Evidence for God from Science

Mr. Burns:

I think there might be a difference between natural clones and man-made clones. Man-made clones are a copy. Natural clones are a replica. Copies fade over time, replicas do not.

That brings up another issue for me...

The spiritual part is obviously directed toward human cloning.

Nope. Since I believe that all living things have souls (and that souls animate life), my theory is that clones don't survive because their souls are a copy of an original soul--not an independent soul.

On the soul studies you discussed (but did not cite, I notice)...must have been pretty old. There are newer studies which lend much credence to the existence of souls after death.

Mystical wrote:Mr. Burns:
I think there might be a difference between natural clones and man-made clones. Man-made clones are a copy. Natural clones are a replica. Copies fade over time, replicas do not.

There are two main reasons why artificial cloning is not at effective as natural cloning as of now.

In nature there is a natural weeding out process.
In naturally cloning species many eggs vie for limited space in the womb.
In the case of human sexual reproduction a similar process occurs with only the healthy sperm reaching the egg.
Other organisms produce many eggs many of which are not likely to survive.
In the case of artificial cloning this weeding out process is not performed in the same manor. Perhaps a dozen or so adult cell nuclei are transfered to fertilized egg cells. Thats why it takes many attempts to successfully produce a viable embryo, because even in nature it takes many attempts.

The balance of chemicals within a cell act as signals. These signals effect cellular processes and which genes are to be expressed(turned on).

This brings us to the second issue. Nuclear material pulled from an adult cell upon injection into egg cells will contaminate the molecular signaling balance. This may lead to improper development. Also nuclear material taken from an adult cell is more likely to have experienced some sort of genetic damage. In this case once implanted every cell in the resulting organism will contain a damaged genome.

BGood:

I'm sorry. I don't mean to be disrespectful, but you really just said nothing at all. Your "first issue" wasn't an issue on anything. Neither was the second. Furthermore, neither issue stated anything of any value...nothing that explains why clones don't have normal lifespans. The truth is that there really aren't any reasons why artificial cloning isn't successful. There is a higher reason, I'm certain. Souls are the answer.

The fact that many (if not most) clonal species in nature are species with high ploidy levels is a major difference between natural and artificial clones. Due to the presence of so many triploid, tetraploid, hexaploid, etc. clonal species, it is though that these clonal species may have originated through hybridization between two diploid species. Doesn't say much about relevance to fitness, but it is a major difference to think about, as this is not the way we humans are attempting to clone things.

thereal: can you say a little more on that?

Sure. Most examples come from botany, although a vertebrate example is the Ambystoma salamanders I mentioned earlier. Natural clones often have multiple sets of chromosomes relative to very similar members of the genus, species, etc. If the norm for a certain genus, family, etc. is diploid and diploid means they have 24 chromosomes, than triploid, tetraploid, hexaploid species have multiples of that original number of c'somes. It is thought that when those original diploid species mated, sometimes the replication process erred and resulted in offspring with weird multiples of the original ploidy level...then those offspring could do the same thing occassionally and produce offspring with even higher ploidy levels (octoploidy, nonoploidy, if those are even the right words!) We see the those plants with abnormal ploidy level as their own species sometimes, although even within a species there can be multiploidy. Sometimes, these mulitploid indivduals produce viable young through sexual reproduction, but oftentimes they do not and are restricted to reproducing by cloning. I'm no botanist, so I'm sure that consulting a botany text would give you a lot more information. I just know that cloning does exist and is quite prevalent in certain groups. The Ambystoma example is quite interesting, for this all-female group actually has sexual contact with males of another species. Fertilization of the egg requires contact with the male sperm of the other species, yet the sperm doesn't even actually penetrate the egg. None of the male's genetic material makes it into the egg or the resulting embryo, and the young are exact copies of their mother. Wild stuff!

For human cloning on the other hand, there is no actual reproduction acting on the formation of clones as it occurs in nature. The process is quite complex and I doubt that I even understand it well enough to give a complete summary, but essentially we are "forcing" simple DNA, not even sperm, from a donor organism into a recipient cell that will act as the egg.

Mystical wrote:nothing that explains why clones don't have normal lifespans. The truth is that there really aren't any reasons why artificial cloning isn't successful. There is a higher reason, I'm certain. Souls are the answer.

As far as I know, the only cloning, certainly to adult or mature individuals, has been done with animals. Are you saying animals have souls ? And if you are referring to humans, are you saying that the absence of a soul allows development of a physical body, but only for a shorter than average number of years ?
Artificial cloning certainly has many good possible reasons for failure.

Are you saying animals have souls?

Got me right, sandy.

And if you are referring to humans...

Any living being.

On the rest: the abscense of a real soul. Maybe clones carry the copy of the previous soul of the being. Copies are defective and fade over time. As a result, we cannot expect clones to last very long. They don't have real souls, more like "images/ghosts" of the original soul assigned to the original body.

thereal: Interesting, but it doesn't solve the mystery.

As far as I know, the only cloning, certainly to adult or mature individuals, has been done with animals. Are you saying animals have souls ?

You're right...it was bad grammar on my part. I meant cloning performed by humans of other animals, not cloning of humans. I chuckled a bit when I saw how that came across.

Mystical wrote:BGood:

I'm sorry. I don't mean to be disrespectful, but you really just said nothing at all. Your "first issue" wasn't an issue on anything. Neither was the second. Furthermore, neither issue stated anything of any value...nothing that explains why clones don't have normal lifespans. The truth is that there really aren't any reasons why artificial cloning isn't successful. There is a higher reason, I'm certain. Souls are the answer.

What I said is that simply our techniques are not as sophisticated as they are in nature.

For example, the efficacy of surgery in the past was shakey. As our knowledge increases, the lives being saved as opposed to lost, in comparison to the past is much higher.

Expect cloning techniques to follow this same pattern of development.

Identical twins are clones of each other, what are the implications of this?

BGoodForGoodSake wrote:Identical twins are clones of each other, what are the implications of this?

No, they are not clones. A clone is one that exhibits all traits of its primary source, all of it. Cloning is the same as duplicating. You are making more of the same exact thing. Identical twins would have to have the exact DNA structure, all the same little and big things that are made of their other twin. They would have to be the same on the inside as well as the outside, they are not clones, unless they meet these requirements.

Believer wrote:

BGoodForGoodSake wrote:Identical twins are clones of each other, what are the implications of this?

No, they are not clones. A clone is one that exhibits all traits of its primary source, all of it. Cloning is the same as duplicating. You are making more of the same exact thing. Identical twins would have to have the exact DNA structure, all the same little and big things that are made of their other twin. They would have to be the same on the inside as well as the outside, they are not clones, unless they meet these requirements.

Brian Identical twins do have the same DNA.
http://ask.yahoo.com/20010213.html
http://www.genetree.com/product/twin-dna-testing.asp

BGood: Clones and twins are not the same thing. Twins are replicas; beginning life with fresh DNA. Clones have "used" DNA. Like I said--they are copies--defective, and doomed to "wear-out." If my soul theory is correct, which I believe it is, they will never live, no matter how much more knowledge we gain.

Mystical wrote:BGood: Clones and twins are not the same thing. Twins are replicas; beginning life with fresh DNA. Clones have "used" DNA. Like I said--they are copies--defective, and doomed to "wear-out." If my soul theory is correct, which I believe it is, they will never live, no matter how much more knowledge we gain.

When a cell divides it make a copy of its DNA and then splits into two daughter cells.

In cloning we just extract the DNA from one of these daughter cells and put it into an oocyte(egg).

In twins an oocyte splits. Producing two identical embryo's.

The process is almost identical, the DNA of all of the resulting embryos will be identical.

If done correctly a clone and a twin will be identical.

What do you mean by used DNA?