean? It's not even clear whether the research is legal or not:

The remaining gap with regard to therapeutic cloning was closed when the appeals courts reversed the previous decision of the High Court.[16]

199.172.169.33 (talk) 02:03, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Adding hitman franchise to popular culture section

I suggest someone writes a few lines about the "Hitman" franchise of games from game developer Eidos. The game theme and story revolves around cloning, with the games protagonist being a clone himself. The last game in the franchise "Hitman: Blood Money" is about the political and legal aspect of cloning, especially in the United States of America. --87.58.243.118 (talk) 16:01, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

From a global viewpoint, this is not important at all. See WP:TRIVIA. Tim Vickers (talk) 17:06, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Rorvik book title needs correction

{{editsemiprotected}} Established user needed to correct this last part of History section please:

"Human cloning also gained a foothold in popular culture, starting in the 1970s. Alvin Toffler's Future Shock, David Rorvik's In His Image: Toward Cloning of a Man, Woody Allen's film Sleeper and The Boys from Brazil all helped to make the public aware of the ethical issues surrounding human cloning."

The correct title to Rorvik's book is: "In his Image: the Cloning of a Man". Not "...Toward Cloning..." and "his", not "His"

Please change "In His Image:Toward Cloning of a Man" to "In his Image: the Cloning of a Man"

The word "his" is intentionally left uncapitalized by the author at least on the cover. I assume Rorvik did this to underscore the play-on-words concerning a man cloning himself (thereby creating a being in "his" image), as apposed to the more familiar meaning of the phrase (a supreme being creating a life in "His" image, usually a direct reference to God) in which case the word "His" in the phrase "In His Image", would of course be capitalized regardless of whether it appeared in a title or not.

Also this last small paragraph in the History section listing the books and films involving human cloning, would probably be better placed, or actually incorporated, into the Popular Culture section in the article.

I have made the appropriate edits to the book title in Rorvik's article. Can I please get an established user to make the corrections in this semi-protected article?

 Done Requires sourcing though if you have any, I'll see if I can come up with some later on tonight when I get some more time to spare. Regards, Jeffrey Mall (talk • contribs) - 19:44, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm new to WP but in a case like this where the correct title of a book is disputed, wouldn't the most reliable and authoritative source have to be the book itself?- Racerx11 (talk) 04:08, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Misconception on therapeutic cloning

The probably most common misconception about therapeutic cloning is that it would mean the creation of a whole human to take the needed organ(s) from. But since a human clone would inevitably develop a full human mind and an unique personality this would be equivalent of killing one person in order to cure an other. Consequentially, the goal of therapeutic cloning is to create only the tissues which the patient needs. As such I think that therapeutic cloning should be encouraged due to its potential to cure diseases otherwise incurable. For a more detailed explanation of cloning of whole humans please read the discussion under the subtitle “Misconceptions on reproductive cloning”. I have started it myself.

2010-06-22 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

I really felt the need to write this. I know this is intended to be a discussion of the article but I apparently minsunderstood that. It would be suitable to point out in the article that therapeutic cloning does not involve the creation of a whole human as many people seem to think.

2010-06-27 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

Fair enough. Which source would you use? Gabbe (talk) 11:43, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

No, I don't remember where I got my statements from. Sorry for not thinking about that.

2010-08-25 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

Misconceptions on reproductive cloning

There are many misconceptions about reproductive cloning. I intend to debunk the two most important ones here. If you want to criticise my text please avoid ad hominem attacks. I know that cloning is a hot topic but please just ask about or criticise things immediately related to what I have written here.

One is that clones would be soulless. It is based on the claim that the soul enters the embryo at conception. This idea is in turn based on two misunderstandings of what conception means. First, conception is not a moment but a process which takes between 24 and 48 hours. Secondly, the result is just a barely visible single cell. This cell divides into two, which divides into four ones, which divides into eight and so on. When there are enough cells they split up into one inner layer which later develops into the foetus and one outer which develops into the membrane of the foetus and placenta. The inner layer splits up further into three layers. The innermost develops into the digestive system and lungs. The middle layer develops into skeleton, muscles, the circulatory system, kidneys and genitals. The outermost layer develops into skin and the nervous system. This is a completely natural process which takes place in all Chordates but at different speeds and with different end results. Comparable processes take place in all animals except for sponges and Cnidaria which develops two cell layers instead of three. (A possible other exception is the Placozoa which have only been seen to reproduce asexually.) My point is that a soul can't exist without a brain. It does not matter if you call it soul, spirit, mind or personality it is still dependant on the function of the brain. Consequentially, if there is a sufficiently developed brain there is also a soul. The only way a child can be born soulless is if it is born without a cortex. However, such a child could be considered born brain-dead.

If a healthy clone can be made the development of the brain would not be influenced by the coning process. Although clones may have aberrations from human nature but these will be aberrations existing in non-clones as well. People ignorant of such aberrations may mistake them for evidence that clones does not have a full mind. The idea of clones being soulless will result in them being treated as if they where not sentient. If carried out from start such a treatment will result in clones having their mental development neglected. In severe cases they may not have the chance to learn fundamental human skills such as speaking and knowing the properties of everyday objects. There are cases of severely neglected children which have not even learned to chew because their parents had never given them any solids! Clones which never had the chance to learn fundamental human skills may be misunderstood as being born without the ability to learn them. This will result in no effort to repair the damage done to their minds to the extent it is possible. All in all this misconception has the potential to make a clone’s life truly miserable.

One other is that cloning would recreate the personality of the cloned person. But since there is no magic involved in cloning cones can be directly compared to identical twins. What we call “identical twins” may be physically nearly identical. Yet they always develop unique personalities regardless if the grow up together or apart. As such a clone would inevitably develop an unique personality. Most important, a clone will have no memory of anything that has happened to the cloned person. Neither is there any guarantee that the clone will have any of the cloned person's skills, habits or addictions. (A clone may have the genetic potential for addiction but this is not the same as addiction itself.) However, a clone will to great extent share the cloned person's specific talents, lack of specific talents and general temperament. Some element of taste for food and drink is also hereditary since the density of taste buds on the tongue is genetically determined as well as dislike of certain plants. These similarities – combined with skills and habits based on them – may be mistaken for evidence that the clone is the cloned person. Is there anything more frustrating that not being believed? Moreover, children who grow up with the expectation of becoming someone who already exists become unhappy because they can't live up to people's expectations. This has already happened to several children of celebrities. So we might call this condition “famous parent syndrome”.

I think that cloning of whole humans is immoral. By cloning you create a person who merely from the way he or she came into existence runs a constant risk of being wrongfully treated. This kind of cloning should be outlawed. But artificial dividing of embryo could be allowed provided they are all developed during the same pregnancy. If so the result will be indisguisable from natural identical twins, triplets, and so on. Most likely the first human clone in not born yet. However, it is probably only a matter of time before the first human clone is born. Since clones would not differ from non-clones in any intrinsical sense they should have full civil rights. They should be raised by people who have not only realized this but also are highly motivated to let them live their own lives. To everyone who blames a clone for the actions of the cloned person I want to say: Would you blame an identical twin for something the other twin has done? To all future clones I want to say: Please remember that you are unique, just like everyone else.

2010-07-27 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

Interesting. However, the purpose of this talk page is to discuss sourced improvements of the article, it isn't a general forum on the subject of human cloning. See WP:NOTAFORUM and WP:TALK. Are there any specific improvements to the article, based on reliable sources, that you would like to discuss? Gabbe (talk) 20:10, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

I suggest the use of Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate – The modern denial of human nature. I have read it myself in Swedish translation. In this book he writes that personality is 40–50% hereditary, 10% or less due to parenting and 50% due to pure random chance. If no-one has anything against the use of this book as a source I think it should be used to fill a hole I found. The article states that we don’t know to which extent I clone’s personality would resemble that of the cloned person. However, I think we already know enough to make rough estimates of the similarities between them. I was in fact more prepared to criticism based on bad analogies. For example, some people compare modern twin studies to the experimentation on twins conducted by the Nazis. In reality they have no more in common than the use of identical twins. What the Nazis did wrong was conducting painful human experimentation instead of painful animal experimentation. (The Nazis treated many animals better than many people.) I can’t find out any way in which twin studies could be painful. Identical twins divided shortly after birth for other reasons has just been traced down and asked systematic questions independently of each other. From the answers they have given their degrees of different personality traits can be estimated. Although there are always significant similarities between their personalities there are also always significant differences as well. From this I draw the conclusion that clones would inevitably develop unique personalities yet there would still be some similarities with the personalities of the persons they where cloned from.

My point is that a clone would not be the cloned person any more than an identical twin is the other twin. People thinking that cloning would recreate the cloned person most be using some kind of magical thinking. Many habits and skills can’t be hereditary themselves since their very existence depends on what can be found in the environment. When similar habits are found in identical twins raised apart they most be due to the same inborn tendencies getting a similar outlet in a similar environment. In the same way we do not inherit skills themselves but the ability to learn specific types of skills. About memory I am convinced that humans are born with almost no memory at al. What little memory we do possess at birth is due to experiences during the later stages of fetal development. Since there is no magic involved in cloning cones will be no different. Please note that there are several different types of which mature at different ages. Infants can remember and learn a lot but they can’t have any conscious memory of events. This ability develops at the age of two or three when the mind of the child matures to the stage of being aware of its own existence independent of the environment. This can usually be noticed due to the child starting to use pronouns in first person or referring to itself by using its first name.

Some people think that clones will be “soulless” due to the absence of conception. These people can’t be aware that identical twins (triplets and so on) originate from a single conception. Do they share a single soul or is all but one soulless? This is a good question to ask such people.

2010-07-28 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

A big problem arises when you say "From this I draw the conclusion [...]". While there is nothing wrong with drawing such a conclusion (and, in my view, it is a reasonable one to make), we aren't allowed to insert conclusions we've made ourselves when editing articles, see WP:NOR. Every single statement (and conclusion) in every article must be attributable to a reliable source that directly support the material as presented. Furthermore, if we want to include statements like "some people think [...]" into the article, that would likewise require a source explicitly saying so. Gabbe (talk) 20:08, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Possible Advantages

One of the headings in the article on human cloning is 'possible advantages'. A few years ago I wrote articles on the subject of humanitarian cloning,and I mailed the articles to magazines,but unfortunately,none of them were interested in publishing my articles. As far as I know,I am the only person who has proposed the idea of humanitarian cloning. Basically,the purpose of humanitarian cloning is to preserve the genetic diversity of a population that has been devastated by genocide,for example,the Jews in world war two. Since six million Jews were killed by the Nazis,we should allow the Jews who are alive today to create as many as six million cloned copies of themselves. Another example is the Bosnians who were killed in the war in the 1990's. Bosnians who are alive today should be allowed to clone themselves,and these Bosnian clones would replace the Bosnians who were killed in the war. Of course,replacing people who were lost is only a symbolic gesture,to try to heal the emotional wounds of war,the people killed during warfare can never really be replaced. The real value of humanitarian cloning lies in the possibility of preserving the genetic diversity of the Jewish gene pool,the Bosnian gene pool,et cetera. Signed---- Anthony Ratkov. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.221.74.116 (talk) 06:52, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Comment on above statement: I believe that "preserving the genetic diversity" of the gene pool of populations reduced by genocide would not be achieved by cloning the remaining population because no new diversity would be achieved except where the usual mutations occur. Remember the clones would be genetically exact copies of the donors. (Panthora (talk) 13:42, 24 October 2010 (UTC))

Why is there absolutely no mention of cellular/molecular level human cloning? We are already growing human limbs and tissue. Sirmikey1 (talk) 04:46, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Brave new World

I think Huxleys take is all the more meritorious since he came up with it in '31. I added it to pop culture. I appologise I screwed it up and am unable to fix the damn thing. Please help&delete this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.127.177.126 (talk) 19:37, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

the first person who was cloned the process of --190.58.206.24 (talk) 22:36, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Neutrality of Subjest

While I was reading this article, this phrase caught my eye. "The ethical and moral issues cannot wait and should be discussed, debated and guidelines and laws be developed now" This statement seems to infer that Wikipedia is not neutral about this topic. Any thoughts? BubbleBuggy (talk) 02:11, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Source needed

"Current regulations prohibit federal funding for research into human cloning, which effectively prevents such research from occurring in public institutions and private institution such as universities which receive federal funding. However, there are currently no federal laws in the United States which ban cloning completely, and any such laws would raise difficult Constitutional questions similar to the issues raised by abortion." I'd like a source for that, and it should be more specific. What amandment of the American Constitution? Ran4 17:31, 6 September 2007 (UTC) use i dfg gb gs — Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.203.144.151 (talk) 16:23, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Contradiction

The first lines say "Human cloning... does not refer to ... reproduction of humans/animals cells or tissue." Then a line says "There are two commonly discussed types of human cloning: therapeutic cloning ... Therapeutic cloning involves cloning cells from an adult for use in medicine and transplants". That's contradictory. I'm not sure how to resolve that now, but it should be resolved some way. Chuck Baggett (talk) 19:50, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Comments from Jtrivedi92

This article is being peer reviewed as part of this class — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jtrivedi92 (talk • contribs) 05:35, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

The law and ethics sections may be more constructive if moved to a separate article.

We completely agree and are currently working with another member of the Wiki community to see if this is at all possible, but for now all of the content stays in this article.Jfriend2 (talk) 15:25, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Jytdog, could you help us move the laws and ethics section? Estephe9 (talk) 20:57, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

At this point I don't see that the article is so long that any split is needed. Please see WP:SPLIT for the general rationale on splitting. If you look above, when you first broached this I said "if it gets too long" - at that time I had no idea how extensive your additions would be. They have been pretty minimal... Jytdog (talk) 21:07, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

the section on IPSCs is unclear on what exactly pluripotency is and why it is useful in this context. A quick definition would make this section more accesible.

A definition and link to the pluripotency page has been added for clarity purposes. Jfriend2 (talk) 22:07, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

connection between IPSCs and personalized medicine is unclear, it should state why cloning leads to more tailored therapy

a couple sentences have been added to the section with reference to the Induced pluripotent stem cell page and hopefully is more clear. Estephe9 and I will be working to expand this section shortly. Jfriend2 (talk) 22:29, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

this is an article that describes some future medical uses for cloning and genomics that might help expand that section, especially given that the personalized medicine article itself does not cite any sources.

Thank you for the source, we will see if it works into the addition to the article. However, the Personalized medicine article does provide quite a few sources, 26 of them actually. Jfriend2 (talk) 23:07, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

We tried adding this link to the Future Reading section, but it is from a blocked source to those outside the SLU network and unfortunately we cannot reference this article.Jfriend2 (talk) 18:06, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Jtrivedi92 (talk) 06:11, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Comments from Rraju2

This article is being peer reviewed as an assignment for this class. Rraju2 (talk) 20:13, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

• Including more links to relevant articles may be helpful, such as reproductive cloning. Some links are used twice in the article. SCNT and iPSCs is linked in the lead as well as in another section.
  • I took out repeated wiki links as mentioned. Therapeutic cloning and reproductive cloning links were not added in the lead because they do not have there own wiki pages, but are a redirect to other related pages. Jfriend2 (talk) 21:43, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
• Additional articles/journals/websites etc to the further reading section would be helpful so that readers know where to look or have some guidance if they would like to research further into the subject.
  • Added an article about personalized medicine to the Further Reading section. Estephe9 (talk) 16:37, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
    • Just kidding, that was removed because it linked to an article only available through SLU's databases. Estephe9 (talk) 17:18, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

We did add another article regarding different cloning procedures to the further reading section. Estephe9 (talk) 18:07, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

• Maybe mention Stem Cell therapy and if it relates to this subject or not. Many readers may make a correlation between the two when there may or may not be one. Here is an article that discusses Stem cell therapy. Once again, this should be mentioned based on relevance to human cloning. I feel as though there may be some popular common confusion on the subjects.
  • Thanks for the idea! We added some content from the stem cell therapy article and its references. Estephe9 (talk) 18:04, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
• Adding a diagram of the iPSCs cells could be beneficial if possible. Rraju2 (talk) 20:13, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
  • An image from Wikimedia Commons has been added to the sectionJfriend2 (talk) 15:23, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Restrictions in Maine, Pop Culture section

According to the article as it's currently written, "Maine restricts human cloning but does not ban it." I don't understand what this is supposed to mean. Does it mean that you need a state issued license to clone in Maine? Maybe you're not allowed to clone on Sundays and federal holidays? Since there's no citation for this claim, i think it causes more confusion than clarification.

Also, i don't understand what the popular culture section is supposed to add to this article. Unless i completely misunderstood the plot, Jurassic Park had nothing to do with human cloning in any way. Time Magazine once running a cover story about human cloning a decade ago is unremarkable unless additional information about the article and its impacts are provided. I think this entire wikipedia article would be improved simply by deleting the popular culture section. 199.104.125.246 (talk) 18:03, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

I removed the Maine sentence. The pop culture section could definitely stand to be improved (there are many more directly relevant references than Jurassic Park), but left it for now. I wouldn't object to removing it, but it would be better to improve it instead.--ThaddeusB (talk) 18:40, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Removed image on UN vote

I removed this image from the article because it is completely unclear. It doesn't say which declaration this was, exactly when it took place, or even what a for or against vote means in this context. And there's no source in the image description. Trinitresque (talk) 01:13, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Request for clear suggestions

As noted above, students in my class have been working on this article through the semester with their final effort due soon. User: jytdog has been watching and providing support throughout the process (Thank you!). Any specific and constructive suggestions of how they might continue to improve the article in the next few weeks would be welcome. If I can summarize some of what I think I understand on the talk page, they could:

• look for more appropriate (i.e. WP:MEDRS) references for the history section.
• edit the legend for the UN figure to give it meaning and context and then insert it back in.
• redo the pop culture section to be more appropriate to Human cloning.

Correct me if I misunderstood and add to the list as seems appropriate. Thanks. Biolprof (talk) 04:25, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

That all makes sense. for what it is worth, i am a big believer in really thinking like an editor for the encyclopedia, so when I work, i try to think about and improve related articles so the whole "suite" is improved together. I have been meaning to get to the Somatic cell nuclear transfer and [[nduced pluripotent stem cell] articles. as per WP:SUMMARY, the brief sections in this article, should really be basically copy/paste jobs from the lead paragraphs of those articles. and this article should be coordinated with the cloning article, so that all of them together are up to date, have minimal overlaps, and importantly, have nothing that contradicts. i know that is a big ask, but gaining expertise in a given area can benefit more than just one article. i think the biggest bang for the buck would be improving all four articles and making them coherent with one another... Jytdog (talk) 10:41, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Lanza/ACT study

Hey all, WP:MEDRS applies here, regardless of whether this is featured on WP's front page or not. Newspapers are not acceptable secondary sources for biomedical related information. Remember the South Korean issues, anyone? On top of that ACT is notorious for doing science by press release: http://www.biopoliticaltimes.org/article.php?id=5114 We need to see if others are able replicate this and until the scientific community has time to absorb the results, and for this work to be discussed in a review article. As per WP:MEDRS. Until then, we need to wait to give a lot of WP:WEIGHT to this. Jytdog (talk) 20:50, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Agree, this is too early so I reduced it further. I say wait until something is published in the scientific literature before giving this too much weight. AIRcorn (talk) 23:13, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

I was fine with Jytdog's rewrite, but felt the second rewrite by Aircon removed info that is fairly key to understanding and distinguishing between other reported "history" events. Thus, I reworked it again. It is slightly shorter than Jytdog's version, but slightly longer than Aircorn's (and much shorter than my original version). Hopefully this version is acceptable to all. --ThaddeusB (talk) 23:34, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

I think chopping any more details actually makes it look more credible, because then you just say "it happened" without any context at all, if that makes sense. --ThaddeusB (talk) 23:37, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Also, if either you want to add a sentence about the credibility of ACT work in general to balance it, that would be fine. --ThaddeusB (talk) 23:41, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

at some point this whole section needs to be rewritten using MEDRS-compliant secondary sources, and keeping primaries only as adjunct... as for what stands now, the less detail - the less WP:WEIGHT - the better. Jytdog (talk) 00:05, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

As it currently stands, the article is primarily a review of law. It is also a review of historical cloning claims. Finally, a portion is on current medical/scientific thought. I am sure you aren't advocating that the law section needs to be sourced to "systematic reviews published in reputable medical journals". I would argue that the history also doesn't have to be subject to such high standards. By its nature the history of a subject will include information that is no longer reflective of current thought, so I think it is unreasonable to expect everything to be backed by current medical journals. The "methods" and "potential medical uses" of course should be subject to MEDRS guidelines.

Right now, four (or five if you count 2013 as separate) claims are covered in history. Each has approximately the same amount of detail, and only one paragraph each. That is about 3% of the article per clai, which I think that is the proper weight. When you try to make them shorter, you drop details and it all runs together and it reads like "X made a claim in XXXX and Y made a claim in YYYY". Its better to have enough details to see how claim X is different than claim Y. --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:29, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

I said "this section" and meant the history section. to the extent this section is making claims about biomedical research it is subject to MEDRS. Content about law isn't subject to MEDRS. As for the scope of this article, that seems to be in flux somewhat. If you read above, a group of students was working on this and said that they intended to expand the scope of the science/technology and they wanted to move the ethics and law to another article altogether; my response to that was essentially, "build away and if/when the article gets unwieldy we can decide what to do at that point."Jytdog (talk) 00:35, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

I know what you referring too, but was expanding the comment to show why I don't think purely historical claims need to be referenced to "systematic reviews" exclusively. Of course if they can be, all the better, but a claim made in the past that attracted a lot of attention is still worthy of coverage (in "history" only) even if no current scientist would even bother discussing it... Would it perhaps be better if the section was renamed to something like "history of cloning claims" instead of just "history"? --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:56, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

The best (to my mind only) way to determine weight for scientific claims is by referring to the weight given in literature reviews published in peer reviewed academic sources. If they give it a brief mention we should do the same here. If they dedicate a large percentage of the review to the claim then we should follow suit. Anything else is basically original research on our part. This gets tricky with newly announced claims, but we are not a news service and don't have to keep up-to-date with every new announcement. If I ruled the encyclopaedia I would not mention it at all until it had received some more coverage in mainstream science sources, but I don't and news articles are given more weight than they probably deserve. However, I still feel that the current version is WP:Undue and fear that the expansion is being used to justify presentation on WP:ITN. AIRcorn (talk) 03:27, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

You are correct that sources determine weight, but that also involves editorial judgement - its not like we are going to count the sentences across every source and get an exact % that fact X is mentioned and then match that %. If I understand correctly, the point of MEDRS (and really all weight guidelines) is to insure that new/obscure ideas don't get exact weight. Additionally, news sources rarely consider details like success rate, reproducibly, etc. To me, the common sense thing to do is that if a new idea draws a lot of attention, it should be discussed briefly but with the proper qualifiers (e.g. basic study details, success rate, etc.). Including just "X said Y" without any details is in effect what popular media often do, and makes X look like like a breakthrough. Instead "X found Y, but only 5% of the time and only in conditions Z" gives the reader information they need to form in semi-informed opinion.

Here, I think giving the 2014 cloning report 3% weight and explaining the details is better than giving it a 2% weight and explaining nothing. --ThaddeusB (talk) 15:54, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

sorry you kind of lost me at "Additionally, news sources rarely consider details like success rate, reproducibly, etc. " - what does that have to do with anything? Additionally, MEDRS is not primarily about WEIGHT but rather, what constitutes reliable sources for health related information. We just cannot know now how important this study will be, in the long term. And we don't have to know, now. We are not going anywhere - we can wait for secondary sources to deal with this. Jytdog (talk) 16:35, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

From MEDRS: "Most medical news articles fail to discuss important issues such as evidence quality, costs, and risks versus benefits, and news articles too often convey wrong or misleading information about health care." I feel like by just reporting X happened, that is exactly what we'd be doing. I do realize there is no DEADLINE, but that applies both ways to some extent. What I am saying is if people will want to learn about a study because it is in the news, it makes more sense to give enough info to form a judgement than just a single sentence saying "X reported Y". --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:52, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Things like evidence quality are what secondary sources provide - we cannot make judgements about that - this is exactly what secondary sources are for! Costs and risks vs benefits are not relevant to lab experiments... and I do not agree that Wikipedia can even evaluate the article - that is not what we do here. In the near term, it is what scientists do on their blogs, like this, until there are formal reviews published. Jytdog (talk) 01:25, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I think we can agree that the next time someone publishes a "history of human cloning" type article (and per MEDRS, popular media is often a good source of such histories), it would be preferable to use that source for the history section rather than the primary/near-primary sources currently used (in all cases except Hwang Woo-suk's fraud). The only thing we disagree on is the amount of details to cover in the interim... hopefully the debate will be made moot quickly. --ThaddeusB (talk) 15:35, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

ThaddeusB I see that you added this to the front page, in this dif! Your description of this being the first "human clone" was just plain wrong, and what appears now on the front page is even more wrong. It actually says now "Adult human DNA is cloned for the first time within an unfertilized egg." I don't know who is responsible for editing these headlines, but this is just kind of embarrassing for WP - it is bizarre to talk about "cloning DNA" in the context of this paper, and it was not the first time that people had done SCNT with human cells. Do you know how to get the headline fixed or better just deleted? At least your wanting to give a bunch of weight to this topic makes a bit more sense now. Jytdog (talk) 18:09, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

You are looking at the wrong place. The mainpage template is Template:In the news and discussion on items is at WP:ITN/C. The editors there came up with the blurb, not me (although I did suggest the story.) I didn't add it to the front page, taht was doen here. My preferred blurb was actually "Human embryonic clone cells are created by replacing the nucleus of an unfertilised egg cell with one from an adult cell." but the other ITN/C regulars decided on the one found on the MP. I can, however, edit the template - what blurb would you suggest. (The other way to get it changed is report it as incorrect at WP:ERRORS. Pulling the item woudl require consensus at WP:ITN/C.) --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:44, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks!! I have no idea how that front page stuff works, so really, thanks. I did make an error report here but there has been no action on it. I suggested there that it should read "Advanced Cell Technology announced the results of an experiment in somatic cell nuclear transfer, a form of human cloning". Jytdog (talk) 01:25, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I replied on WP:ERRORS, please reply ASAP so we can get this resolved. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:07, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! replied there this morning. Jytdog (talk) 12:37, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Jytdog, I see you have again chopped it down to a single sentence, yet left all the other experiments also attributed to immediate new releases untouched. Care to explain the different standard being applied? --ThaddeusB (talk) 19:20, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi ThaddeusB - i am in the process of working over all the stem cell related stuff; it is going to take some time, but I will eventually get back to this section and rework the whole thing based on secondary sources, as it supposed to be done. the stem cell therapy article was/is the biggest disaster so i started over there. it is going to take time, but there is WP:NODEADLINE. articles that will be included and rationalized/better sourced are stem cells, stem cell therapy, cell therapy, induced stem cells, induced pluripotent stem cells, somatic-cell nuclear transfer, dedifferentiation, this one and some others. these articles (like many sets of related articles in WP) is a sprawling, self-contradictory, uncoordinated, overly-primary-sourced mess. Jytdog (talk) 19:29, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. I did notice it was part of a series of edits, so I was hoping the other experiments would also be addressed at some point. Ping me when it is done - I would liek to see it. You'll notice I haven't undone the change; when/if the experiment does get additional coverage, I hope you'll consider putting the experiment details back in. I do think they give a much better context to understand the subject than just a "it happend" type statement. Thank you for waiting until the attention died down to re-cut it so that people curious about the experiment could see the context. --ThaddeusB (talk) 19:34, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

i will be glad to ping you! :) Jytdog (talk) 19:38, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

comments from Biolprof

This article is being reviewed for this class. A few suggestions in addition to those above:

• Lead, 2nd paragraph: Avoid starting a sentence with “There are….” since the word “there” does not have a reference.
  • the sentence has been re-worded. Jfriend2 (talk) 19:40, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
• Consider moving the phrase “is not in medical practice anywhere in the world.” from the 1st paragraph to the sentence in paragraph 2 that ends, “...an active area of research.” Add a date to this information (in case it is in practice at some point in the future).
  • that phrase has been moved and a date for reference has been addedJfriend2 (talk) 19:55, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
• Add more wikilinks to terms in iPSC paragraph.
  • Done and done. Estephe9 (talk) 20:24, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
• Methods section might benefit from information comparing SCNT to iPSCs. How are the pluripotent stems cells derived from these techniques same/different from each other? Biolprof (talk) 15:49, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
  • a paragraph comparing the two methods has been added to the end of the section. Jfriend2 (talk) 17:45, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Comments from [User: RegOH]

This article is being peer reviewed as an assignment for this class. RegOH (talk) 01:05, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

• It may be beneficial to add a few sentences or a paragraph to provide more detail to the methods section. Both subsections of Methods are very small and pretty general.
  • We would like to include more in this section, however there is not much more to be added. Everything on the topic of SCNT and iPSCs is primary literature discussing the successes of the use of these methods in human cloning. We are currently looking for secondary sources (i.e. review articles) on these topics, but if we find them, we've decided we will put them in the History section of this article, as the information would contribute to the development of human cloning itself and not the techniques it utilizes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Estephe9 (talk • contribs) 20:49, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
• The lead is largely dedicated to an overview of the methods of human cloning, but they take up a very small portion of the article. For example, adding a sentence to the lead mentioning statistics about various laws in different countries could make the lead better reflect the article.
  • Sentence mentioning legal implications of cloning added. Estephe9 (talk) 20:56, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
• The Uses, actual and potential section could be greatly expanded upon. Currently, it is only a few sentences. More detail could be added, and more uses could probably be mentioned. For example, you could expand upon just saying that cloned cells could be used in treatment of disease, and talk about what diseases and how they could be used.
  • Additional information has been added to this section. Thanks! Estephe9 (talk) 17:48, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

RegOH (talk) 01:05, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Comments from iamwillthinnes

• The section Uses, actual and potential could be expanded
  • working to extend starter sentences into full paragraphs. Jfriend2 (talk) 15:34, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
• Add the top I would add a disclaimer or a link to the page for cloning, much like the Cloning page has for Human Cloning
  • a wikilink to the cloning page is provided in the first sentence of the lead. Jfriend2 (talk) 19:37, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
• In the Popular Culture section, I would either split it up into 2 paragraphs and put the Orphan Black information in its own section or shorten the information on Orphan Black.
  • much of the content for that tv show has been removed and this entire section is being worked on Jfriend2 (talk) 21:14, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
• SCNT could be expanded, its own page has plenty of information that could be added that would add to the usefulness of this page.
  • this section is more of a summary of the actual article page so we do not want it to be very long and in-depth. Jfriend2 (talk) 20:54, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
• There is a line in the section Ethical implications that sounds awkward to me: "...perspectives on cloning are theoretical.." That phrase does not seem to make sense to me. It is obvious that human cloning is theoretical, but perspectives on it don't have to be. I think it could be worded differently to get the point across better.
  • that phrase has been removed Jfriend2 (talk) 17:49, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Iamwillthinnes (talk) 02:35, 6 May 2014 (UTC)