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Lars_H
SFN Regular
Germany
630 Posts |
 Posted - 12/30/2002 : 01:31:12
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The Raelians claim to have cloned the first human being. Since they also claim a lot of other unlikely stuff and won't show us any evidence few people are inclined to believe them.
Many people however have taken the raelian anouncement as their cue to comment on the idea of cloning in general. Most of them tell us that it should be illegal. Few can explain why. And many of those who do, base their explanation on fiction (ranging from the Twilight Zone to the Bible) not facts.
What do you think about the human cloning?
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To any insufficiently advanced person technolgy becomes indistinguishable from magic. |
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Tim
SFN Regular
USA
775 Posts |
Posted - 12/30/2002 : 04:50:06 [Permalink]
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What gets me is that TV news takes this crap literally, and actually gives it major air time. As I type this, CNN is interveiwing some guy about this claim. The interview does not seem too favorable to the Raelians, but I'm disturbed by how much air time this lunacy is getting.
If they actually produce the goods, then, by all means, let's let the sensationalism loose. Otherwise, why do they insist on giving these people the publicity they are seeking? (Uh, that was a rhetorical question)
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"We got an issue in America. Too many good docs are gettin' out of business. Too many OB/GYNs aren't able to practice their -- their love with women all across this country." Dubya in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, 9/6/2004
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PhDreamer
SFN Regular
USA
925 Posts |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 12/30/2002 : 08:52:19 [Permalink]
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I am not comfortable with human cloning. No good reason except that it appears to be a selfish act benefiting no one but the cell doner and the team that accomplished it.
There is also the real question of the authenticty of the claim. The Raelians have never been paragons of truth.
If indeed, this clone is the real deal, I truly pity that unfortunate child.
f |
"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Kilted_Warrior
Skeptic Friend
Canada
118 Posts |
Posted - 12/30/2002 : 09:47:26 [Permalink]
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Cloning could be the best thing that happened since crustless bread..
Not that there is anything wrong about cloning humans, but cloning certain body parts would be much more useful. Think if you lost an arm, they could build you another one from scratch, then reattach it. Say you're having heart problems, they could clone a heart and transplant it; without donor lists or the chance of rejection.
Maybe in the future, if you become paralyzed, you could make a clone and transplant your brain or something.
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I just don't see whats so wrong about cloning. You don't see the religious people pushing identical twins around. This thing won't be as creepy as the sci-fi authors would want us to believe. If you made a clone of me, then you would have an infant who lookes kind of how I looked at that age. When they grew up, they may be fat, or thin, or smart, or dumb, or any other possibility that I might have taken. They may not even look the same, due to diet and exercise.
crap, that was a long post.... |
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 12/30/2002 : 10:28:19 [Permalink]
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| Some Raelian clone....ooops, sorry that was a typo. It was supposed to be 'some Raelian clown." |
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I learned something ... I learned that Jehovah's Witnesses do not celebrate Halloween. I guess they don't like strangers going up to their door and annoying them.
-Bruce Clark
There's No Toilet Paper...on the Road Less Traveled |
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Lars_H
SFN Regular
Germany
630 Posts |
Posted - 12/30/2002 : 14:23:28 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by PhDreamer
This just in: we may find out the truth sooner than we expected.
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/sns-ap-human-cloning1230dec30,0,912001.story?coll=ny-nationalnews-headlines
I don't think that the truth will be involved in this.
As Bob Park points out in his latest What's New? Michael Guillen is not what you could consider a good independent expert.
quote:
Guillen has just the credentials Clonaid needs. In 1997 as the science correspondent for ABC Good Morning America, Guillen did a three-part series, “Fringe or Frontier”.Of precognition he concluded “these guys are not flakes”; on astrology, “I think we're just going to have to suspend judgement”; on psychokinesis, “you have to take it seriously” (WN 3 Oct 97). Indeed, Guillen covered everything from James Patterson's cold fusion cell to Kirlian photographs of the human aura with the same credulity. A PhD in physics, after all, is not an inoculation against foolishness. We called ABC, but were told emphatically that their relationship with Guillen ended nearly a year ago.
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To any insufficiently advanced person technolgy becomes indistinguishable from magic. |
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Randy
SFN Regular
USA
1990 Posts |
Posted - 12/30/2002 : 16:18:44 [Permalink]
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Good heads-up on the "pseudo" reporter Guillen, Lars.
Ah, the Merry Raelian UFO Clonester bus (no LSD needed) now has a driver. Next item they need is a travel-along press group, say maybe the National Enquirer to match their low level of credibility. Maybe too, they should enlist the spirits of the Three Stooges to perform the DNA verification tests.
New strip mall store idea.....
"Clones Are Us".
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"We are all connected; to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, to the rest of the universe atomically."
"So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?"
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson |
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 12/30/2002 : 16:40:09 [Permalink]
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Excuses for pregnant wives of impotent men
(1) Holy Ghost
(2) Swimming pool
(3) UFO
(4) Public toilet seat
(5) Raelian clone |
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I learned something ... I learned that Jehovah's Witnesses do not celebrate Halloween. I guess they don't like strangers going up to their door and annoying them.
-Bruce Clark
There's No Toilet Paper...on the Road Less Traveled |
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ktesibios
SFN Regular
USA
505 Posts |
Posted - 12/30/2002 : 16:52:25 [Permalink]
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Al Freeman works this into his Web comic:
Monday's SSDD
What's cool about the Raelians being involved is that, given their beliefs, instead of moralistically taxing them with "playing God", we can moralistically berate them for meddling with things that are the proper province of extraterrestrials.
Ah, a bit of variety.
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"The Republican agenda is to turn the United States into a third-world shithole." -P.Z.Myers |
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Snake
SFN Addict
USA
2511 Posts |
Posted - 12/30/2002 : 19:46:35 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Lars_H
The Raelians claim to have cloned the first human being. Since they also claim a lot of other unlikely stuff and won't show us any evidence few people are inclined to believe them.
Many people however have taken the raelian anouncement as their cue to comment on the idea of cloning in general. Most of them tell us that it should be illegal. Few can explain why. And many of those who do, base their explanation on fiction (ranging from the Twilight Zone to the Bible) not facts.
What do you think about the human cloning?
Well you beat me to it. I was going to start a folder about this and call it
Chinatown Revisited.
Already had this typed out:
"It's my daughter, it's my sister." (slap, slap). "It's my daughter, it's my sister."
Holly krist, what's the big deal....with cloning?
BTW, everyone is calling this 'The 1st clone.' Hell, no it's not. But I think they mean it's the 1st human scientifically engineered duplicate.
Next question:
Radio talk show hosts are making fun of the group, the Railians (sp) the people who made the so called 'possible' clone, that was just born, as if they are some kind of nut cases because they believe that space aliens came to Earth and started the human race. Well, DUH! What's wrong with that idea? If good Christians and others from established religions believe an invisible being lives in the sky, controls what we do and impregnated a mortal human who then bore his child, how credible are they to criticize a group that finds solace in space creatures?
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Snake
SFN Addict
USA
2511 Posts |
Posted - 12/30/2002 : 19:55:31 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Kilted_Warrior
Cloning could be the best thing that happened since crustless bread..
Not that there is anything wrong about cloning humans,
IMO there is nothing wrong with cloning, not like the religious are complaining about.
There is only this, the same thing that's wrong with any other artifical means of conception....there are TOO MANY Damn people on Earth already.
Clone for any other reason but not for the sake of adding more humans to the population. |
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Lars_H
SFN Regular
Germany
630 Posts |
Posted - 12/30/2002 : 20:27:26 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Snake
Next question:
Radio talk show hosts are making fun of the group, the Railians (sp) the people who made the so called 'possible' clone, that was just born, as if they are some kind of nut cases because they believe that space aliens came to Earth and started the human race. Well, DUH! What's wrong with that idea? If good Christians and others from established religions believe an invisible being lives in the sky, controls what we do and impregnated a mortal human who then bore his child, how credible are they to criticize a group that finds solace in space creatures?
It is worse than that. The Raelians have founded their creation myth on the same stuff that Christians, Jews and Moslems do. They just think that the Elohim mentioned in the Genesis are a group of aliens not a group of or a single god.
Seen that way their myth is lightly less absurd than the standard ones. I think we should give former motorsport Journalist Claude Vorilhon (aka. Räel) at lest the same respect that we give any other lunatic who claims to be a prophet, messiah or on a mission from God. |
To any insufficiently advanced person technolgy becomes indistinguishable from magic. |
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Tim
SFN Regular
USA
775 Posts |
Posted - 12/31/2002 : 06:49:59 [Permalink]
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quote:
I think we should give former motorsport Journalist Claude Vorilhon (aka. Räel) at lest the same respect that we give any other lunatic who claims to be a prophet, messiah or on a mission from God.
No problem. He already gets no respect from me. |
"We got an issue in America. Too many good docs are gettin' out of business. Too many OB/GYNs aren't able to practice their -- their love with women all across this country." Dubya in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, 9/6/2004
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Legallee Insane
Skeptic Friend
Canada
126 Posts |
Posted - 01/02/2003 : 14:43:06 [Permalink]
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I don't know whether to believe this or not. It reeks of hoaxishness but what if it isn't.
The big thing that gets me is that this is like playing god, and seeing as how I don't believe in god, that makes it even worse. That would mean we were playing the part of a non-existent being.
The other claim that I found quite funny was the claim that they could download a person's personality at the moment of death and transfer it to a clone. This is the most impossible load of cr@p I have ever heard. Your genetics aren't the only thing responsible for your personality and its impossible to download someone's personality into a computer. |
--"Only the fool says in his heart: There is no god -- The wise says it to the world"
--"I darn you to HECK!" - Catbert
--"Don't worry, we're not laughing at you, we're laughing near you." |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 01/02/2003 : 17:58:18 [Permalink]
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Well, I dunno. But I think that I detect the delicate fragrance of rattus. In one of the multitude of articles on the alledged clone, I read that the Raelians made pretty much the same claim in 1979.
What are the ways to cook a DNA test? I know exactly nothing about it, but it doesn't look like it'd be very hard for a skilled but unscrupulous lab tech.
I further wonder, when/if they start selling the service, how the contract will read. Betcha it'll be, "No Guarantee!"
f |
"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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