http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/?p=171260
By Rabia Ahmed Pakistan Today 19 March 2012
Preventing the perfect storm
Noori, the world’s first cloned pashmina goat, arrived fifteen years and several clones after the birth of Dolly, the world’s first cloned mammal.
The fabulous pashmina shawls, made from the fine cashmere wool of the Himalayan pashmina goat have been mentioned even in ancient texts. When, therefore, these goats stopped breeding as prolifically as before, scientists in the Sher-e-Kashmir University used a less high tech method to produce Noori who will hopefully represent an upward turn for a flagging industry.
Even beneficial technology has a flip side and its opponents feel vindicated following incidents such as the dangerous damage to nuclear power plants after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan last year.
Reaction to news of Noori’s birth was no exception: “Yahh Allah!!!”exclaims one reader. “It is wrong to clone...it is not our culture…our religion forbids this...it is un-Islamic...please don't do this...”
Of course this could be a tongue-in-cheek comment by a supporter, but the odds are against it.
Cloning could be dangerous if certain wishes were in the habit of being fulfilled:
“I hope one day I can clone another Dick Cheney,” said George W Bush wistfully.
Ya Allah!
A world teaming with Cheneys or Rumsfelds would be unpleasant. However, Donald Rumsfeld’s tangential statement, “There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don't know,” while it may have murdered the English language applies to cloning as it never did to the issue to which it originally referred, Iraq and its never present weapons of mass destruction.
On the pleasant other hand, there are identical twins. According to Richard Dawkins, a biologist, “Anybody who objects to cloning on principle has to answer to all the identical twins in the world who might be insulted by the thought that there is something offensive about their very existence.”
As with every issue, it all boils down to intent and to the important but difficult question of control, since any time we play God there is a danger of abuse of the privilege. In this case there is the very real danger of bringing procreation to the human level of manufacturing in the absence of serious regulation.
A physicist I spoke to says, “All the evidence from the life sciences indicates that humans are machines that engineer other things. It is inevitable that we will genetically engineer and clone other species and quite possible ourselves as well.”
And on the subject of artificial life that most loaded aspect of cloning, that, ‘the first bacterium are pretty close to actually being created, which may be scary, but the benefits are incredible. You can for example create a bacterium that eats one thing but then creates oil (fuel) or medicine as a waste product. Or one can create viruses that fight cancer. There are some dangers but the benefits are huge.’
To return to Kashmir, Noori the pashmina goat’s homeland, trade in pashmina shawls brings in some $80 million for the region. A dwindling supply of the cashmere wool used in its production, now being imported from China, would mean a drastic reduction in earnings for its people. This will hopefully no longer be the case if the pashmina herds can be augmented with clones.
The authors of the ‘Empires of Food’ have quoted the chief science advisor of the government of UK as saying that by 2030 world demand for food would spike by 50 percent, and water by 30 percent as the population topped 8.3 billion. “It’s a perfect storm,” he said.
Such an eventuality may be a perfect storm in the UK but for the poorer and more populous countries of the world with no Nooris and Dollys to sustain them it would be more of a tsunami, tempest and tornado rolled into one, if, that is, we continue to as Iqbal puts it: haath pay haath dharay muntazir e farda ho…wait around idly for tomorrow.
A blind negativity indicates a failure to appreciate the invaluable examples of genetic engineering in our daily lives: the grafted fruit, the life saving medical benefits both now and in future, as well as the animals we all use and consume…genetic engineering is heavily relied upon in animal husbandry, agriculture and medicine.
Human beings have been rearranging nature ever since Cain broke the first clod of earth to bury Abel. The crime was not the burial but the murder.
Dolly of course is now dead. The human race however could use her legacy to live a bit longer on condition that it uses it well.
By Rabia Ahmed Pakistan Today 19 March 2012
Preventing the perfect storm
Noori, the world’s first cloned pashmina goat, arrived fifteen years and several clones after the birth of Dolly, the world’s first cloned mammal.
The fabulous pashmina shawls, made from the fine cashmere wool of the Himalayan pashmina goat have been mentioned even in ancient texts. When, therefore, these goats stopped breeding as prolifically as before, scientists in the Sher-e-Kashmir University used a less high tech method to produce Noori who will hopefully represent an upward turn for a flagging industry.
Even beneficial technology has a flip side and its opponents feel vindicated following incidents such as the dangerous damage to nuclear power plants after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan last year.
Reaction to news of Noori’s birth was no exception: “Yahh Allah!!!”exclaims one reader. “It is wrong to clone...it is not our culture…our religion forbids this...it is un-Islamic...please don't do this...”
Of course this could be a tongue-in-cheek comment by a supporter, but the odds are against it.
Cloning could be dangerous if certain wishes were in the habit of being fulfilled:
“I hope one day I can clone another Dick Cheney,” said George W Bush wistfully.
Ya Allah!
A world teaming with Cheneys or Rumsfelds would be unpleasant. However, Donald Rumsfeld’s tangential statement, “There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don't know,” while it may have murdered the English language applies to cloning as it never did to the issue to which it originally referred, Iraq and its never present weapons of mass destruction.
On the pleasant other hand, there are identical twins. According to Richard Dawkins, a biologist, “Anybody who objects to cloning on principle has to answer to all the identical twins in the world who might be insulted by the thought that there is something offensive about their very existence.”
As with every issue, it all boils down to intent and to the important but difficult question of control, since any time we play God there is a danger of abuse of the privilege. In this case there is the very real danger of bringing procreation to the human level of manufacturing in the absence of serious regulation.
A physicist I spoke to says, “All the evidence from the life sciences indicates that humans are machines that engineer other things. It is inevitable that we will genetically engineer and clone other species and quite possible ourselves as well.”
And on the subject of artificial life that most loaded aspect of cloning, that, ‘the first bacterium are pretty close to actually being created, which may be scary, but the benefits are incredible. You can for example create a bacterium that eats one thing but then creates oil (fuel) or medicine as a waste product. Or one can create viruses that fight cancer. There are some dangers but the benefits are huge.’
To return to Kashmir, Noori the pashmina goat’s homeland, trade in pashmina shawls brings in some $80 million for the region. A dwindling supply of the cashmere wool used in its production, now being imported from China, would mean a drastic reduction in earnings for its people. This will hopefully no longer be the case if the pashmina herds can be augmented with clones.
The authors of the ‘Empires of Food’ have quoted the chief science advisor of the government of UK as saying that by 2030 world demand for food would spike by 50 percent, and water by 30 percent as the population topped 8.3 billion. “It’s a perfect storm,” he said.
Such an eventuality may be a perfect storm in the UK but for the poorer and more populous countries of the world with no Nooris and Dollys to sustain them it would be more of a tsunami, tempest and tornado rolled into one, if, that is, we continue to as Iqbal puts it: haath pay haath dharay muntazir e farda ho…wait around idly for tomorrow.
A blind negativity indicates a failure to appreciate the invaluable examples of genetic engineering in our daily lives: the grafted fruit, the life saving medical benefits both now and in future, as well as the animals we all use and consume…genetic engineering is heavily relied upon in animal husbandry, agriculture and medicine.
Human beings have been rearranging nature ever since Cain broke the first clod of earth to bury Abel. The crime was not the burial but the murder.
Dolly of course is now dead. The human race however could use her legacy to live a bit longer on condition that it uses it well.
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