Do you think it is ethical to clone an animal?

This is a tough one for me. I like science. I do not believe in the Big Bang, Global Warming, or Evolution, but I do like science. So the sciency part of me wants to say yes. But I am really not sure. I am somewhat religious, but not really. I am really conflicted on this topic. I think I have to say no, though. I do not think it is ethical to clone an animal. Cloning an animal is kind of like insulting God, saying that we are just as good as him. Not to mention that we shouldn't really mess with nature. It never ends good for us.

So what do you think? It is ok to clone animals?

By all means, yes!! One of the major pillars of scientific discovery is that if we have the technology to explore new frontiers, we have no reason not to take up those opportunities. What if we were to find something that could help both animals and humans? What if we could clone to improve our livestock yields and bring more food to families around the country and around the world? What if we could clone to increase the survival chances of rare and endangered animals, so that they don't go extinct?

I can honestly think of no logical reason why we should not be cloning. To pass up the chance for such knowledge is to defy reason itself.

edit: Looking further into this, I found out that in 2009, scientists were successfully able to clone a Pyrenean Ibex, a wild goat that went extinct in 2000. The creature only survived for 7 minutes, but that is simply amazing to me. We need to keep trying.

Cloning animals is potentially brilliant.
We can stop threatened animals going extinct, we can in the future, potentially grow may instead of raising it (which would use less energy), and without the need to Farm meat, much more land would be freed up.
In Brazil they often torch parts of the rainforest and plant crops.
Animals living the would have one less threat.
They have Dolly the sheep on a rotating platform here, it's pretty cool.

Uhh Yeah! It's amazing. Science has gone so far to be able to clone animals and even ourselves. We can make genetic clones of ourselves if we wanted to be able to lets say.. your kidney fails.. well you have your genetic clone to give you another kidney! So for animals, it's even better. You can breed the perfect chicken, clone it, make loads of them. Then have amazing chicken forever. It's quite amazing and I'm all on board with it.

I really doubt cloned animals would be safe to eat, I wouldn't at all be surprised to see it mess up your insides or screw you up after eating them. People wouldn't stop killing non cloned animals anyways.

Cloning just means the second animal shares the same genetic information with the first animal.  They're mirror images of each other from a genome standpoint.  I don't know how it could be dangerous, however if the first animal develops cancer or other diseases, the second may be more likely to develop the same problems through life.

I don't think there are any negative moral implications.  It's not that humans are creating new life.  We're simply making changes to the sequencing of genes in the animals.  It's just a more expensive version of coloring hair, getting tattoos, or having surgery.  It doesn't impact the environment any differently and it certainly doesn't feel like playing God.

tgags123 : I'm surprised at the disbelief in evolution.  I'm sure it's discussed elsewhere and I'm interested in your opinion.  I'll have to hunt it down.

UFC :
No, they wouldnt stop, and im sure their would still be reared animals, like there are still organic farms with no pesticides etc.
However their would be less of them.
As for safety while that's a common fear there has never been any evidence of it.
In fact, its in many ways safer, if you clone meat its not going to have foot and mouth, or mad cow disease etc, which are dangerous when consumed by humans.

A burger grown in a lab was eaten recently.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22885969

video:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/burger-grown-from-cow-stem-cells-in-laboratory-put-to-taste-test-in-london/

Its currently flawed. It takes too long, it costs a fortune etc, but its a work in progress.
Additionally, you can dictate the fat content, bacteria etc in the meat as you create it, so it could lead to far better diets.

This says it all really:

We should be funneling tons of money into research on this. It would be illogical to not see the potential of such a thing. I so no ethical problems involved either, personally. With the exception of few initial failures, but there are always failures before one succeeds. There is too much potential to let it go to waste. 

The recent advances on cloning are really amazing. To not push forward on this would be shameful to say the least. This could mean a lot of changes down the road as far as the food and health industries are concerned.

UFC : The USDA declared cloned meat safe to eat in either 2008 or 2009, IIRC.

Cloned animals have the same genetic information as the original, barring normal genetic mutations which are inherent in the normal reproduction process. A cloned organism is just as safe as any other, and for proof you need look no further than bananas.

Modern bananas are all cloned. You ever notice how they have tiny, undeveloped seeds? That means bananas can't grow naturally. Every banana that you'll find in a supermarket is grown through a process similar to animal cloning, which is also why they all look, feel, and taste exactly the same, and grow in identical bunches.

The reason why they clone bananas instead of growing them is that natural bananas are significantly harder to eat (kind of like a coconut with meat instead of water inside) and have a much more bitter flavor. The previous generation of bananas were all wiped out by a fungal infection, so modern bananas are carefully controlled to be resistant to that infection. The fungus has since adapted to the new bananas, though, so it's possible we'll have to use a new species of banana in the future.

Now that I've got the word "banana" out of my system, back to the topic of cloned animals. Banana.

Cloning animals allows us to carefully control their genetics, which means that we can breed animals to be more resistant to infections (we'll need fewer antibiotics and hormones in future meat and milk livestock) which is really more of a benefit that humanity provides to the animal kingdom than anything. As previous users have suggested, it also means that we can give the middle finger to natural selection by bringing back extinct animals. Whether or not that's a good idea is a discussion for another time.

I think a lot of the problem is that when people think of "cloning" they envision this kind of science fiction process where we put one animal in a box and two walk out, like in Star Trek. It's more about taking two samples from a species and running it through the natural reproduction process for controlled results. Errors in the genetic process happen, but not nearly as dramatically as making meat magically toxic or having an animal suddenly grow a fifth limb.

As for whether or not we're mocking God, well, if God didn't want us doing this it wouldn't have given us the ability to do so. If any god is in charge of creating life, then cloning is just another method by which it can work to do so. If you believe humanity can create life the same way that god can, then that implies that god is no more powerful than us, so in my opinion it's an ethical moot point.

tgags123 :

It's absolutely ethical. Animals are not rational beings, and they, just like plants, are for our benefit. Abuse of animals (or plants, technically) is misuse, but cloning is not an abuse in and of itself.

Txgangsta : That is ridiculous! Plants and animals are not just here for our benefit. They have just as much of a right to be here as we do. Sure we eat them and use them, but that is just the circle of life. But saying they are here solely for out benefit is not fair.

tornadocam : What kind of "scientists" are you? Do you do biology? Genetics? I ask because I want to know where you get this figure that clones are "94% of the original" and how that opens them up to harmful mutations and diseases. Natural reproduction doesn't give us anywhere near a ninety-four percent genetic match with our parents, but you don't see people keeling over and dying left and right from simple pathogens.

tornadocam : Well, if it's in a textbook, it must be true. We all know how reliable textbooks are, right? That's how we know that Columbus discovered America before the Vikings or the Indians, the U.S. won World War II completely on its own, and your taste buds are grouped by flavor.

2008 might not seem like a long time ago, but it really is. I was just starting college in 2008, the Higgs Boson had only ever been observed through mathematics, and cloning was almost entirely theoretical except for the case of one sheep who died a week later from complications. People were condemning cloning left and right, not because it was rational, but because that's what scientists do.

Now that science has progressed significantly, I'm going to need a bit more explanation for how having only a 94% DNA match with your parents opens you up to horrific diseases.

tornadocam : No offense, but I do not believe that you know what you are talking about. An ideal clone has 100% of the genetic material from the original animal. That's the point of the cloning process. If you make a perfect copy of something, you don't get those mutations. Ever. That's why we're looking into cloning technology in the first place: So that we have more controlled livestock.

Reading your argument it sounds to me like you've never actually done any research into this kind of stuff beyond the hearsay you got from your professors in college in 2008. I've been to college, and I can tell you right now that in 10 years everything that my professors taught me will be irrelevant or unreliable. It certainly hasn't helped me find a job.

I gave the example of bananas earlier in this discussion and I mentioned that all modern bananas that are available in stores are of perfectly identical stock from a cloned original host. I don't see any dangerous genetic mutations in bananas recently. Do you?