human clone, the Raelians and their renegade Clonaid biologists exposed babies to these sorts of risks. Yes, critics should be directing their disgust at the Raelians and the maverick scientists who helped them clone a human before the procedure was safe. But they should be careful about saying that all scientists and ethicists are against reproductive cloning, or that the act itself is evil.
"The media is reporting that scientists and ethicists believe reproductive cloning is in principle bad," says Simon Smith, president of the Toronto Transhumanist Association. "This is not the case. Most scientists and ethicists are opposed to reproductive cloning at present, as the technology is imperfect and dangerous. Many, however, see no problem with cloning in principle. When it's perfected, it will be merely another option in the growing list of reproductive choices."
The Toronto Transhumanist Association is a supporter of reproductive cloning, but denounces all attempts to clone humans until the technology is perfected. Until then, it wishes to distance itself as much as possible from unethical people and groups who are putting human lives at risk.
“Human cloning will someday be a good thing,” says TTA vice-president George Dvorsky. “For infertile couples who cannot make babies with sperm and eggs, cloning is a medical breakthrough that will provide them children of their own. Similarly, it will help gay and lesbian couples produce genetically related offspring. And for those individuals with inheritable genetic diseases, reproductive cloning will give them an increased chance of having a healthy child."
“Transhumanists believe that humans deserve the right to clone themselves should they choose, so long as the process isn’t harmful to others," says Dvorsky. "It is hard to imagine parents of clones being any less loving and caring than parents of regular children. Clones are nothing more than delayed twins, and are just as human and as deserving of rights and respect as anyone.”
OUR PERSONAL MEMETIC ENVIRONMENTS
As our bodies have been molded by the physical environment, the characteristics of our thoughts and beliefs have been shaped by the memetic environment within which we reside; we are utterly limited by the ideas we’ve been exposed to.
Intrinsically, we are rational creatures, and accordingly, we strive to make sense of the limited data we are exposed to. But our reasoning skills only take us so far; we are also effected by various biological vestiges (i.e. emotions, hormones, autonomic responses, etc.) and the social environment. Our belief systems are subsequently influenced by non-rational forces, leading to the large number of unfounded memes and memeplexes that exist in our societies.
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