Genetic engineering: brave new world or Wild West?
First Dolly, now Polly, raise troublesome questionsThe first development was, of course, PPL Therapeutics' much-publicized success in cloning the ewe Dolly, announced last February 22. The Scottish scientists explained that they had taken the nucleus out of a sheep embryo and replaced it with the nucleus from an adult ewe's udder cell. The resultant lamb, gestated by a third ewe, was a clone-that is, an identical twin-of the adult sheep whose udder cell was used.
Scientists have cloned many species' embryos successfully. But these developments have attracted little attention because embryos clone (divide into twins) quite readily before they start developing specialized cells and body parts. For example, one in about 350 human births is a birth of identical twins, who are natural clones.
Belief systems lacking
Dolly was front page news because the cloning of an adult animal was previously thought impossible. She opens up a world of possibilities that present-day societies, drifting without belief systems, will find difficult to manage responsibly.
