Of Clones and Bugs

[flwyd]

Isn't it strange
Feels like I'm lookin' in the mirror
What would people say
If only they knew that I was

Part of some geneticist's plan (plan-plan-plan)
Born to be a carbon copy man (man-man-man)
There in a petri dish late one night
They took a donor's body cell and fertilized a human egg and so I say

I think I'm a clone now
There's always two of me just a-hangin' around
I think I'm a clone now
'Cause every chromosome is a hand-me-down

Look at the way
We go out walking close together
I guess you could say
I'm really beside myself

I still remember how it began (gan-gan-gan)
They produced a carbon copy man (man-man-man)
Born in a science lab late one night
Without a mother or a father, just a test tube and a womb with a view

I think I'm a clone now (a clone now)
There's always two of me just a-hangin' around
I think I'm a clone now (a clone now)
'Cause every chromosome is a hand-me-down

I think I'm a clone now (a clone now)
And I can stay at home while I'm out of town
I think I'm a clone now (a clone now)
'Cause every pair of genes is a hand-me-down

Signing autographs for my fans
Come and meet the carbon copy man
Livin' in stereo, it's all right
Well I can be my own best friend and I can send myself for pizza so I say

I think I'm a clone now
Another one of me's always hangin' around
I think I'm a clone now
'Cause every chromosome is a hand-me-down

I think I'm a clone now (a clone now)
I've been on Oprah Winfrey - I'm world renowned
I think I'm a clone now (a clone now)
And every pair of genes is a hand-me-down

I think I'm a clone now (a clone now)
That's my genetic twin always hangin' around
I think I'm a clone now (a clone now)
'Cause every chromosome is a hand-me-down

I think I'm a clone now (a clone now)

-- "Weird Al" Yankovic, "I Think I'm A Clone Now"

I just posted the following comment to a Slashdot story about the 25th birthday of the first "test tube baby." It's somewhat orthogonal to the story, but it's one of the neater thoughts I've had in a while. It's got good philosophical and fictional possibilities.

---

The Mercury article mentioned opposition to cloning and I just had a strike of insight.

Sci-fi "designer babies" ieas tend to assume that parents (with the help of scientists) can determine exactly how their baby will turn out. They just select a default set of genes, add a few they like, and then send it to the manufacturer (er, womb).

Now, as any software engineer will tell you, no code worth anything works the first time. I make embarrasing mistakes on quick 3-line perl scripts, and anything with high complexity requires months (if not years) of coordinated planning, development, extensive testing, and lots and lots of debugging.

Surely constructing a designer person is as complex as, say, Microsoft Office (if not as complex as a Mars Rover). Office had a few bugs, and Microsoft releases patches from time to time. But people are different. Testing a person requires a lot more resource expenditure than running a shell script. You can't just code up a quick prototype and throw it away. And once the person is out in the wild, updates are nigh impossible. I sure don't know how to patch a 7-year-old.

That's not to say the gold standard isn't buggy. Sex has produced some pretty lousy people, in both hardware and software. But evolution is an ongoing develop/test/debug cycle on the scale of millions of years. I don't know many parents who want to wait that long.

Comments

[slyviolet.livejournal.com]

Totally unrelated, but I am going to be needing to ask you a favor relatively soon... Perhaps I will ask you in person, though. Yes, that would probably be the most convenient.
Enigmatic, ne??