Dolly
1996-2003
In the year Dolly was born, 1996, scientists and technologists celebrated the centenary of JJ Thompson's discovery of the electron. If civilisation survives until 2096, what anniversary will then attract more attention: the electron's bicentenary? Or Dolly's centenary? —Martin Rees
Remembering Dolly
Dolly, the first clone from a mammal, died yesterday at the age of 6 years old.
Where were you on July 5, 1996? What did you think when you read the news about the accomplishment of Ian Wilmut [2] and his team at Roslyn Institute in Edinburgh? What is Dolly's lasting historical significance? How does Dolly's life change our view of humanity?
Condolences to Ian Wilmut and his colleagues on this sad event.
— JB
Dolly, you were born at the most optimistic moment imaginable. A world of peace and plenty seemed to be at hand. The major conflicts of the world suddenly ended or seemed to be on their way to unforeseen early resolution. These included the Cold War, Apartheid, even the Middle East conflict. A global wealth boom was in the works. A new generation of utopian thinking with a digital flavor had just entered the mainstream.
Then you showed up. You were both an inspiration and a challenge. Like all advances in human capability, your existence would undoubtedly bring not only healing and happiness, but also some degree of violence and misery, since that has always been the nature of human affairs. But what would the balance be?
In your short life we have seen humanity, your enabling species, flunk a series of major tests. A boom brought about by new productivity tools was distorted into an occasion for fraud and theft by the accounting and financial industries. What a shame that good natured good times turned out to be such an inspiration for white collar criminals. Meanwhile, the apparent worldwide trend towards peace and reconciliation abruptly reversed into an awful nexus of hatred, including even an innovative doctrine of mass suicidal religiosity.
Oh Dolly, let's hope we have many second chances, and that your legacy will recall the world as it was at the start of your life more than what it has come to be at the end of your life.
In the year Dolly was born, 1996, scientists and technologists celebrated the centenary of JJ Thompson's discovery of the electron. If civilisation survives until 2096, what anniversary will then attract more attention: the electron's bicentenary? Or Dolly's centenary?
Ever since Dolly's birth, I've been puzzled by why so many people are so upset at the prospect of reproduction by cloning. One apparent source of concern is that cloning would significantly reduce the element of chance involved in reproduction. This view enshrines the genetic shuffling that occurs as a result of sexual conception as an inviolable mystery, the essence of life. Certainly sexual recombination has played a vital creative role in evolution; without it, we wouldn't be here.
But if randomness per se were an intrinsic good, the ideal procreative act would be a drunken one-night stand involving a leaky condom. No one opposes such ancient rituals of romance as courtship and marriage, which have made mating a less random, more deliberate process. And only hard-core religious fundamentalists object to modern medical advances such as contraceptives and genetic testing, which have reduced the number of babies who are born unwanted and unhealthy.
All the silly scenarios in which megalomaniacs make Mini-Me's suggest that people would only resort to reproductive cloning for scurrilous selfish motives. First of all, children have always served as projections of their parents' narcissism. Moreover, those who seek children through extraordinary means—whether adoption, in vitro fertilization, or cloning—will arguably be at least as committed to the responsibilities of parenthood as those who simply copulate and let the chips fall where they may.
We should all be frightened by the prospect of the state controlling reproduction, as Nazi Germany and other countries—including the U.S.—did during the heyday of the eugenics movement early in the last century. But I don't see the harm in allowing citizens to resort to technologies such as cloning, if they can afford it, and if cloning is refined so that clones are not at higher risk of disease (a big if).
A hypothetical: Let's say that a husband and wife whose new-born daughter has died of sudden-death syndrome want to clone her. We may find their decision irrational and morbid, but these judgements are not sufficient to warrant the drastic step of prohibiting the couple from carrying out their hearts' desire. Where's the harm?
Thank you for writing something about this—I'm oddly moved by her death as well, and have been moved throughout by the poignant evidence that she was prematurely aged—a sheep in lamb's clothing.
Links:
[1] https://www.edge.org/conversation/john_brockman-remembering-dolly
[2] http://www.edge.org/memberbio/ian_wilmut
