Straight thoughts 45

September 11, 2000

The highest physic's achievement of the twentieth century, the culmination of advanced theoretical research by a collection of world scientists, was the discovery of the atomic reaction. Its destructive power was tested, with catastrophic results, during the second world war.
However, in the last twenty years, the use of this technology for war purposes, had to be limited, controlled and eventually weapons had to be rolled back and destroyed. The very survival of the human race was at stake.

Biology is today in the same position as nuclear physic was a number of years back. Technically, human cloning might become feasible within the next few years. We must consciously decide not to start on a path that might bring the human race to different, but equally catastrophic results.

Cloning may be a bureaucrat's dream. The ultimate social engineering project. 1984 to the power of 6 billion, but who would we clone? Who would decide whom to clone?
The people who have most money?
Would we clone the 'best'?
Would we clone those elected by the people with the highest number of votes?
(Somehow the idea of multiple copies of Mulroney, Trudeau, Clinton or Hitler is giving me nightmares.)
Would we clone the most famous stars? That's even more scary!
Somehow I think that variety and uniqueness makes us all better, apart from guaranteeing a healthy and always rejuvenating gene pool.