Victor Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, started out as an intelligent young man that increasingly grew into an even more curious young man. His interest in the human body and creating life became almost became an obsession for him. He was determined to do what he needed to do in order to create the most incredible clone of a human. Victor went to great lengths to complete this occupation of his that took up nearly all of his time, including many nights of visiting the graveyards studying the human corpses. Getting the body parts was the easy part of this upcoming creation, it was going to be all the sleepless days and nights trying to create the veins, blood vessels, etc., that would be the challenging part of this whole ordeal.
The debate on whether or not animal cloning should be implemented turned into a hot-button issue. Anti-cloning activists reason that animal cloning is ‘against nature’ and ethically damning; it greatly violates natural law and alters one’s destiny. To the contrary, pro-cloning activists assert that it is a major breakthrough of scientific biological technology as its benefit is continuing to be discovered. In fact, the potential of animal cloning potential far outweighs the objections of its detractors.
We are born into this world an original, why would we choose to go out a copy?” Besides, we’ve had cloning in the South for years. It's called cousins.”(Robin Williams) Step by step, rung by rung we have advanced forward on this ladder. Ideas led to frogs, who have in turn led to the name “clone.” But it twas not enough. The genetic code furthered research in the stem cell research industry and voila’ the door to turning back no longer held substance in this world. All that remained was a fine layer of gritty sand on which the foundation of cloning was built. This was not the first time cloning was deemed possible, though. It actually dates back to the late 1800s, to a zoology professor by the name of August Weismann. He had reason to believe “that the genetic information of a cell would diminish with each cell division.” So from that point on and to this day our scientists have proved this true while piecing together the foundation of making this possible. But is this our greatest achievement, or the starting point of our downfall?
The Inappropriateness of Cloning
December 1998, researchers at Kyunghee University in South Korea claimed to have produced the world's first human embryo clone. The scientists involved said they destroyed the object soon after seeing it divide several times. ACT itself claimed in the November of that year that it had fused the genetic material from a human cell with the empty egg from a cow to make a hybrid embryo.
If ACT do succeed in producing full human blastocysts then the feasibility of therapeutic and reproductive cloning would be substantially increased. How is that for word choice?
Bedford/St. Martins, New York. (2000) : 237-243. Shelley, Mary. "Frankenstein." The Presence of Others 3rd edition. Bedford/St. Martins, New York. (2000) : 231-236.
Cloning may sound like science fiction, but it is very real. There were many advances in cloning in the twentieth century. The climax was when scientists successfully cloned a sheep in 1996.(11) Advances stopped when scientists asked themselves whether or not it is ethical to attempt to clone a human. The same question is asked
Cloning, Triumph or Tragedy?
The creation of life through scientific experiments is not a new concept. The idea has been in existence as far back as two hundred years. Mary Shelley was far ahead of her time when she brought the human like creature to life in her writing of "Frankenstein, The Modern Prometheus. " The story of "Frankenstein" was written as a myth, yet it continues to leave the world intrigued today.
Subsequently, after investigating the complex subject of cloning and weighing the documented evidence, I feel there will be more positive trends for the future of the controversial cloning debate as opposed to the negative trends. My critical analysis of the evidence will convey how the technology of cloning has evolved on a positive note, in addition to a discussion of the many misconceptions about cloning that we, as humans, perceive as reality generally because of a lack of knowledge.
The most significant problem our world has with newfound controversies is that most people take one side on the issue before they become educated on the topic at hand. This is the same problem that I see with the controversial issue of cloning. Whether one argues for or against the cloning of humans or animals, most people leave out the ethics and morals behind the issue. People see movies like Multiplicity, starring Michael Keaton (a movie in which Michael Keaton clones himself multiple times in an attempt to make his life more enjoyable), and they think to themselves that cloning themselves might be pretty cool. A poll taken by CNN1 on the issue of cloning found that 7% of Americans would clone themselves. This shows us that 93% of Americans do see the problems behind cloning. But this also shows us that there are some people that need to be educated on the subject through the basis of facts, not some unrealistic movie. So many people argue that cloning could be used on animals for medical advancements and to solve such terrible problems as world hunger, but there are so many more factors behind this problem than just a lack of food. In an interview conducted by TIME magazine2, Daniel Callahan, Director of International Programs and Senior Associate at The Hastings Center states, “[Solving the problem of world hunger] would be wonderful if it could happen, but I’m not sure that cloning offers a solution to world hunger, most of which stems from political, rather that scientific reasons.” Not only this, but cloning should be seriously reconsidered because of technical problems (short and long-term) that may very well occur. This, coupled with scientists’ lack of full knowledge on the practice of cloning sho...
Long after Shelley wrote her classic masterpiece Frankenstein and Huxley wrote Brave New World, the ethical controversy of cloning conflicts with modern artificial intelligence research. The question that challenges the idea of negative or positive behavior in a replicated machine relies on its similarity to the source of the clone, whether it emulates human behavior or acts as a “superintelligence” with supernatural characteristics void of human error. Humanity will not know the absolute answers concerning behavioral outcome without creating a physical being, an idea portrayed in Shelley’s Frankenstein in which the creation of a monster emulates from his creator’s attempts to generate life. At the time of the novel’s publication, the idea of replicating a soul portrayed a nightmarish theme with little consideration for the potential scientific advancements to facilitate in reality. It lead the genetic idea of manmade intelligence and its ethics emerging from the relativity of space, time, and original life on the planet. The debate of the existing possibility of sentient machines continues to progress, but the consideration of ethical questions such as “Should we create these artificial people?” and “How does this enactment define the soul and mind?” warranted from primitive questions about machine learning within the last century. After the initial proof of possibility for sentient machines, the perfection of cloning will generate “good” behavior at its perfect state several generations from now. The perfect machine portrays the potential for sensible human behaviors including compassion, mentality, empathy, alertness, and love. Humanity of the twenty-first century possesses the knowledge to fantasize the idea of artificial ...