The Cloning of Plants and Animals Will Be Benefical.

"You start by mentioning that there is a similarity between the anatomy of a pig and that of a human. This much is true. But to jump from that to stating that pigs should be cloned for transplants is a huge leap. Although there has been talk of xenotransplants for over a century, when executed very few are successful." That much is true. But do you see another way of geting these 180,000 people working organs, when the numbers of organ donors are steadily decreasing? "The first two xenotransplants were performed in 1906 by Dr. Mathieu Jaboulay. One was a renal transplant, and the other was a liver transplant. Neither patient survived." Please review your statement. Over a decade ago? No wonder neither patient survived. I would guess that, at the very least, we know three times the medical knowledge as we did then. We are even able to entirely alter one's face. With our refined procedures and knowledge, I'm sure the chances of another xenotransplant, should another be attempted, will have a much, much greater chance of success. "Since that time, many of the xenotransplants have been disastrous. The few successes are boasted, but these are few and far between. However, even if the success rate were higher, a natural animal is surely to be preferred over one that has been cloned. Cloned animals have a ton of health problems. Even the most successful cloning experiments do not eliminate this problem. The famous cloned sheep by the name of Dolly had countless health issues. She also died much younger than normal sheep." Yes, that much is true. But there are some simple steps that, in theory, could help prevent some health problems, and enlongate the lives of clones. Clones are made from adult cells. And because of this simple fact, clones age much quicker. I'm sure that, if younger cells are used, it's safe to say that clones living longer lives are going to result. In addition, these many failures are simply part of the scientific process. To find how to create a successful clone, they only possible way is to try different combinations and find what works. Over time, the cloning process will be near-perfect, and many of these diseases and premature deaths will not occur as often. "When it comes to plant cloning, your argument is that they can be cloned for food and for deforestation. On the issue of food, this would be counterproductive. You would be helping one population by harming another. Some people in the third world countries may be helped, but suddenly all of the farmers are left out in the cold. For if the food production turns to cloning, it would be the large corporations that would take over. Where does this leave the farmer?" Chances are, this simply isn't going to happen. First of all most farmers don't count solely on crops to make income. Livestock is something else they raise, for food and, eventually, money. There is not enough food to feed the world, this much is true. What do you propose we do as an alternative, to help these thrid world countries? "Furthermore, cloned plants are all genetically identical. From a biological standpoint this can be disastrous. By reducing the biodiversity of any population, this greatly increases the risk for diseases to wipe out the entire population. This would not only be the case with the crops, but also with the pine trees you mention. Replacing the forests with a large number of genetically identical trees that can all be wiped out in one fell swoop due to the lack of diversity is not a solution." I'm sure many scientists, or whoever would conduct this procedure would see it as naive to clone these plants from one single plant. Scientists wouldn't be dumb enough to take the DNA of a single tree, clone it, and send it all over the world, for the sole purpose of preventing this spread of disease. "Plants have had a greater success rate when it comes to cloning, but even in these procedures many steps must be taken to reduce or prevent mutations." Exactly. The point is that steps /can/ be taken. It is possible that we haven't found how to make this happen, but, again, after a certain amount of tries, we will have the process perfected.