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Asked by Minecraft creeper to Philip, Kerry, Ali, Alex on 19 Nov 2014.
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Alex Pool answered on 19 Nov 2014:
Hi Minecraft creeper,
Think you’re asking if it’s dangerous to clone people?
There are loads of ethical issues around cloning, and whether it should be allowed to make an exact copy of someone. As for how dangerous it is, it’s not too dangerous, but the clone will be a bit odd. All of your cells in your body age, and they have the equivalent of a little clock that winds down. So if you pick a cell to clone someone with and make a copy of them, whilst an exact copy baby would be born it’d already be quite old (on a cellular level), so wouldn’t live as long as the original.
So in that sense it’s not great, but if you ignored all the ethical questions it’s not too dangerous.
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Alison Thomson answered on 19 Nov 2014:
I agree with Alex. Ethically it’s not a good idea to clone people, and realistically they wouldn’t survive very long.
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Philip Ratcliffe answered on 19 Nov 2014:
Well, that’s a tough one, but certainly there are some poepel that get very dagros if you clown them!
Of course, if you meant is it dangerous to clone people then that’s another thing!
In itself, no. The people (or animals) that you clone are certainly not at risk, you just need a cell or two and they’ve got plenty to spare. The clone or copy you make could, of course, come out imperfect and therefore have difficulties. In any case, they would have different experiences and so their brain (and body) would develop differently.
The real problem is whether it’s something we really want to do. Human beings are naturally all different (identical twins apart, of course) and that’s an important part of evolution. If we started just cloning people (and not having babies like we normally do) then evolution would stop.
Also there are lots of ethical problems involved like “who can/should we clone?” Only intelligent, healthy, good-looking people?
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