Cloning and Therapeutic Cloning Essay

Submitted By qwertyuiop1232
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HSP 3N1: Anthropology/Psychology/Sociology
Essay Assignment
Quinton Hunter
“Future of Humanity”

The future of humanity could possibly behold anything. And the fate of our lives is completely unknown, but could be completely subtle. The way that science has been advancing, our fate could be caused by genetic engineering. Our society could collapse because of cloning. Cloning is copying DNA data, and recreating a living thing to a replica of the original, both in appearance and traits. Cloning can be done on animals, food and crops, and humans, including organs. The terms, “playing God”, refers to creating new branches from species, or creating a completely new species. Examples of this are the “Crakers”, from Margret Atwood’s dystopian novel, “Oryx and Crake”. Splicing is also another method of “playing God”, creating new genes and physical traits, then applying them and developing a new species, or species branch. Also, rebirth or regeneration could also be another factor. Such as, regenerating organs and healing ourselves without medical assistance, or dying and being reborn as a new being for a fresh start. Biological weapon and disease development could possibly condemn the world to chaos, and bring us down to resort to anarchy. For example, plagues that could wipe out regions of which they are applied, biological weapons could release toxic gases that could result in infecting humans, animals, or food and crops. Also, there could be a global catastrophic outbreak that could be caused by experiments gone wrong, and not contained to one general area.

Cloning started in the late 1800s, and was performed by Hans Driesch. Driesch obtained a large embryo cell from a sea urchin, and attempted to grow them without the assistance of their mother. Driesch placed the cells into a vile of seawater, and shook it until the embryo divided into two. Afterwards, the cells developed independently without the mother, and became fully grown urchins. Another man in 1902, Hans Spemann, used his infant son’s hair as a knife to split a two-celled embryo from a salamander, which also grow eternally. Later on, Spemann managed to separate a single-cell from a sixteen-celled embryo. Both the large and small embryo cells developed into full grown identical salamanders. Spemann created a theory that when he split the cells, there was no genetic material lost for when the cells grew and divided. Cloning over animals has been done since the late 1800s, as done by Hans Driesch, and Hans Spemann. But, as of present day, there has been by far more remarkable attempts of cloning of those who inhabit the animal kingdom. There has been livestock, domestic animals, insects, and animals that inhabit the wild such as forested areas, deserts, and rainforests. For example, a Chinese embryologist (studies the science of the embryo, and its cells.) named Tong Dizhou, successfully implanted the DNA of a male Asian carp into the egg of a female Asian carp to create the first fish clone in 1963. Ten years later, in 1973, Dizhou implanted the DNA of a Asian carp into a European crucian carp to create the first interspecies fish clone. Scientists have been cloning livestock such as cattle since 1997, and pigs since 2000. Fast food restaurants don’t use processed meat, and dairy products, they obtain it from cloned livestock. Cloning of crops and plants are becoming more common in