Ethicist against Cloning

You are gravely concerned that we are at a profound crossroads in the history of our planet if the judges allow cloning of extinct forms of life to proceed. Your geneticist colleagues assure you that it's only a matter of time before the technology will be developed that can replicate an entire genome from scraps of fossil DNA. It's no longer a question of technology but rather a question of what's right. This will be your opportunity to ask some probing questions--should scientists and society acknowledge that it is justifiable to use new techniques and scientific advances to solve today's problems but wrong to introduce new hazards through uncontrolled ecological experiments? You'll need to explain to the court why dinosaur cloning is an improper use of scientific technology, which from an ethical standpoint shows little regard for the animals being brought back into the modern world. Is it relevant that the Mesozoic world of the dinosaurs no longer exists--for that reason alone is it unfair to resurrect the dinosaurs? Has their time really come and gone? Is it really desirable to clone dinosaurs with the express purpose of making them into living drug factories for pharmaceutical companies? If dinosaurs are cloned, what's next--cloned trilobites? Cloned ichthyosaurs? You even heard mention of a report that someone wants to search for frozen sperm in the mummified Ice Man, Ötzi, and clone him 5000 years after his death in the Italian Alps! You'll have to convince the judges that it was a mistake to attempt the cloning of the mammoth last year and that cloning even older forms of life would only create more problems. You'll need to investigate if a rush for profits and slow action on the part of governments to establish regulations for safety oversight will promote unethical behaviors, including mistreatment of these complex, intelligent, social animals and possible environmental damage caused by doctored genes spreading out of control. You've joined with a prestigious group of fellow scientists to urge the judges to ban dinosaur cloning. From an ethical standpoint there's no good basis or rational reason for cloning dinosaurs--we have absolutely no right to play God!

Robin Forster, Columbia PhD, vertebrate paleontologist

and signatures of other Scientists Against Cloning (SAC): Xenia Krasnikova, Moscow PhD, conservation biologist Jim Starr, Harvard PhD, pathologist R.J. Browne, Stanford PhD, paleobotanist +100 other names