Sunday, March 11, 2007

"Against nature"

I can't understand how people could label cloning ‘unnatural’. The public fail to understand that thousands of clones are born each day, completely naturally. This is what identical twins are. What people call 'unnatural’ is often just what hadn't happened before. Like penicillin, chemotherapy and Panadol. It's the logical fallacy people, AGAIN, of deriving an "ought" from an "is". Due to fear.

Natural vs Unnatural is a stupid way to think when analysing what changes to society should be banned. If we are to be consistent with “nature”, people with leukaemia are supposed to naturally die without intervention. All other inventions, such as microwaves were also considered unnatural at one time. Familiarity has changed that. You could not possibly begin to argue that such things should certainly be banned simply because they didn’t exist for the majority of the time Homo Sapiens have been around. More reasonable grounds need to be given to ban an invention such as cloning other than the fact that we're uncomfortable with it. Eg, suppose it is dangerous in that it produces freak mutations. Watch out for that though, because PLENTY of things are dangerous when they are new but the risks involved decrease to zero eventually as the technologies advance)

****
Once, the mind existed to ensure the body survived. Now, the body exists to make sure the mind survives.

2 comments:

Eastcoastdweller said...

It's human nature to fear the new and unfamiliar -- and the cry of "unnatural" is the latest salvo.

Which is why genetically-engineered food is the devil incarnate to some people, to be blocked and hounded out of production, even as other people starve.

To me, that is much sadder than the battle over clones.

Lance Abel said...

Good point there. I feel the clones debate will probably intensify in the future, but you're right that it's not as relevant next to the billions still starving.