What's your take on this whole sheep cloning thing?

  • Ummm...what sheep cloning thing? :) I know very little about it - just a snippet from the Daily Show on Comedy Central (Yep, I don't read the news...just the Entertainment section.) :) So, I pretty much have no opinion whatsoever, actually. Although I'd probably say that cloning in general is bad, and I'm sure they did not have the sheep's consent.

  • I wouldn't want myself cloned. what if my clone was much more successful in life than I have been. then I'd really feel like a failure.

  • two words: Jurassic Park.

  • As long as they don't clone Carl Troein... =)

  • Okay. Here's my take on the whole thing. I think it's a bluff. A total bluff.

    See, like, every week we hear these fantastic crackpot claims. Piltdown Man. Cold fusion. Crop circles. That little YKK on your zipper. See, and usually people are able to sort out what's really true, which is none of it.

    But then whatever fella it was said, "Whoo, hey, I'm cloning me some sheep over here." And so the press came over to see what the lowdown was. And then the scientists said "Look, see? Cloned sheep. Look how much this little one looks like this big one!"

    And so all the press people were looking at the sheep. And inside they were all thinking "Oh yeah sure, like I'm gonna be able to distinguish sheep from each other in the first place, I bet." And maybe there was, like ONE guy in the background, who started to say "Whoa there. They don't look like each other at ALL. That older one's MUCH cuter."

    So of course EVERYONE'S looking at him like, oh you crazy perv, you. And so everyone else there just sort of called the bluff.

    How do you like that? We're starting this whole international debate simply because a bunch of journalists didn't want people to think they were psycho sheep-sticking pervs.

  • This technology could have positive implications for the future, but it needs to be managed VERY carefully. If it hasn't been done already, the next step will almost certainly be an attempt to clone a human. Human cloning has serious ethical and moral implications, and at this point I'm not in favor of it.

  • I have no opinion at all. As long as they don't clone so many that we're overrun with mutant clone sheep, whatever. :)

  • I think it signals a dangerous time on the horizon; one where ethics and moral responsibilities (not just of science, but in general) because more ambiguous. On the whole, I think we'd have been better off if it had never been done / could never be done. I don't think that, as a people, we're mature enough to handle this discovery without enormously fucking up.

  • You saw the movie "Multiplicity", didn't you? Ah, the mayhem.

  • I think it's awsome. We shouldn't waste our time with stupid sheep though. We should be cloning people like my excentric buddy Geoffrey.

  • I think it's a great step in my quest for eternal life.

  • It all seems fairly unreal to me. It's as though we've all been thrown into some sci-fi novel without permission or a second thought. What good is supposed to come from this? Seriously, I want to know...

  • Had to happen eventually. I find the idea of cloning distasteful but not actually frightening. What scares me is the possibility of genetic engineering. Maybe I've read to many anti-utopia books, but the idea of creating a genetic upper class and a genetic underclass is all too likely, especially because just about every civilization has always created such a social stratification based on money - so why not genetics? Ugh.

  • That's gonna make it a bitch to fall asleep at night. "One... one... one... one..."

  • Hey, that's great if they want to clone animals. Start cloning cows and we can have the same hamburger every day! I can see only one good thing to come from cloning humans: Make a cone of everyone, put the clone in a cryogenic chamber (freeze them) and if a person ever needs blood, a new heart, or what ever, let the other one thaw and voila! That's really where I draw the line. However, part of me says "Hell, clone Drew Barrymore a million times, give one to each male and watch how viloent crime plummets." Oh well...

  • Cloning brings up many different questions regarding religion, science, ethics, and humanity. It is inevitable that the unstopable science will clone a human being. Will it work? If it produces a regular Joe Schmoe without any side effects from the cloning, humans will then be taking on the role that society(generalization here) has bestowed upon God. THAT poses a huge problem for those of deitous faith. Not to mention it presumes the possibility that there is no Heaven, so life is ultimately meaningless if there is nothing afterwards. Is it right to clone? Sure, they'd be great for spare parts, but if a clone is as human as the next man(or woman), can we as a clone's creator dictate it's fate? I think not. My parents, my blood creators, never used me as a machine; if they did, there would be hell to pay, which is exactly what door I believe we're opening.

  • What's the big deal about it anyway? Havn't they been cloning things for years? what's so special about this sheep? Yeah, it is sort of exciting, but it isn't anything that new.

  • Sheep cloning? Sounds like something they'd do for a good time in Greece

  • Is it a wolf in sheeps clothes kind of thing or what?

  • My take is simple... I can't believe there so much uproar about it when there are so many bigger problems in society that need attention.

  • It's fine, just as long as they don't start cloning republicans. One Newt is more than enough.

  • People seem to forget that when you clone something you don't get an exact replica straight away. It has to grow up. So if a person were cloned they might end up looking only vaguely like the person they're cloned from. I think. So, a sheep being cloned doesn't really bother me. Although, I think there are enough sheep already.

  • Its pretty cool and stuff. We can keep cloning the same sheep over and over agsin and have lamb chops without really killing any "animals." Oh! And I get to live forever. I can't even imagine a world without the Thunderdome! You know it, you love it.

  • There are enough sheep in the world, with four and with two legs, so there is no need of cloning them.

  • Can they clone party sheep? Oh well as long as they don't clone Chubb Rock.

  • I think its great. Soon I can clone myself so that I can do more then before. In fact I can clone myself over and over until I have an entire district of me's and then I can vote myself into office. Soon the whole Senate would be me and then the Supreme Court and even the presidency. I will rule the world.

  • *shudder* It's scary-scary. I mean, if they can clone sheep, how far are they from cloning humans??? And then it comes to the whole "Will the clone have a soul?" thing. I think that things are the way they are for a reason and you shouldn't muck with 'em. If this could, in some way, benifit medicine, I guess it would be okay, but I have a feeling that it'll just be a bunch of wacko scientists figuring out what they can or can't do... blah blah blah... I dunno. I wonder if my grandma feels this way about computers? :)

  • my answer is

    Its great news. Now when I find a lamb chop I really like...

    On the more serious side, the medicinal value is astounding. No longer will you need to take random sampling... you can have controlled sampling of animals to test medicines, carcinogins, etc...

    On the ethical side, I think its really the next logical step in Darwinism. Survival of the fittest and richest. Of course, it will create problems when people don't realize that the clones will start as babies and age at the same rate as anybody else. It will however help prove how much of personality, intelligence, etc. are caused by genetics and how much by environment.

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