Clone Fall.
Well, it’s certainly very exciting to think that we are close to the anniversary of the cloning of Dolly the sheep.
Cloning - from the Latin "clone" meaning "copyright" and 'ing" meaning "infringement" - is a very complicated scientific process whereby scientists take a small piece one thing, place it on a surgical table, raise it up through the roof of the castle on a dark and stormy night, leaving it outside in the rain until it is struck by lightning, and then lower it back into the lab and shout "IT'S ALIVE! IT'S ALIVE!" at it until it becomes genetically identical to the thing it originally came from.
Scientists have been doing this for some time with a variety of plants, promising, among other things, to create lawn grass that keeps itself permanently cut, which is something bound to make the world a better place for us all. But Dolly was the first time they successfully cloned an animal.
So they say. But if that's true, how do you explain Mike Harris and Brian Mulroney? Or Michael and Janet Jackson?
Anyway, why the Scottish scientists chose to clone a sheep is not clear. It may have had something to do with haggis. Haggis is, of course, a Scottish delicacy which involves oatmeal and a sheep's stomach, and was used by Mel Gibson to fight the English. It has been suggested by friends of that the scientists were actually trying to clone a haggis but added too much single malt whisky to the blender and wound up with an entire sheep by mistake.
It is the ethics of cloning which will be addressing today. People around the world have greeted the news of the successful sheep cloning with horror and dismay. "A sheep!" they are saying in editorials and on call-in shows. "Why on Earth did they clone a sheep! Does anybody know why the plural of sheep is the same as the singular? What if they clone a moose next, or an octopus? Who will know what the plural of those are?"
While the ethics debate rages through the scientific and journalistic communities, many wonder why the scientists didn't clone, say, Cindy Crawford or Mel Gibson. We are pretty sure that their research would have been much better received had they trotted out an army of Sean Conneries or Amanda Marshalls rather than a sheep, but there you are. That's why I write a column and they Xerox sheep.
The scientists named the home-made sheep "Dolly", by the way, which immediately raises the question: did the scientists say "hello Dolly!" when the sheep came into being, and if so, do we really want people with that kind of sense of humor diddling with our genetic futures?
The promise of the cloning technology is that we will pretty soon be able to make copies of ourselves, and presumably better copies. But I am not so sure this is a good idea. For one thing, the clones are not likely to think very highly of the arrangement. If a person were to be convicted of a crime, say, and were sentenced to 20 years in jail, he could simply rush off to the Clones "R" Us store, and grind out a copy of himself to serve the sentence. But how would you feel about being brought into the world, fully mature, only to be greeted with: "Welcome to the world. You now get to go to jail for 20 years. Have a nice day." Pretty soon there would be a clone union and nasty clone strikes and all sorts of irate clones writing grumpy letters to the editors.
On the other hand - or, presumably, the other of several hands - people are arguing that it would be nice to have a couple of spares around the house to pick the place up and cook the meals. But for those of us who are already talking to ourselves too much, this prospect is just way too frightening.
So instead of cloning sheep or people, I suggests the Scottish scientists try their hands at cloning long weekends. Now there is something you can never get enough of.
P.S. If you were to clone yourself, and discovered that your clone had a tendency to swear and use profanity all the time, and you decided to get rid of the clone by throwing it off the CN tower, what would you be charged with? That's right, making an obscene clone fall.
Cloning - from the Latin "clone" meaning "copyright" and 'ing" meaning "infringement" - is a very complicated scientific process whereby scientists take a small piece one thing, place it on a surgical table, raise it up through the roof of the castle on a dark and stormy night, leaving it outside in the rain until it is struck by lightning, and then lower it back into the lab and shout "IT'S ALIVE! IT'S ALIVE!" at it until it becomes genetically identical to the thing it originally came from.
Scientists have been doing this for some time with a variety of plants, promising, among other things, to create lawn grass that keeps itself permanently cut, which is something bound to make the world a better place for us all. But Dolly was the first time they successfully cloned an animal.
So they say. But if that's true, how do you explain Mike Harris and Brian Mulroney? Or Michael and Janet Jackson?
Anyway, why the Scottish scientists chose to clone a sheep is not clear. It may have had something to do with haggis. Haggis is, of course, a Scottish delicacy which involves oatmeal and a sheep's stomach, and was used by Mel Gibson to fight the English. It has been suggested by friends of that the scientists were actually trying to clone a haggis but added too much single malt whisky to the blender and wound up with an entire sheep by mistake.
It is the ethics of cloning which will be addressing today. People around the world have greeted the news of the successful sheep cloning with horror and dismay. "A sheep!" they are saying in editorials and on call-in shows. "Why on Earth did they clone a sheep! Does anybody know why the plural of sheep is the same as the singular? What if they clone a moose next, or an octopus? Who will know what the plural of those are?"
While the ethics debate rages through the scientific and journalistic communities, many wonder why the scientists didn't clone, say, Cindy Crawford or Mel Gibson. We are pretty sure that their research would have been much better received had they trotted out an army of Sean Conneries or Amanda Marshalls rather than a sheep, but there you are. That's why I write a column and they Xerox sheep.
The scientists named the home-made sheep "Dolly", by the way, which immediately raises the question: did the scientists say "hello Dolly!" when the sheep came into being, and if so, do we really want people with that kind of sense of humor diddling with our genetic futures?
The promise of the cloning technology is that we will pretty soon be able to make copies of ourselves, and presumably better copies. But I am not so sure this is a good idea. For one thing, the clones are not likely to think very highly of the arrangement. If a person were to be convicted of a crime, say, and were sentenced to 20 years in jail, he could simply rush off to the Clones "R" Us store, and grind out a copy of himself to serve the sentence. But how would you feel about being brought into the world, fully mature, only to be greeted with: "Welcome to the world. You now get to go to jail for 20 years. Have a nice day." Pretty soon there would be a clone union and nasty clone strikes and all sorts of irate clones writing grumpy letters to the editors.
On the other hand - or, presumably, the other of several hands - people are arguing that it would be nice to have a couple of spares around the house to pick the place up and cook the meals. But for those of us who are already talking to ourselves too much, this prospect is just way too frightening.
So instead of cloning sheep or people, I suggests the Scottish scientists try their hands at cloning long weekends. Now there is something you can never get enough of.
P.S. If you were to clone yourself, and discovered that your clone had a tendency to swear and use profanity all the time, and you decided to get rid of the clone by throwing it off the CN tower, what would you be charged with? That's right, making an obscene clone fall.
posted by Millie Beagle at 8:11 am
1 Comments:
an obcene clone call? come on man.
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