Talk:Human cloning/Archive 1

message: : "Groups such as the Raelites? and the Las-Vegas based Clonaid, as well as Dr's Antinori and Zavos verge on fundamentalism in trying to achieve their aims."
I'm unable to figure out where the "fundamentalism" comes in here, so I took it out for the time being. Can we make this clearer or more NPOV? Thanks. -Unknown
: I used the word fundamentalism because these groups seemed to be determined to clone humans despite all the risks involved - which the wider scientific community recognises. This maybe wasn't quite the quite word, but I think they are certainly extreme.
: What we think is irrelevant. We are here to write a good factual article, not to express our own beliefs. Metamagician3000 03:14, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Raelites

message: : On the other hand, some studies, notably those by [David Lykken]?, have purported to show that "30 to 70%" of a person's personality is due to genetic factors and i think that your mom is a good scientist.[see links below]). 
I do not think this and blah blah blah blah im bored.the accepted scientific viewpoint. Even in the introduction to the link by Lykken it says:
: scientists, psychologists like Leon Kamin, biologists like Steven Rose, even the odd geneticist like Richard Lewontin, or the odd paleontologist like Stephen Gould, continue to believe with John Locke that the infant human mind is a tabula rasa
These seem to me to be a lot more well-known and reputable than Lykken. -Unknown
: That's a second-hand report; no respectable scientist today--including at least Lewontin and Gould (I haven't read much of the others) would ever argue that human minds are tabula rasa.  The evidence contradicting that is overwhelming, and has been coming in consistently for decades.  On the other hand, no one but Lykken would be so bold as to speak about simple percentages.  That too is a gross oversimplification, since learning interacts in a complex manner with predispositions.  There is a valid point to be made here; perhaps a wording like this: "While a clone shares only DNA with its predecessor, and not any of the knowledge, experience, or environment that shaped him, studies such as those on identical twins raised separately show that DNA does have a much stronger influence on personality than previously believed."  --LDC
These figures are pretty meaningless without a lot more explanation. The number of legs human beings have is accounted for almost 100 per cent by non-genetic factors in the sense that it is environmental factors (such as wars, industrial accidents, car smashes etc) that account for most of the variation we see in the population between people with two, one or no legs. We could accurately say that the variation of number of legs in a population of human beings is accounted for by way over 90 per cent enviromental factors and way less than 10 per cent genetic factors. Yet, it's obvious that we are, in a sense, genetically "programmed" to be born with two legs. There may be a sense in which someone might correctly say that the number of legs I have was 100 per cent determined by my genes, but it is not this sense that the figures we see in scientific accounts are measuring. Our genes control human leg number in a powerful way, but have little effect on variation within a population because they affect almost everyone in the same manner. We need to be very careful in drawing conclusions based on the degree to which variation in a population is explained by one set of factors or the other (which is all that these figures are usually trying to measure). Such figures can be very misleading if they are then offered as a measure of how important a particular factor is, or as an indication of what kind of role it plays, crucial, trivial or otherwise. Metamagician3000 02:34, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Regarding personality and genetics

message: I was going to mention this in my section below, but realised the rot was further spread than Ethics and there was a Talk section here.  I'd include the following gems in our newcomer's list of POV accomplishments (I'll highlight his additions, probably in bold; forgive me if I mess up a few punctuation marks).
: Wilmut quoted the low survival rate of cloned animals, which has nothing to do about humans, as evidence that human cloning would be dangerous.
: Don Wolf, a researcher at Oregon Regional Primate Research Centre and who knows little about the subject of cloning and screening procedures, disagrees.
: This is disputed by scientists who say that large-offspring syndrome is just one of many problems that result from cloning. Controlling this gene would not prevent many other genetic disorders which have yet to be fully understood or discovered.However, as one realizes, there is nothing to be said about the safety of cloning that could please the opponents of cloning since their opposition has nothing to do with the technique and the science but rather their religious, political or personal beliefs.
: Zavos points out that reproductive science is actually more advanced in humans due to the widespread use of treatments such as in vitro fertilisation (IVF), and therefore cloning in humans is not such a large step as animal cloning was and remains as such today. Professor Zavos has been involved in human reproduction for the last 26 years and has been a true pioneer for a number of new technologies and products in that area.
: Dr. Panos Zavos being the most reliable and capable scientist from all of the scientists working on cloning today, claimed on January 17, 2004 to have successfully produced a four-cell stage embryo and transfered it into a 35 year old woman.  ...  He, since then submitted his findings from this case for publication in a very highly reputable journal for their publication.
: Some religious groups defend their anti-cloning stand by saying that it is taking reproduction out of the hands of God. However, Professor Zavos founder of the Zavos Organization (www.zavos.org), claims and very rightfully so, that God never has instructed us to use one mode or another (natural coital method vs IVF)to reproduce. "God gave us the god-given gifts and abilities to think and explore the universe to use them to reproduce and proliferate and make this a better World for all of us" he claims.
: Professor Zavos, Director of the Adrology Institute of America, thinks that the world can never agree on banning cloning because no one agrees of the relegious and political definition of cloning and its incredible potential that it has that can change the World, itself.
I've reverted the whole lot.  There's too much rubbish (both POV and spelling-punctuation-grammar) in there:  if any of it is good stuff, hard cheese.  People should learn to write sensible editions, or risk getting the whole lot reverted.  If you take a peek at his other contributions, you'll see that he's gone round making highly POV edits elsewhere (like on the page about Zanos, for instance).  We have, by my deductions, a nationalistic Greek Cypriot on our hands.  He's in no fit state to edit controversial topics where there's national pride and ethics at stake.  Wooster 15:27, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Ethic rot

message: It's gonna seem an odd question, but is this really the way the debate progresses (taken from the Ethics section)?
: An argument given by 'pro-life' groups is that because they believe embryos are already human, destroying them is tantamount to murder. Most scientists protest that this is irrelevant - sperm also have the potential to become human, but millions die during intercourse.
It makes the scientists sound as though they (a) didn't listen to the argument being put forward and (b) don't understand it anyway.  Perhaps it's just me being a bit sensitive to how things sound (actually, I come from the pro-life side on this, so "go figure") but the scientists' alleged protests are pointless because pro-lifers claim that embryos are human, sperm merely have the potential.  So pro-lifers will agree that sperm have the potential, but will make a distinction of quality between sperm and an embryo.  The person who added this either doesn't understand the ethical issues, doesn't understand ethical reasoning or is attempting to construct a straw scientist.
And then these straw scientists claim that because millions of sperm "die" (not the right word, but hey...) it's all right to go an slaughter a few embryos.  Are they stupid and heartless?  Even I don't believe that.  I think most scientists involved in cloning protest that it simply isn't their belief that embryos are already human (if it were their belief, they'd have to arrest themselves for murder).  Wooster 15:13, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Sperm cells and unfertilized egg cells are alive and do die. "Die" certainally is the right word. The claim made is that life doesn't begin at conception, it already was present. A fertilized egg cell is a human cell, the issue isn't whether that cell is human, but whether or not it constitutes a human being.--RLent 17:52, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Right-ho. The Ethics section was deleted by someone else, so there's no real need to continue this, er, lack of discussion.  : D  Wooster 19:22, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

text: Strangely the idea that clones are essentially Monozygotic Twins (but for the mitochondrial genome) was not absorbed in discussions by ethisists and scientists until nearly a year after Dolly's birth. I've put in a citation which essentially put a stop to the prexisting misconceptions. which might be better moved to the references--Daedelus 10:07, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Ethics: can we have a look?

message: This article is a mess, a collection of random bits and pieces. We need to leave here only a brief summary of reproductive cloning and move the details over to a separate article. Paranoid 11:28, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Reproductive cloning to separate article?

message: I think it behooves the user who brought up the somewhat dubious concept of telepathy between identical twins to provide something more in terms of cites and studies. I dont think cloning is wrong to a exstint what is wrong with it is we dont know what will happen what kind of defects it will have i mean we are playing God when we start fooling with a human life i simply dont belive that we have reached our time to conduct such experiments i think for now we should leave cloning to God untill we are more advanced. -John Locke
: God has a cloning laboratory? - The Prophet Wizard of the Crayon Cake {Prophesize) 05:32, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Alleged identical twin telepathy

message: There's a lot more to be said here, though it musn't be allowed to eat up the rest of the article. I've slightly elaborated and cleaned up this section. Metamagician3000 02:17, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Fiction

message: It is simply not true to say that, "The third type of cloning is called Recombinant DNA technology. This is when parts of or a whole DNA molecule is created with the purpose of eliminating genetic faults in a human." This might be a purpose to which cloning is put, but it is not a third technique of cloning. A third technique that is not mentioned here (though it is the simplest technique) is embryo splitting. It creates a number of identical embryos that can be implanted. What it can't do is create an embryo genetically identical to an existing adult. Metamagician3000 06:02, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Recombinant DNA technology

message: "Thirdly the process of cloning can only be used to females of the species being cloned."
Is this true? I mean, of course parthenogenesis only works for females, but somatic cell nucleus transfer should work for males too, right? —Keenan Pepper 03:50, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. You put a male cell nucleus complete with Y chromosome into an enucleated ovum. Metamagician3000 03:02, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Females only? 

message: I have deleted the following: "Consider that the chimpanzee genome is more than 98% identical to the human genome, only a 2% difference. A 0.3% difference could potentially lead to much more divergence from the DNA donor's genotype than one may at first believe. It could also spell problems for therapeutic cloning, where compatibility is essential because of the risk of rejection." This is original research and probably inaccurate. The last sentence could possibly be restored if an attribution can be found for the claim. However, the first bit is quite misleading. You cannot compare the 98% figure with the the 99.7% figure. They are measuring different things. Metamagician3000 02:20, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Deletion

message: Has there been anything newsworthy about this topic since the beginning of this year? If so, would it be informative enough to place it on the page?--Thumbtax 19:52, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  2006 

message: The article does a service by listing the countries which have banned human cloning. A further service it can make is to say state here why these countries have banned it. Thank you. Lafem 03:01, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The trouble is that many arguments have been put forward and it is difficult to know which ones have swayed particular legislatures. Metamagician3000 15:23, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Why do countries ban human cloning?

message: "Organizations devoted to cloning humans, such as the Raelians' Las Vegas-based Clonaid, as well as Antinori and Zavos, are very hard to control. Many think these groups would shift their operations to other countries should mainstream legislation impede their operations, as many less developed nations have no such ban on cloning, so human cloning experiments could (theoretically) be easily shifted to more viable areas." -- I de-linked "less developed nations" here. It was linked to Least Developed Countries, however, Developing country may be more appropriate. Since I don't know what the actual legal situation is in various countries, I think we need to verify this before including it in the article. -- Writtenonsand 05:25, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: These sentences have an air of original research in any event. Now that they are on the talk page where anyone can find them if a source can ever be found, I am half minded to delete them from the article. However, I'll await comments. Metamagician3000 12:53, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, the phrasing is biased. Written as it is, it implies that the level of developement of a country can be gauged by whether they allow cloning or not. I don't see any connection between the two. If the claim is ever reinserted, I'd suggest a neutral "shift to countries where clonning is not banned". TomorrowTime 00:27, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've deleted this sentence: Some think these groups would shift their operations to other countries should mainstream legislation impede their operations, as many less developed nations have no such ban on cloning, so human cloning experiments could (theoretically) be easily shifted to more viable areas. Metamagician3000 06:32, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  On reflection, I've deleted the whole lot. I.e. I've now also deleted: Organizations devoted to cloning humans, such as the Raelians' Las Vegas-based Clonaid, as well as Antinori and Zavos, are very hard to regulate. All this should be sourced and I also tend to agree with TomorrowTime's point if a version is ever reinstated with proper attribution. Metamagician3000 06:34, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Less developed nations?

message: The comment about the limitations of human cloning saying that if a brain were to be implanted into a cloned body it would continue to age and suffer from degenerate disorders like Alzheimer's disease sounds scientifically logical but surely the entire concept of implanting a human brain into a cloned body is science-fiction and non-sense! If anyone knows of any sources for such a procedure i would greatly welcome your insight.
User:ednus 20:10, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think Cameo is suggesting that, as a metaphor, it does a good job of debunking the idea of cloning as a vehicle toward immortality.  I think that the word "hypothetically" does a decent job of telling the reader that the passage is a thought experiment.  However, if you feel that it isn't clear enough, we could always rephrase it as, "Even if it were possible to transfer a brain from an old body to a new one." Darkfrog24 17:55, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  brain implantation 

message: It seems that there have been a number of requests on this. 
I suggest somebody summarizes the points listed here: . It is quite extensive and worthy of an encyclopedic treatment. 
Some key points:
The ethics of research on human subjects suggest three sorts of problems that would arise in cloning-to-produce-children: (1) problems of safety; (2) a special problem of consent; and (3) problems of exploitation of women and the just distribution of risk.
Procreation as traditionally understood invites acceptance, rather than reshaping, engineering, or designing the next generation. It invites us to accept limits to our control over the next generation. It invites us even – to put the point most strongly – to think of the child as one who is not simply our own, our possession. Certainly, it invites us to remember that the child does not exist simply for the happiness or fulfillment of the parents.
Keeping in mind our general observations about procreation, we proceed to examine a series of specific ethical issues and objections to cloning human children: (1) problems of identity and individuality; (2) concerns regarding manufacture; (3) the prospect of a new eugenics; (4) troubled family relations; and (5) effects on society. Marax 08:38, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If anyone wants to get into this, I can provide a bibliography. The most forthright defences of human cloning against such claims are probably those of John Harris, a British bioethicist, who has written a couple of books on the subject (I'm surprised he does not have a Wikipedia article as he is a very important figure in current bioethics). His American counterpart Gregory Pence is similarly forthright and has also written a couple of books about it. In addition, there is a huge body of material in the bioethical literature. Nicholas Agar's book Perfectcopy contains a balanced analysis (which does not mean he is correct, of course; the truth is not always in the middle). Metamagician3000 06:29, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ethics of cloning: Presidential Council in Bioethics 

message: This clause in Claims of Success Beyond the Embryo Stage seriously violates NPOV; in addition, that section does not cite its references or sources. 166.113.54.102 21:07, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It doesn't cite its sources but nor is it controversial. Still, I've slapped a tag on it. Metamagician3000 08:41, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "a pattern of lies and fraud" 

message: Shouldn't this article be in :Category:Cloning rather than :Category:Biotechnology? --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 19:48, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Categorization 

message: * Delaware, United States: legislation is under consideration in the Delaware Senate that would ban human reproductive cloning;  --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 20:24, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Positions of sub-national entities on human cloning 

message: I think we may have been stealth-edited.  Cloning is the creation of a new being, not the destruction of one.Darkfrog24 15:17, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: First Paragraph Destruction/Creation

message: Should this be mentioned? It was a US bill, and I can't find any other page where it's mentioned, nor a better place to do so. I might be completely off, but then that's the results of a twenty minute search to see if it went anywhere. A draft of the bill can be found here, if anyone's interested. -- Maethon (talk) 17:56, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Human Cloning Ban and Stem Cell Research Protection Act of 2005 

message: Is there any REAL proof that humans have been cloned? 67.72.98.114 04:49, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proof 

message: This section is an outrage to Wikipedia. It has absolutely NO sources and contains blatant unencyclopedic material ("pattern of lies and fraud by Hwang Woo-Suk came to light," who the hell wrote that?!). I am proposing to make this section invisible until someone can come up with some CREDIBLE proof (third party) that ALL of the statements in that section are true. --Soakologist 03:37, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Horrible section "Claims of success in human cloning beyond the embryo stage" 

message: "However, the most successful common cloning technique in non-human mammals is the process by which Dolly the sheep was produced. John Rick Shelton was one of 277 attempts. It is also the technique used by Advanced Cell Technology (ACT), the first company to successfully[2] clone early human embryos that stopped at the six cell stage."
I removed the sentence referring to the gentleman as Google didn't turn up anything relevant to Dolly the Sheep or cloning when I searched for his name. --Kyace (talk) 23:30, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Who is John Rick Shelton? 

message: Human cloning is a very controversial topic. Why is not any entry on controversy and particular opinions or views on this topic cited on the page?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 171.69.75.146 (talk) 22:29, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Very much. Possible controversy regarding ethical and religious points of view should be put under such an entry there. Mixing biased points of view into the "prologue" is a very bad idea, therefore I'll revert changes made by 18.96.6.53 on 23:35, 22 November 2007. One might want to revise the mentioned submission when creating such an entry. --80.221.19.39 (talk) 14:17, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: No controversy?

message: What the hell does "descregligible" mean? "and "persistence cloning" to descregligible SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence)". As far as I can tell, this word doesn't exist anywhere outside of this article and the various websites that mirror it.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.131.10.133 (talk) 17:27, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definitions 

message: Hmm, just noted that I couldn't add some stuff here.
The first human hybrid human clone was created in November 1998, by American Cell Technologies.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/371378.stm.  It was created from a man's leg cell, and a cow's egg whose DNA was removed.  It was destroyed after 12 days. Since a normal embryo implants at 14 days, Dr Robert Lanza, ACT's director of tissue engineering, told the Daily Mail newspaper that the embryo could not be seen as a person before 14 days.  While making an embryo, which may have resulted in complete human had it been allowed to come to term, according to ACT: "[ACT's] aim was 'therapeutic cloning' not 'reproductive cloning'"
~ender 2008-02-16 10:58:AM MST
:  Declined. The article is not protected. Sandstein (talk) 23:05, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Still being vandalized?

message: Why is there no process/theories of Human Cloning stated? -Vincetti (talk) 23:09, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  No process of cloning stated? 

message: I have removed a bunch of poor quality and spam links from the EL section. Note to spammers: putting a link on the page does not help your Google Page rank, see here. Please also note that a .org or tax exempt site does not automatically qualify for inclusion here. See the criteria for inclusion here. Also note that Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links.  Skopp (Talk) 06:46, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Removal of spam and low quality links from External Links section

message: These sites, under the guise of "official" status (not official at all — even the owner is anonymous) are basically ad farms with pages designed to play upon the heartstrings and anxieties of the weak and desperate (e.g. the childless, the paralysed, the infertile, the bereft etc) for donations. The sites attempt to mislead people with unscientific claims and unpublished speculation. To the anonymous owner of those sites: provide footnotes with links to scientific, published papers if you want that site linked. At this stage, your sites feature a long list of pie-in-the-sky "benefits" of human cloning. As it stands, it is misleading and unscientific. Some may even say it is predatory.  Skopp (Talk) 07:18, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Removal of links to ''humancloning.org'' and associated site ''reproductivecloning.net'' 

message: This article is horrible, it's written like a 6th Grade Essay. It discusses events in 2001, and rambles on about aliens...  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.155.5.205 (talk) 16:25, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Whatever. Please do not use personal attacks on Wikipedia. See WP:PA for further reading.--Berlin Approach | Lufthansa 533 at FLT230 03:31, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wow... 

message: i have wondered how human can be cloned and if they can be cloned why don't scientist clone people with HIV patience and develope clone liver for people with hepathitis B and also get artificial blood for blood transfusion instead of taking blood from people which can end up being diseased infested  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.210.13.77 (talk) 12:49, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: What do you mean? Someone dead or someone infected? --Berlin Approach | Lufthansa 533 at FLT230 03:32, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  can a diseased human use his part for cloning and if so what happens to the cloned being 

message: The section about the prohibition of reproductive cloning in the EU is outdated. It states that "...if the Treaty of Lisbon is ratified..." As it stands now, The Treaty of Lisbon, which makes the Charter of Fundamental Human Rights legally binding, has been ratified and goes into effect on December 1, 2009.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.91.179.109 (talk) 19:12, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Update section on EU Charter

message: "With regard to" is a weasel term. Tell me, what does this passage mean? It's not even clear whether the research is legal or not:
 The remaining gap with regard to therapeutic cloning was closed when the appeals courts reversed the previous decision of the High Court.[16]
199.172.169.33 (talk) 02:03, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Totally unclear passage

message: I suggest someone writes a few lines about the "Hitman" franchise of games from game developer Eidos. The game theme and story revolves around cloning, with the games protagonist being a clone himself. The last game in the franchise "Hitman: Blood Money" is about the political and legal aspect of cloning, especially in the United States of America. --87.58.243.118 (talk) 16:01, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: From a global viewpoint, this is not important at all. See WP:TRIVIA. Tim Vickers (talk) 17:06, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adding hitman franchise to popular culture section 

message: Established user needed to correct this last part of History section please:
"Human cloning also gained a foothold in popular culture, starting in the 1970s. Alvin Toffler's Future Shock, David Rorvik's In His Image: Toward Cloning of a Man, Woody Allen's film Sleeper and The Boys from Brazil all helped to make the public aware of the ethical issues surrounding human cloning."
The correct title to Rorvik's book is: "In his Image: the Cloning of a Man". Not "...Toward Cloning..." and "his", not "His"
Please change "In His Image:Toward Cloning of a Man" to "In his Image: the Cloning of a Man"
The word "his" is intentionally left uncapitalized by the author at least on the cover. I assume Rorvik did this to underscore the play-on-words concerning a man cloning himself (thereby creating a being in "his" image), as apposed to the more familiar meaning of the phrase (a supreme being creating a life in "His" image, usually a direct reference to God) in which case the word "His" in the phrase "In His Image", would of course be capitalized regardless of whether it appeared in a title or not.
Also this last small paragraph in the History section listing the books and films involving human cloning, would probably be better placed, or actually incorporated, into the Popular Culture section in the article.
I have made the appropriate edits to the book title in Rorvik's article. Can I please get an established user to make the corrections in this semi-protected article?
:  Requires sourcing though if you have any, I'll see if I can come up with some later on tonight when I get some more time to spare. Regards, Jeffrey Mall (talk • contribs) -  19:44, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm new to WP but in a case like this where the correct title of a book is disputed, wouldn't the most reliable and authoritative source have to be the book itself?- Racerx11 (talk) 04:08, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rorvik book title needs correction 

message: The probably most common misconception about therapeutic cloning is that it would mean the creation  of a whole human to take the needed organ(s) from.  But since a human clone would inevitably develop a full human mind and an unique personality this would be equivalent of killing one person in order to cure an other.  Consequentially, the goal of therapeutic cloning is to create only the tissues which the patient needs.  As such I think that therapeutic cloning should be encouraged due to its potential to cure diseases otherwise incurable.  For a more detailed explanation of cloning of whole humans please read the discussion under the subtitle “Misconceptions on reproductive cloning”.  I have started it myself.
2010-06-22  Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.
I really felt the need to write this.  I know this is intended to be a discussion of the article but I apparently minsunderstood that.  It would be suitable to point out in the article that therapeutic cloning does not involve the creation of a whole human as many people seem to think.
2010-06-27  Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.
:Fair enough. Which source would you use? Gabbe (talk) 11:43, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misconception on therapeutic cloning 

message: There are many misconceptions about reproductive cloning.  I intend to debunk the two most important ones here.  If you want to criticise my text please avoid ad hominem attacks.  I know that cloning is a hot topic but please just ask about or criticise things immediately related to what I have written here.
One is that clones would be soulless.  It is based on the claim that the soul enters the embryo at conception.  This idea is in turn based on two misunderstandings of what conception means.  First, conception is not a moment but a process which takes between 24 and 48 hours.  Secondly, the result is just a barely visible single cell.  This cell divides into two, which divides into four ones, which divides into eight and so on.  When there are enough cells they split up into one inner layer which later develops into the foetus and one outer which develops into the membrane of the foetus and placenta.  The inner layer splits up further into three layers.  The innermost develops into the digestive system and lungs.  The middle layer develops into skeleton, muscles, the circulatory system, kidneys and genitals.  The outermost layer develops into skin and the nervous system.  This is a completely natural process which takes place in all Chordates but at different speeds and with different end results.  Comparable processes take place in all animals except for sponges and Cnidaria which develops two cell layers instead of three.  (A possible other exception is the Placozoa which have only been seen to reproduce asexually.)  My point is that a soul can't exist without a brain.  It does not matter if you call it soul, spirit, mind or personality it is still dependant on the function of the brain.  Consequentially, if there is a sufficiently developed brain there is also a soul.  The only way a child can be born soulless is if it is born without a cortex.  However, such a child could be considered born brain-dead.
If a healthy clone can be made the development of the brain would not be influenced by the coning process.  Although clones may have aberrations from human nature but these will be aberrations existing in non-clones as well.  People ignorant of such aberrations may mistake them for evidence that clones does not have a full mind.  The idea of clones being soulless will result in them being treated as if they where not sentient.  If carried out from start such a treatment will result in clones having their mental development neglected.  In severe cases they may not have the chance to learn fundamental human skills such as speaking and knowing the properties of everyday objects.  There are cases of severely neglected children which have not even learned to chew because their parents had never given them any solids!  Clones which never had the chance to learn fundamental human skills may be misunderstood as being born without the ability to learn them.  This will result in no effort to repair the damage done to their minds to the extent it is possible.  All in all this misconception has the potential to make a clone’s life truly miserable.
One other is that cloning would recreate the personality of the cloned person.  But since there is no magic involved in cloning cones can be directly compared to identical twins.  What we call “identical twins” may be physically nearly identical.  Yet they always develop unique personalities regardless if the grow up together or apart.  As such a clone would inevitably develop an unique personality.  Most important, a clone will have no memory of anything that has happened to the cloned person.  Neither is there any guarantee that the clone will have any of the cloned person's skills, habits or addictions.  (A clone may have the genetic potential for addiction but this is not the same as addiction itself.)  However, a clone will to great extent share the cloned person's specific talents, lack of specific talents and general temperament.  Some element of taste for food and drink is also hereditary since the density of taste buds on the tongue is genetically determined as well as dislike of certain plants.  These similarities – combined with skills and habits based on them – may be mistaken for evidence that the clone is the cloned person.  Is there anything more frustrating that not being believed?  Moreover, children who grow up with the expectation of becoming someone who already exists become unhappy because they can't live up to people's expectations.  This has already happened to several children of celebrities.  So we might call this condition “famous parent syndrome”.
I think that cloning of whole humans is immoral.  By cloning you create a person who merely from the way he or she came into existence runs a constant risk of being wrongfully treated.  This kind of cloning should be outlawed.  But artificial dividing of embryo could be allowed provided they are all developed during the same pregnancy.  If so the result will be indisguisable from natural identical twins, triplets, and so on.  Most likely the first human clone in not born yet.  However, it is probably only a matter of time before the first human clone is born.  Since clones would not differ from non-clones in any intrinsical sense they should have full civil rights.  They should be raised by people who have not only realized this but also are highly motivated to let them live their own lives.  To everyone who blames a clone for the actions of the cloned person I want to say: Would you blame an identical twin for something the other twin has done?  To all future clones I want to say: Please remember that you are unique, just like everyone else.
2010-07-27	Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.
: Interesting. However, the purpose of this talk page is to discuss sourced improvements of the article, it isn't a general forum on the subject of human cloning. See WP:NOTAFORUM and WP:TALK. Are there any specific improvements to the article, based on reliable sources, that you would like to discuss? Gabbe (talk) 20:10, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: A big problem arises when you say "From this I draw the conclusion [...]". While there is nothing wrong with drawing such a conclusion (and, in my view, it is a reasonable one to make), we aren't allowed to insert conclusions we've made ourselves when editing articles, see WP:NOR. Every single statement (and conclusion) in every article must be attributable to a reliable source that directly support the material as presented. Furthermore, if we want to include statements like "some people think [...]" into the article, that would likewise require a source explicitly saying so. Gabbe (talk) 20:08, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misconceptions on reproductive cloning 

message: One of the headings in the article on human cloning is 'possible advantages'. A few years ago I wrote articles on the subject of humanitarian cloning,and I mailed the articles to magazines,but unfortunately,none of them were interested in publishing my articles. As far as I know,I am the only person who has proposed the idea of humanitarian cloning. Basically,the purpose of humanitarian cloning is to preserve the genetic diversity  of a population that has been devastated by genocide,for example,the Jews in world war two. Since six million Jews were killed by the Nazis,we should allow the Jews who are alive today to create as many as six million cloned copies of themselves. Another example is the Bosnians who were killed in the war in the 1990's. Bosnians who are alive today should be allowed to clone themselves,and these Bosnian clones would replace the Bosnians who were killed in the war. Of course,replacing people who were lost is only a symbolic gesture,to try to heal the emotional wounds of war,the people killed during warfare can never really be replaced. The real value of humanitarian cloning lies in the possibility of preserving the genetic diversity of the Jewish gene pool,the Bosnian gene pool,et cetera. Signed---- Anthony Ratkov.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.221.74.116 (talk) 06:52, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Why is there absolutely no mention of cellular/molecular level human cloning? We are already growing human limbs and tissue.  Sirmikey1 (talk) 04:46, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possible Advantages 

message: I think Huxleys take is all the more meritorious since he came up with it in '31. I added it to pop culture. I appologise I screwed it up and am unable to fix the damn thing. Please help&delete this.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.127.177.126 (talk) 19:37, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Brave new World

message: While I was reading this article, this phrase caught my eye.
 "The ethical and moral issues cannot wait and should be discussed, debated and guidelines and laws be developed now" 
This statement seems to infer that Wikipedia is not neutral about this topic. Any thoughts?
BubbleBuggy (talk) 02:11, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Neutrality of Subjest

message: "Current regulations prohibit federal funding for research into human cloning, which effectively prevents such research from occurring in public institutions and private institution such as universities which receive federal funding. However, there are currently no federal laws in the United States which ban cloning completely, and any such laws would raise difficult Constitutional questions similar to the issues raised by abortion."
I'd like a source for that, and it should be more specific. What amandment of the American Constitution? Ran4 17:31, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Source needed

message: The first lines say "Human cloning... does not refer to ... reproduction of humans/animals cells or tissue." Then a line says "There are two commonly discussed types of human cloning: therapeutic cloning ... Therapeutic cloning involves cloning cells from an adult for use in medicine and transplants".  That's contradictory.  I'm not sure how to resolve that now, but it should be resolved some way. Chuck Baggett (talk) 19:50, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contradiction 

message: This article is being peer reviewed as an assignment for this class. Rraju2 (talk) 20:13, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  We did add another article regarding different cloning procedures to the further reading section. Estephe9 (talk) 18:07, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comments from Rraju2 

message: According to the article as it's currently written, "Maine restricts human cloning but does not ban it." I don't understand what this is supposed to mean. Does it mean that you need a state issued license to clone in Maine? Maybe you're not allowed to clone on Sundays and federal holidays? Since there's no citation for this claim, i think it causes more confusion than clarification.
Also, i don't understand what the popular culture section is supposed to add to this article. Unless i completely misunderstood the plot, Jurassic Park had nothing to do with human cloning in any way. Time Magazine once running a cover story about human cloning a decade ago is unremarkable unless additional information about the article and its impacts are provided. I think this entire wikipedia article would be improved simply by deleting the popular culture section. 199.104.125.246 (talk) 18:03, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed the Maine sentence.  The pop culture section could definitely stand to be improved (there are many more directly relevant references than Jurassic Park), but left it for now. I wouldn't object to removing it, but it would be better to improve it instead.--ThaddeusB (talk) 18:40, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Restrictions in Maine, Pop Culture section

message: I removed this image from the article because it is completely unclear. It doesn't say which declaration this was, exactly when it took place, or even what a for or against vote means in this context. And there's no source in the image description. Trinitresque (talk) 01:13, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed image on UN vote 

message: As noted above, students in my class have been working on this article through the semester with their final effort due soon. User: jytdog has been watching and providing support throughout the process (Thank you!). Any specific and constructive suggestions of how they might continue to improve the article in the next few weeks would be welcome. If I can summarize some of what I think I understand on the talk page, they could:
* look for more appropriate (i.e. WP:MEDRS) references for the history section.
* edit the legend for the UN figure to give it meaning and context and then insert it back in.
* redo the pop culture section to be more appropriate to Human cloning.
Correct me if I misunderstood and add to the list as seems appropriate. Thanks. Biolprof (talk) 04:25, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: That all makes sense.  for what it is worth, i am a big believer in really thinking like an editor for the encyclopedia, so when I work, i try to think about and improve related articles so the whole "suite" is improved together.  I have been meaning to get to the Somatic cell nuclear transfer and [[nduced pluripotent stem cell] articles.   as per WP:SUMMARY, the brief sections in this article, should really be basically copy/paste jobs from the lead paragraphs of those articles.   and this article should be coordinated with the cloning article, so that all of them together are up to date, have minimal overlaps, and importantly, have nothing that contradicts.  i know that is a big ask, but gaining expertise in a given area can benefit more than just one article.  i think the biggest bang for the buck would be improving all four articles and making them coherent with one another... Jytdog (talk) 10:41, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for clear suggestions 

message: This article is being reviewed for this class.
A few suggestions in addition to those above:
* Lead, 2nd paragraph: Avoid starting a sentence with “There are….” since the word “there” does not have a reference.
** the sentence has been re-worded. Jfriend2 (talk) 19:40, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  comments from [[User:Biolprof|Biolprof]]  

message: This article is being peer reviewed as an assignment for this class. RegOH (talk) 01:05, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comments from [User: RegOH] 

message: * The section Uses, actual and potential could be expanded
** working to extend starter sentences into full paragraphs. Jfriend2 (talk) 15:34, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comments from iamwillthinnes