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Sand
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Joined: 15 Sep 2007
Age: 100
Gender: Male
Posts: 11,484
Location: Finland

27 Jul 2010, 9:29 am

Janissy wrote:
No, I would not get a clone.

I think the temptation to raise her as a "mini-me" would be too great to overcome. Parents (and I am one) have a hard enough time raising their genetically unique children as unique and not as a "do-over" for their own childhoods. If somebody looked exactly like I did as a child and had the same genetic makeup, I don't think I'm personally strong enough to treat her as a unique individual who may nevertheless be very different from me.

On a larger scale, I don't think it would be good for us as a species if asexual reproduction became dominant. Sexual reproduction has flourished because it allows genes to be constantly re-shuffled. For complex organisms, this is necessary. Admittedly, there would be 6 billion genetically unique templates and that seems like enough. But even so, I think it's safer to stick with the perma-shuffle that sexual reproduction gives us.


Identical twins are clones and the problems are solved every day.