July 8th, 2010

Dolly’s Descendants

I just watched a really interesting documentary on the Explorer channel.  They were talking about cloning, genetic modification and stuff like that.  Human antibodies being manufactured in cow’s blood, mice that could regenerate damaged tissue just like a salamander can grow a new leg, a cure for aids that comes from algae but can be produced en masse by growing it inside tobacco plants and a host of other miracles.

The one thing that really struck me was when they were walking through a barn full of cattle, some sturdy British breed with long, brown hair, and they said, very off-handedly, all of these cows are clones.  Now, I remember all the hoopla when Dolly the cloned sheep was born 14 years ago.  The arguments raged as to whether we were tampering with nature and/or the will of God, whether this would lead to medical miracles or not, and whether one of these arguments outbalanced the other.

I’m pretty much on the “let science go for it” side of the argument.  I don’t like the idea of testing cosmetics on animals, I don’t like the idea of battery chickens, geese with tubes stuck down their throats, or pigs raised in concrete feed lots, which are an environmental disaster and not so pleasant for the pigs, either.  Basically, I don’t like cruelty to animals.

I’m not in PETA, I eat meat, I wear leather and, as I wrote here a couple of days ago, I occasionally visit a zoo.  But if raising a cow with a couple of human kidneys inserted into it will save somebody from a life attached to a machine, I’m all for it.  Especially since the cows didn’t seem too bothered.  (You can tell when animals aren’t happy.  They can’t talk, but they let you know.)

Still, the debate continues.  In America, especially, religious fundamentalists try to block everything and are often quite successful.  Stem cell research in the U.S. is way behind stem cell research in England, for instance.  And that was the other takeaway I got from this program.  The thing that will save the human race is that we have different countries and different cultures with different restrictions.  If Americans insist on being jerks about stem cell research, other countries will pick up the mantle.  The cause of women’s rights will advance because not all the world is Islamic and television knows no borders.  The Hindu caste system will not survive once untouchables manage to leave the country and go someplace where they are not untouchable.

What works works and people will eventually accept it.