I don't know. I wouldn't mind holding a patent on a tissue cloning process for human hair. How many billions of dollars would that be worth?

I like the advanced directive idea. I'll have to give some thought to adding it to the course.
I haven't given much time to thinking about lots of topics in BioEthics but its essential to think about something in the area in an Ethics class nowadays.

Isn't almost everything we do a disruption in the balance of life? Driving cars disrupts the balance of life. Isn't the very essence of intelligent life to manipulate, interfere with and control natural processes.? At the same time we have to figure out the benefits and drawbacks of those manipulations.

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

To agree to cloning based upon those beliefs would be the ultimate hubris that, as a species, we have the ability to take those actions with responsibility.

Why would it be hubris instead of simply a fact? The moment we planted the first seed in the ground or made the first bow to hunt with, we began an irreversible process of manipulating nature.

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

Okay, let's take your example . . . planting a seed. If you examine the history of human cultivation, you'll find that, as a species, the grasses of the planet couldn't have found a better friend than the human being. We've pretty much won the war against the trees for them. Locally, in our love for the grasses, we've distributed billions of tons of fertilizer and ag chemicals in the midwest to promote our friends, the grasses, and lo and behold, it enters the water system, flows down to the Gulf of Mexico and does its magic there. Humans fooling with Mother Nature tends to make fools out of humans.

Man does not manipulate nature any more than does a bacterium. Its all a matter of scale. On the scale of the universe, absent a God, we are indistinguishable from bacteria.

Therefore (as I grab an extreme argument for the hell of it), anything we do eugenically is perfectly natural. Since "natural and unnatural" are artificial distinctions, value judgements based on them are also without value.

B

It's not like they will be cloning people randomly. Anyone who wanted a clone would have to go through a lot more work and money than just doing it the old fashioned way.

As far as vanity, isn't that why people have kids now?

Could we buy/clone a servant?

I like tree as much or more than the next guy, but there's a problem with the argument. If we had not supported certain kinds of grasses, we wouldn't be here discussing this. There's no way the planet could support as many people as it does with hunting and gathering. Even hunting and gathering disturbs the natural environment. We gather, store grain, mice come, cats follow and are domesticated.
Why is human manipulation of nature not as natural as everything else?
This is not to say that every manipulation is unqualifiedly good.

I don't see how God factors in, but yes it is just a matter of scale. Also, eugenics seems to follow naturally. If we can breed out spina bifada, what would be wrong with that?

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

Why would a clone tolerate being a servant any more than you or I would?

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

Fair enough. I would buy/clone three and boot the one who complains

Well, if there's a traditional bearded, enthroned God who counts every sparrow and created us for his glory, then we are no longer equivalent to bacteria, everything we do has value and is none of it is natural.

I think your spina bifida argument is exactly the best one (in terms of both palatibility and utility) to make for eugenics.

B

interesting discussion so far(for once )
But I can see an underlying question some of you have posed in various ways, which I now find myself asking:
What's the point, anyway, of cloning a human?
To achieve genetic "perfection"? If so, who gets to make that decision as to what is "perfection"? What becomes of the experimantal clones that didn't come out right? And a whole raft of moral and ethical questions.
No. I think we should leave it alone. If for no other reason, it's gonna clog up our courts for centuries, trying to sort it all out. Clone all the sheep you want, although I still don't see the point of that either, other than to let scientists play God. But keep humans out of it.

__________________
past MB rides:
'68 220D
'68 220D(another one)
'67 230
'84 SD
Current rides:
'06 Lexus RX330
'93 Ford F-250
'96 Corvette
'99 Polaris 700 RMK sled
2011 Polaris Assault
'86 Yamaha TT350(good 'ol thumper)

Something fails to compute. Why is everything we do not natural if God created it? Why would anything we do not have value if God did not create it?

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

"Why is everything...".
I'm taking the platonistic argument in separating God/Man from nature. God created nature first. Then God created man separate from nature, etc.

"Why would anything...".
I should probably amend that and suggest that the value would be scale dependent is its a non-God universe and scale-invariant if it is a God universe.

B