The Cloned Soul Dilemma & The Calico Solution

It is a less-than universally known fact that you can't clone a calico cat. Try an hundred times, and you'll get 101 genetically identical cats -- all of whom have sometimes wildly different colorations from one another.

Seems somewhat hard to believe, does it not? Take these images for size:

The two cats in the image on the left are named "Rainbow" (left) and "Cc" (right). The cat in the picture on the right is also "Rainbow" -- a calico. Cc is Rainbow's clone.






This is discussed further in a USA Today article from a few years ago:

Rainbow the cat is a typical calico with splotches of brown, tan and gold on white. Cc, her clone, has a striped gray coat over white.

Rainbow is reserved. Cc is curious and playful.

Rainbow is chunky. Cc is sleek.

Sure, you can clone your favorite cat. But the copy will not necessarily act or even look like the original.

Cc (for carbon copy) is just over a year old. Her birth Dec. 22, 2001, was big news when it was announced last February because it was the first time a household pet had been cloned. Previous mammal clones were barnyard animals like cows and goats.

Cc's creation was funded by Genetic Savings & Clone, a company that hopes to make money from people's desires to duplicate their favorite pets. Last February, in the journal Nature, the A&M researchers published details of the project and DNA test results that showed cc was a clone.

It turns out that there are specific genetic markers for coloration which play randomly with each other when a calico cat is being grown in the womb, which result in those unique coloration patterns. While genetically encoded, the results are entirely random; the critter may not even appear to be a calico at all, as demonstrated here. Moreover, the two animals have uniquely distinct personalities, which rather makes one wonder about that whole issue over cloned souls, does it not?

This persistent remnant of Cartesian dualism has made its way throughout the public mindspace, even though the vast majority of us couldn't tell you what dualism is, let alone Cartesian. (Author's Note: Saddeningly, only a similar number of individuals -- likely not even the same individuals -- could tell you who Renee Descartes himself even was.) This despite the fact that it is universally accepted that neuroscience essentially completely disregards the very concept of dualism. Take George W. Bush's famous cloning ban -- discussed ubiquitously, of course; but when taking the following into consideration, it gains some ominous undertones (editorial trick, that.):

All of this current and future biology can be found in the President's short speech of August 10, 2001. From these facts and hopes, the President reached the following two conclusions:

· First, the federal government will fund further research with the sixty currently reported embryonic stem cell lines.

· Second, the federal government will not fund research that would establish any further undifferentiated embryonic stem cell lines, nor research into any other uses of human egg cells.

Both of these conclusions were unexpected and, given the science that accompanied them, both have been hard to understand. The immediate question raised by the first of these two decisions is, why so many lines? If stem cell lines can grow as little balls simply by being given nutrients but not differentiating signals, why not just one cell line, grown and partitioned by the government into as many vials as needed? The complementary question raised by the second decision is, why only these sixty? Having revealed his distaste for the idea of dissociating the cells of an embryo for research purposes, why did the President not authorize research on other technologies that might yield the same or better clinical outcomes without this initial step?

And don't kid yourselves, folks -- that initial step exists. It has for quite some time; in fact, it is precisely that 'step' that is used for genetic testing of embryos to be implanted via in vitro fertilization. It has been possible for quite some time to remove a single cell from an embryo, and keep it alive. By definition, this would allow for new stem cell lines which do not destroy embryos. Yet it isn't used or funded. Why?

The answer to that question lies in yet another regurgitation of the works of another (What's a good editorial if the author can't poke at himself with sticks?) blogger out there. This time, the source is that infallible of infallibles, WorldNetDaily. Consider:

In all seriousness, just who do we think we are? Are we so self-absorbed as a species; have we become so coarse, so vulgar, so narcissistic that we can't recognize that our scientific capacity exponentially exceeds our moral maturity? Shouldn't we come to grips with where we've put God in this equation?

While we may have made scientific advancements of godlike proportions, there is one of God's prerogatives we'll never have the remotest license to, and that is His authority over our souls. We should fear His judgment as we erect the ultimate Tower of Babel in usurping His sovereign power to create humankind by duplicating babies as if from a Xerox copy machine.

To such individuals as these, each of these new cell lines would be considered, apparently, a new baby. This author has had discussions with individuals of deeply religious Christian (well, okay -- Mormon) nature, on more than one occassion. As such, certain insights have been gained into the mindset of the religious right's perspective; each embryonic cell, even if it didn't destroy the embryo it came from, itself counts as a new human life. The very proposition displayed above -- of deriving new stem cell lines without destroying the embryo from which they came -- would still be considered immoral.

This is, of course, nothing short of bio-luddism. But at least, now, thanks to the unhappy failing fortunes of Genetic Savings & Clone's attempt at cloning a calico cat, it now turns out that we no longer need to worry about whether we can create souls by cloning: as it turns out, even clones are not identical to one another in personality or even appearance. So, if the soul exists, then we have our answer to the question -- at least where calicos are concerned. Perhaps, those worried christians (Author's Note: I would say fundamentalists but it turns out this is a uniquely christian concern: Muslims in Iran are busily plugging away at cloning & embryonic stem-cell research; it turns out they follow the Biblical & Papal edicts that dictate human life doesn't begin until the blood begins to flow) out there ought to include calico genes into themselves, to protect them from the "evil scientists seeking to steal their souls with their evil bio-witchery". To the careful observer: there's a flaw in that logic somewhere; but if you haven't noticed it this Author, for one, isn't going to share where.

Read More:
-- On Bio-Luddism
-- On Secularism
-- Converging Nano/Bio-tech, and the Energy Future
-- Follow-Up: The Fascism of the FDA