A wacky doctor has decided to clone late musician John Lennon using the musician’s tooth. When this news first came out , it made pretty big headlines, but is it possible? We decided to delve into the possibility and the overall effects of human cloning.
How did this idea start? Well, Canadian dentist Michael Zuk decided to purchase John Lennon’s tooth for $30,000. One would ask why a dentist would buy a musician’s tooth for that much money, but we now know that Zuk had something grander in mind than presumably framing it on his office wall.
Zuk has plans to clone Lennon using the musician’s tooth. He explains his crazy logic in one sentence: “If scientists think they can clone mammoths, then John Lennon could be next.”
In May the question of whether or not humans could be cloned was up for debate. Live Science reported that scientists do believe, that while it’s unethical, humans can be cloned.
This topic has been debated for decades, so much that the ethics behind cloning were brought up in the Sci Fi film Cloud Atlas. In a portion of the film, there’s a genetically cloned Sonmi 451, who was created to solely serve as a prostitute. The film revealed that although these were clones, that they still had feelings, and human empathy, which proved to be a conflicting combination when treated as servants.
So far it’s unknown what Zuk’s progress is in terms of cloning John Lennon, but UK researcher Kevin Smith thinks human cloning may not be all that bad “The scenario of multiple, identical copies of people is something that the media tend to latch on to, while missing [the technology’s] real potential, i.e. genetic modification.”
On the other side of the coin, we may lose the very unique code that makes us different. According to research, “in human cloning, all human beings will be identical. Which means that entire human is at a risk of getting infected by the same type of pathogen. In scientific point of view, if every one has the same type of genes and they are closed to each other they may not defend against the same kind of serious disease. Then cloning will be detrimental in terms of a great disaster.”
Do you think Michael Zuk will be able to clone John Lennon? Better yet, do you think this is a good idea?