Alba
In the name of Art?

Alba is the name of a very special Glow In the Dark flourecent Bunny....
Thats right! By splicing jellyfish proteins with that of a rabbit Eduardo Kac has managed to create the worlds first glow in the dark bunny (or GFP Bunny... GFP stands for Glowing Flourecent protein)...

Now the question is... is it right to fuck around with DNA in the name of Art?...
Can such a thing be considered art? or is it just cruelty to Animals/Humans?

Personally I consider Eduardo Kac to be a revolutionary for our future... We should never be afraid to see whats just around the corner. Weather it be for art science or simple human curiousity... (did I say science?)

In my opinion art is art... weather it be creating delicate solar systems or doodling on a piece of paper with an unsharpened pencil... self-expression and creation should not be treated as defience of God... Because God created man in his likeness (or so the story goes)... therefor man has the ability and need to create....

I understand how some people may see "DNA Art" as inhumane... but I for one would love the opportunity to artistically alter my own genes.... It would surely be better then any tattoo or piercing I could get.... more individuality if you have wings... or a tail..... no need to buy holloween costumes.... well you get the idea...

The problem is... genetic weakness. Imagine a bunch of genetically weak (because of the lack of a large genome for their species) running around the land... If there is some sort of environmental or biological catastrophy that effects them due to their particular cloned genetic material, then many, if not all, would die.

So... the probelm also happens the same for animals in captivity. What if you have a heard of betsy sue cattle? all the same cow, all the best qualiy of cow... BUT... there is a freak virus that comes through and wipes them out because they all have the same genes... genes that were not prepared to take on this new virus. It is similar to the aids problems... there are people who can get it, live through it, and live a normal seeming life because their immune systems are genetically superior to defense to aids.

Therefore, making a whole lot of balled eagles would do no good because they would all be so similar that... NOT to mention the problems with inbreeding of the same types of genes... yikes! Clones having sex with partners who look like their moms or dads? THAT would cause some troubles...

Anyhow... I think this does not just involve cloning as the topic... but "genetic engineering" in general as the main topic. The rabbit, for example, that glows in the dark is genetofucking, not clonofucking. :-D

haha... alright, perhaps if we change the main topic to "genetic engineering" I can propose sides to this problem better?
:-)

interesting topic maxx... but I fear... the true meanings have or will soon be lost. (well... for me anyhow)

Is this moral?

Is it just?

Is it wrong?

Is it right?

Well... We can only wonder now can`t we...

-Alcoholic 007

Hermann Wrote:

Defenitly YES,we also seperate Siamese twins,do Cesaerean sections,Heart transplants and blood transfusion.
With all this knowledge and skills we alleviated suffereing,saved lives and made people happy.
I read alot about the concerns of UNIQUNESS.What is unique, who is? Our Names skills and lifestories are ,our experiences. But the inner sustainer of our skills memories etc is GOD ( as a simple one syllable word) Omniscient,Omnipresent,Omnipotent: Truth Knowledge Bliss!

Or if you think on evolutionary lines: Water "formed" fins on sharks and dolphins; air: wings ,ears on many different species from insects to bats. Light "formed" Eyes. And Spirit(which did,n't fall from heaven)"formed" brains( with its memories,ideas and recognitions etc. So far today. Greetings Hermann (c:

Maxx:

There are many things people will find "unethical" in this ever more questionable werld.... I myself find alot of this stuff to be rather immoral, which is why I guess I'm for it so much... Personally I'd like to see humanity pushed into a dead end from which it has no escape... We've come this far and it's no longer possible to turn back... The only way to go now is toward our eventual demise....

And why is "God" a 3 letter single sillable werd in almost every language?... I suppose thats another conversational topic alltogether....

Malkit Wrote:

If parents choose that their child should have some extra abilities as health, longevity, intelligence, athletic ability, beauty, do they then neglect the freewill of the child?

Whisp Responded:

I agree with Maxx......when the child grows up they can still determin what to do with what they have......but I think it would be wrong to choose the sex of your baby....if it were ment to be a girl and you chose a boy...the boy may be gay....and uncomfertable with there life when they wernt ment to be....and viseversa....not that theres anything wrong with being that way but you get the point I`m sure. Just my opinion....and the way I choose to live my life.

Maxx:

Alot of you seem to think that theres a certain way things SHOULD be... It may as well be simple kaos with a bunch of human moral polotix attached...

Malkit:

What if a child was made with the desire to do math and the child was given a high IQ.
What do you think the child would choose to go to a special math school or a school for something else?
btw i just want to make clear now that we are talking about freewill, that i dont know if i think that humans has a free will or not.

whisp when you say "if it was meant to be a girl and you choose a boy" do you mean that every single child born in this world has its sex predetermined? What if the parents didn`t check what sex of the child. But just to make sure had the genes that determined the sex exchanged with genes that would make it male or female just to be on the safe side(then they wouldn`t know what the child was meant to be)?

Whisp:

If the parents changed the sex before hand then the child might come out as the opposite of what was going to be in this life....but theres also that chance that they might choose for the child to be a boy and it was going to be all along.....the majority of boys like girls and have guyish taste.....likewise with girls....if you tamper nwith the childs sex and chose a girl when it was going to be a boy then you may end up with a major tomboy that finds girls attractive...likewise with guys.....the point is ...maybe that soul wasn`t going to be born what you chose for it to be born....then that may have a huge impact on that souols life....and then you`ve taken choices away from that soul and made them your own........then theres also the chance that you woulod choose the sex it was originaklly going to be ..thus having no effect....just my opinion...

Maxx:

Isn`t there enough tomboys and otherwise not completely straight people in our pre-genetic werld as is? I fail to see how things would change all too much.... besides theres much more interesting things to do to babies then simply change their sex to your personal preference.... what about a natural disscression against ciggarettes for instance... or immunities to otherwise very harmful defectz?... it seems this would be alot harder for parents to say no to...

Malkit:

In your post to the topic above you(MAXX) said that a built in desire might have a great effect or maybe even control over the person decitions. and now your saying that a person have the ability to choose for them selves even thou they have a built in desire to do something. have i misunderstood you maxx?

Maxx:

Ok, a persons decitions are all his own... even if theres influence, fate or genetic provocation involved a person will still think he is the one making all the decitions..... How many decitions have you ever made that you didn`t think came directly from you? ... and I`m sure many of them have been influenced by one thing or another... afterall life is pretty much about sustaining influence....

Whisp:

From all your posts ...which by the way seem to pretty much be the same thing repeted over and over it sounds like your all into turning ppl into robotic beings with no decision,freewill,or anything.....a bunch of walking zombies....and I see that as the stupidest thing anyone could say.....if you want to try and be artificial go ahead but I doubt that many other ppl would want to....the fun in life iz going through experiences ...good and bad but to take all the natural and try to turn it into a bunch of nothing realy sounds quite petty.

Maxx:

Robots? not as such.... but when you get into the finer philosophy of things you come to realize that the thingz we create are not much different then the things that created us... And what is it that defined us? Our ability to make decitions? Well, you`ll still have that at least... In the world of the future the only "people" that are going to be smart enough to solve our ever more complicated problems will have to be augmented with technology... every day we push ourselves more and more into this dark corner... do we have a choice?.. no not really... afterall God made us curious...

Whisp Wrote:

No....I think its stupid!...If you were ment to have a clone then yo`d have a twin....cloning parts for a human iz different...b/c your not trying to creat and play "god"...Who`z to say a clone would have a soul?...then again who`z to say they wouldn`t?....but in my opinion its not to be fxcked with....cloning a persons heart wouldn`t be bad b/c is just a part of the phisical body but I have doubts that you can creat a persons soul,mind,and spirit....What if the clone has feelings...?....would they be their true feelings or just a programed emotion?....believe it or not....I think life isn`t to be fucked with in that way.

-Whisp

Malkit Wrote:

I want to talk about the posiblelity of making children with special abilities.(within the human capabilities). I dont think its posible to create a proffesor child just because of the genes. children are exposed to so much when they grow up. They will be affected by their surroundings, so that the genes won`t be enough to spark the interest of subject, because what if they played a lot of football, and football was what they wanted to do for the whole of their life. Then having some math. gene would make them the proffesor that the parents hoped for.

-Malkit