N v N: Will Human Cloning Lead To The Answer?

Human nature has always been, and still relatively is, a mystery to us. A thought occurred to me the other day and I can’t seem to get it out of my head.
That thought is that with modern science, could we be close to having an answer to an age old question?

Is it nature or is it nurture? Are people born the way they are, and things are predetermined biologically by some fate of DNA and chromosomal layout? Or are people born, and circumstances, their environments, and experiences shape who they are as a being? I have always believed it to be a mix of both, but being curios as a cat, I’d always like to know for sure.

This thread is for everyone. I’d like the community to weigh in on what the type of procedures would be for this, articles that could pertain to this, the moral and philosophical questions that such a study would evoke, and ultimately, what you think would come about as an answer.

Setting:
Now my thoughts are, if you can take perfectly made clones of human beings and set up environments for them that are exactly the same, would they do the same things? Let’s say that you can get two sets clones of female and male sexes, artificially inseminate the females separately with identical twins, and set them up in said environments. Let’s say is a cabin in the woods they are put into with their “child”. Of course both sets of parents that are clones would have to have been taught how to do certain things. You could do this by teaching them separately, by the same teacher, doing the exact same lessons at the exact same timing for everything, at different hours. This could be observed as well. But just basics, what they would need to survive as to keep them as close to human nature as possible. Bringing me to another point of interference by anomalies that can’t be helped. Where could you do this? Would you need identical bio domes set up on foreign planets or in space? However doable, to get the setting controlled is absolutely necessary. For fire, would the male clone choose an axe or saw to chop down a tree? Would they walk the same path and choose the same tree to cut down?

Emotion:
Would the female clones feel the same way towards the male clones in both sets? Would they raise their child the same way? The scientists conducting the study.. how would they handle the observing of humans that everything set for them? Should they be clones themselves, taught from day one that this is their duty to study others? This leads to the morality part of all this… would such a study even be moral? I don’t see how it could be, however we have seen worse, so I could see it being done regardless if the funds and technology were made available to the right/wrong people.

Size:
At what factor could such a study be done? A single person? I don’t see how you could do this with proper outcomes, since a single person would basically be in solitary confinement all by themselves, and that would be fkd. A family? Maybe. A small community? A world?

Belief:
Now, based on what you yourself, may or may not believe in, could affect your thoughts on this greatly. Your thoughts on this could be that it can never be done, or should never be done. Religion may affect your thoughts on this. You might be thinking about free will vs determinism. As am I. Including a multitude of pondries that I’m sure to not thought of.

The Question:
What do you think this would lead to? Do you think that no matter what you do, you would get different results based on humans doing random things no matter who they are? Or do you think that you would see something possibly deeper, such as fate?

a reply to: Narvasis

I think it is a mix of both nature and nurture, leaning more towards nurture, but that is not all. I think that identical clones in identical environments would still at some point make different decisions. Those decisions would lead them to completely different paths. Once they get started on different paths, everything changes.

Personally, I know I've made many decisions where I was pretty close to 50/50. In hindsight, some were correct. Some were not. Several of those 50/50 choices would have changed my life drastically, had I gone the other way.



Regarding your final question: Would they really be Humans? Or would they just be Clones? Or do you consider the 2 to be the same thing?

a reply to: Narvasis

So you are completely ignoring identical twins? They share the same DNA. Mostly the same parenting but there are some that have been separated at a very young age.

I think you should start there in your research before making genetic copies. Look at what is available before playing with genetics.

I personally think it is a mix of nature and nurture.

Aldous Huxley touched on some of these questions in his book Brave New World, in which various social castes of clones were created in different manners and subject to different conditioning as part of their upbringing to fulfill their role in his fictional society state.

It's a wonderful read, and was put on the banned books list because many traditional folk found it to be an abomination.

In a purely scientific persepctive, he touched on some key variables of embryonic development to ensure the zygotes would be prepared for their eventual development and education later on.

Whether or not these concepts have actual scientific merit I cannot verify, but he made mention of one social caste being given various chemical inductions during development, such as alcohol, to limit and stunt the developing brain so they would not be "too smart" and rebel against their conditioning due to what we would now consider developmental disabilities such as Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, and one reason women are advised to abstain from drugs and alcohol during pregnancy.

Of course, in Huxley's story, there were no Mothers, no Surrogates, just rows of synthetic wombs for the embryos to develop in. The concept of "parents" had been removed from the social dynamics, and everything was an automated process.

Sorry, sorry, I'm going on about the book, but you really should read it.

I suppose, in theory, that such a process might work, but we really don't understand everything there is to know about the mystery of individual human consciousness to make allowance for every subtle aspect and nuance out there about the mysteries of the human brain.

There are some cultures and social castes who practice a form of selective breeding, in hopes of producing certain traits or cognitive abilities, and some find this successful. Upper class families for example all share similar genetic facial structures and temperments, due to their genetics and upbringing and educational connections.

This doesn't necessarily mean that these are perfect and infallible people, they still have emotions, some exhibit psychopathic or sociopathic traits, and life is anything from perfect because human psychology is not an exact science and we can't control every variable life throws at us.

But that's not a high end labratory environment, that's just Nature and selective breeding for dominant traits.

There has been some recent news about genetic manipulation, and scientists are discovering that they really don't know what they're doing just yet. In one case example, they altered the gentic sequencing of a hamster in hopes of making it behave more affectionately, and their manipulation produced the exact opposite effect they were hoping to achieve. The poor hamster became excessively wild and violent.

This is why such experimentation concerns me. Regardless of how well meaning the intentions may be, we're still lightyears away from perfection. The thought of human experimentation terrifies me because of the effect it may have on the life that is created in the process of "trying to figure it out" and how they have to terminate unsuccessful attempts.

Sorry, I got all preachy.

In an idealized scenario, in an idealized society, in an idealized future I would absolutely love the idea of a society where everyone is happy and healthy, with brains that are completely and compassionately designed to ensure they are happy and content within their roles in society, and everyone is properly educated with proper ettiquite and regardless of caste, class or origin everyone is treated kindly, fairly and with respect.

I would be thrilled!

But that begs the philosophical question of the concept of Free Will.

Would an engineered being be able to have free will or would such a thing be denied in favor of Societal Order?

Would there be safeguards in place to care for and relocate and recondition a clone who suddenly breaks from conditioning?

Would they just exterminate the experiment and move on?

If we create clones, would we be the type of compassionate society who cares for their creations or would we continue down the path of "disposable commonities"?

Would the value of a human being be lost due to mass production?

Thank you for bringing this discussion to the table, sorry for being so pendantic and long winded but it's a topic I have had a fascination with for some time.

a reply to: Narvasis

I think its all nurture, where as the dna is like an antena or decoder it will extract diffrent information. I'm thinking dna is activated by the electro static field of the earth.
For further detail check out this thread the primeval code I find it one of the most fascinating yet overlooked experiments regarding evolution, DNA and its dynamics...

a reply to: GENERAL EYES

Ah, but then there is soma in 'The Brave New World'.

Soma is a drug to take care of all those mistakes in the genetic engineering. The ones where the people were sometimes not really happy with their lives. It was used more by the lower casts but I think everyone used it.

If everyone was truly as happy in life as designed, there would be no need for soma.

Much like now, people think they are smarter than they actually are, especially in genetics.

a reply to: beyondknowledge

I remember soma.

When we read BNW in AP English I was so taken with the concept that I would walk around the halls at school with a tin of peppermint altoids and offer them to my friends with the quip "Need a Soma?"

The idea of a relaxing agent that doesn't have adverse side effects appeals to me.

I once mentioned the concept of Soma to a physician for some psychiatric issues I was dealing with and she had no idea what I was talking about, she had never been exposed to the book. Best they could come up with was vallium. It had no effect on me, pharmacuticals in general stop having effects on me over time.

Right now all my friends are raving about Xanax, but it's addictive and expensive and I don't feel right asking for it.

Huxley took the term Soma from Hindu texts, and apparently it was a real thing.

Soma

I remember reading decades ago that the actual plant has not been identified or else it is a closely guarded secret because they fear overconsumption and abuse from people who would abuse it or indulge recreationally with no respect to it's traditional use or ceremonial properties.

a reply to: GENERAL EYES

Smashing Pumpkins - Soma - Brixton '94

In traveling across Australia one thing has stuck out is no two places are exactly the same. Lot of similarities around, but everywhere is different.

Same with human nature, parent that raise their identical twins the same do develop many similarities, finish each others sentences and stuff, not exactly the same, relativity close. Those that raise their twins different will have two different twins, much more diverse expression of character.

As for all this clone stuff, reminds me of a desert as need to look harder to find the differences. As for some meglomanic psychopath, a clone army sounds great. As for the reality, not that easy in this world.

Look up "Twins seperated at birth" on youtube.
they can live lives that are very simler.
but no one has done a show about
twins that had No simler lives.

a chiled one who lives with abusive perants,
hiting will be the only contact.
the hiting will be the only way it can get any thing like a hug!
they grow up very mest up.

a reply to: Narvasis

People that strive to be better people usually will be.

People that don't will not.

The hardware you're born with is what you get. The world around you is mostly out of your control. The one factor you really control is you.

Nurture has an impact on us, can overcome hardware problems in our genes, but nurture can be overcome too. We can unlearn bad habits that we picked up along the way.

People just need to be willing to try. All the rest is either an excuse to fail or motivation to succeed, depending on how they choose to view it.

originally posted by: beyondknowledge
a reply to: Narvasis

So you are completely ignoring identical twins? They share the same DNA. Mostly the same parenting but there are some that have been separated at a very young age.

I think you should start there in your research before making genetic copies. Look at what is available before playing with genetics.

I personally think it is a mix of nature and nurture.

Yes there is research already done on identical twins without the ethical problems because they weren't separated for research purposes, the research was done later.

What Twins Can Teach Us About Nature vs. Nurture

How Twins Help Us Understand Nature and Nurture

Heritability of intelligence is 90% genetic and 10% environmental.

a reply to: Narvasis

There is this interesting case from the 1800s en.wikipedia.org...

To summarize; Chang and Eng were Siamese twins. That meant that, obviously, they were clones of each other. It also meant that their nurture was essentially identical, since they literally went everywhere together. Despite that, they developed different personalities, one example in the account I read mentioning that they voted for different parties in an election. They both got married to different women. (I have NO idea how certain... activities... were managed in that situation!)

Nature has to have played a part in Chang and Eng's story. However, nurture is clearly important as well. I really don't know the contribution either makes, and I couldn't even begin to guess. I do recall reading once that the vast majority of a child's personality is formed by age 8, which would suggest nurture has a limited effect after that.