Posted on 11/26/2007 12:48:43 PM PST by BGHater
Now that biologists in Oregon have reported using cloning to produce a monkey embryo and extract stem cells, it looks more plausible than before that a human embryo will be cloned and that a cloned human will be born some day. But not necessarily in the Americas or Europe.
While some critics have been fretting about the morality of stem cell research and genetic engineering, prominent Western scientists have been going to Asia, like the geneticists Nancy Jenkins and Neal Copeland, who left the National Cancer Institute in the United States and moved last year to Singapore.
Asia offers researchers new labs, fewer restrictions and a different religious viewpoint. In South Korea, when Hwang Woo Suk reported creating human embryonic stem cells through cloning, he justified it by citing his Buddhist belief in recycling life through reincarnation.
His claim was later exposed as a fraud, but before that happened, his approach was supported by the Venerable Ji Kwan, executive director of South Korea's largest Buddhist order, the Jogye, who said research with embryos was in accord with Buddha's precepts and urged Korean scientists not to be guided by Western ethics.
"Asian religions worry less than Western religions that biotechnology is about 'playing God,' " says Cynthia Fox, the author of "Cell of Cells," a book about the global race among stem cell researchers. "Therapeutic cloning, in particular, jibes well with the Buddhist and Hindu ideas of reincarnation."
Lee Silver, a molecular biologist at Princeton who analyzes clashes of spirituality and science in his book "Challenging Nature," has been charting biotechnology policies around the world and trying to make spiritual sense of who is afraid of what.
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
Man, why in the hell would China be interested in cloning? They breed faster than cloning would ever take.
I see the Godless are very active in the cloning business...
Communist Party Members wanting to cheat death?
Not true (anymore). The Chinese population is aging and stagnating/shrinking. The matter is that they are so numerous in the first place. The government prescribed one-child policy plues forced abortions have seen to it.
Because they are amoral and have some evil plans for the future.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1906006/posts
‘Embryo selection gets even more interesting when we consider how a nation such as China might use it. Imagine that in ten years China forces all its college students to get genetic tests. Students with intelligence genes in the top 1% of the top 1% of humankind are then forced to donate sperm or eggs. China then uses the sperm and eggs to create a billion embryos each year. The genetic intellectual potential of all these embryos is checked. Those in the top 10,000 are implanted into women. Each of these embryos has the intellectual potential to be in the top one-billionth of humankind. Now because of environmental factors many of these embryos won’t turn into intellectual titans. But let’s say that one in ten does. This means that each year 1,000 people with the scientific ability of Einstein will be born. By 2035 they will become adults and start doing scientific research. I imagine these Einsteins will be rather helpful to China’s economy and military.’
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1914762/posts
I told my brother, while bloviating in a bar over a decade ago, that this was China’s future, that they would have no compunctions regarding things like cloning, aborting the undesirable, licensing only some to have children and the like. I sound like a great guy to hang out with, eh? Anyway, you and I share the same view of a possible future and it’s a fascist one for China.
Assuming you believe that the birth of intelligent people is evil. Is it all intelligent people, or just Chinese intelligent people you are opposed to?
We’re applying our value for human life to their culture, and it’s a huge mismatch.
Their culture may value the aged and the ancestors, but they do not value babies as precious (maybe because there’s so many of them). Couple that with Communism and you have a very low value placed on human life.
All Asian clones look alike to me.
Because biotech will be the next big technological innovation like information technology was from the 80's through today.
Also consider how much money they stand to make if they crack the aging issue.
How much would you pay to be young again? Or ... would you sacrifice a pension and 401K to start over at 20 with all the knowledge you have now?
Intelligent-communist is an oxymoron. If they were intelligent, they wouldn’t be communist, and if they are communist, they can’t be intelligent.
Intelligent people think with their minds and use evidence to form opinions. There is abundant evidence that communism has failed miserably every time it has been tried.
Only brain dead cultists still believe that communism is a viable political system.
Asia shrugs off the West’s taboos over cloning ...
And our taboos on polluting the hell out of our environment.
And our taboos on government policies against murdering children according to their sex.
And our taboos against discrimination based on religion.
And our taboos against using date rape drugs on childrens toys.
And our taboos against ....
Mankind began "cheating death" the first time surgeons took out a diseased appendix. More power to them. The whole point of cloning is to create copies of healthy organs, not entire people. May the free market lead us to immortality.
“Or ... would you sacrifice a pension and 401K to start over at 20 with all the knowledge you have now?”
Absolutely.
Maybe if I repeated that process a couple of dozen times, I could finally understand women.
Which is why China is now using fascism which can work and maintain power.
Fascism uses central planning like communism. Neither work well over the long run. Free markets and individual human rights will always win economically over dictatorships of any form. Unfortunately for the Chinese they seem culturally incapable of that type of government. Of course much of the west is culturally incapable if it also. Witness the unconstitutional meddling in private affairs that our own government indulges in.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.