Down's Syndrome...

While I do realize exactly what I said and it's entire meaning I do believe that we can look at it as a possible 'what if.' We can look at science fiction (at least well written science fiction) as a means of exploring what these authors thought would happen in these scenarios. I find that some science fiction has come rather close to predicting reality. Many of the best authors are very good students of human beings and are very good at predicting how people would react to certain situations.

It's not unlike creating virtual models of how something might work rather than actually building it and using it, which I'm pretty sure happens in science.

One should be able to learn from anything and everything.

The tragedy is that science gets painted as the culprit when the real culprit is the vast diversity of human nature...cloning whole organisms to slaughter for whatever means is viewed badly, cloning individual parts is viewed well...same study different use, different social perceptions...

The tragedy is that science gets painted as the culprit when the real culprit is the vast diversity of human nature...cloning whole organisms to slaughter for whatever means is viewed badly, cloning individual parts is viewed well...same study different use, different social perceptions...

You'd probably be in full agreement if a replacement part was cloned for you, not so much if a full clone of you were to be created... Until you realize that lots of people already have clones (called "twins").

RyuJin wrote: The tragedy is that science gets painted as the culprit when the real culprit is the vast diversity of human nature

Like the "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument. Which I agree with.

Actually I'd love to have a clone of myself...of course I know he would only look like me and MAY think similar to me on some things, but would be completely different from me due to his life experiences vs mine...

The 6th day....great movie about the possibilities and impact cloning could/would bring

Edit: me and my clone could then debate over who was the "good" twin and who was the "evil" twin :evil:

RyuJin wrote: Actually I'd love to have a clone of myself

I've often thought during group projects that life would be a lot easier if I was working with a clone of myself.

Goken wrote:

RyuJin wrote: Actually I'd love to have a clone of myself

I've often thought during group projects that life would be a lot easier if I was working with a clone of myself.

Yep...and I'd have a sparring partner that actually could keep up...no more holding back....

I dont want a clone of myself, but I would like to clone some organs.

When considering having a child my motivations would be based on maximising the child's potential well-being. This comes in many different forms - being able to financially support the child, being mature enough to support the child are amongst those forms.

The fact of the matter is that you ultimately do not know how your child's life will go, you will only know what it's like when it happens... which is why it is important to do your best to try and maximise the chances of their quality of life being as good as you can make it.

This idea of maximising their chances gives an explanation for why, as one might expect, well-off people have decent lives, but also why less well-off people have decent lives. Money isn't everything, a close-knit family or some great friends can make up for other 'deficiencies' in your living standards (being poor etc).

We cannot predict everything with a lot of accuracy, but we can try to maximise their chances.

If a child were to be born with a debilitating condition then we can safely assume that, all things being equal, this is more likely to result in having a difficult life. Of course that child may end up greatly enjoying their life, but if the goal is to try and give your child the best possible start that you can then, in my opinion, adding a medical variable into the mix will likely make such a life more difficult for both the child, the parents, and the state that may have to support the child/family.

If I had a child I would try my best to maximise the well-being of every factor in that child's life. The fact is that it can be difficult to maximise the well-being of factors such as medical conditions so I would likely request that any fetus likely to be born with a debilitating illness be aborted.

I want to ask what the significance of Down's syndrome is? I mean is it a flaw? Or maybe some kind of gene expression that is more fit to survive? I mean just look at the numbers:
"One in every 691 babies in the the United States is born with Down syndrome, making Down syndrome the most common genetic condition. Approximately 400,000 Americans have Down syndrome and about 6,000 babies with Down syndrome are born in the United States each year. "

Why is that the most common genetic condition? What can we say about such a genetic disorder?

I think you should all know about a story told to me by my professor of psycholoy at the university of Colorado. He said that when they worked with some transgenetic mice, they had turned on some gene that sured cancer but the mice became violent as a result, so in order to keeo them breeding, they had to introduce the mice together long enough for the male to rape the female but get the male out before he murdered her. So it's really freaky how that happened.