detweiler and clones?

I had a bit of fridge logic. If Anton Zilwicki is really right about Detweiler being right, wouldn't that suggest the logical thing to do would be to clone certain exceptional people?

Puidwen wrote:I had a bit of fridge logic. If Anton Zilwicki is really right about Detweiler being right, wouldn't that suggest the logical thing to do would be to clone certain exceptional people?

That assumes that whatever made them exceptional would carry through into their clones (nature vs nurture; but also genetics vs embryonic environment). Cloning isn't a Xerox® machine.

And that's before you get into the morality questions about whether the exceptional individual's rights over their genetics should prevail over society's (presumed) benefit of having more such exceptional individuals around.

And you wouldn't want to over-focus on cloning at the expense of natural genetics; otherwise you lock yourself into only getting what you got before and losing the exceptional fortuitous genetic combinations you might get with trillions of uncontrolled genetic merging (aka conceiving kids naturally)

And, if carried very far runs the very real risks of causing a genetic caste system to evolve (even if an informal one); where folks that aren't clones of exceptional individuals are viewed (possibly even by themselves) as lesser than - as not able to do great things or make major contributions. And that's insidious crap all its own.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Puidwen wrote:I had a bit of fridge logic. If Anton Zilwicki is really right about Detweiler being right, wouldn't that suggest the logical thing to do would be to clone certain exceptional people?

That assumes that whatever made them exceptional would carry through into their clones (nature vs nurture; but also genetics vs embryonic environment). Cloning isn't a Xerox® machine.

To expand on this, some genetic traits only express themselves through epigenetics so just cloning someone who are exceptional in some way doesn't guarantee the clone will also be exceptional unless they are exposed to exactly the same circumstances, experiences and environment as the original.

Just take an example of genetically identically twins, if they grow up in different environments they will also be different in various ways to a certain degree, where one of the twins for example have problems with their weight due to a difference in diet while growing up.

This is one of the pitfalls of genetically engineering people to include specific traits which doesn't necessarily work because some environmental factor is missing when they grow up.

Puidwen wrote:I had a bit of fridge logic. If Anton Zilwicki is really right about Detweiler being right, wouldn't that suggest the logical thing to do would be to clone certain exceptional people?

Joat42 wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:That assumes that whatever made them exceptional would carry through into their clones (nature vs nurture; but also genetics vs embryonic environment). Cloning isn't a Xerox® machine.

To expand on this, some genetic traits only express themselves through epigenetics so just cloning someone who are exceptional in some way doesn't guarantee the clone will also be exceptional unless they are exposed to exactly the same circumstances, experiences and environment as the original.

Just take an example of genetically identically twins, if they grow up in different environments they will also be different in various ways to a certain degree, where one of the twins for example have problems with their weight due to a difference in diet while growing up.

This is one of the pitfalls of genetically engineering people to include specific traits which doesn't necessarily work because some environmental factor is missing when they grow up.

In C.J. Cherryh's Cyteen, various corporate and family interests try to clone the founder and chief scientist of their company after she is killed in an accident, down to replicating certain events on her life in the life of the clone. The results are not exactly what they expect.

Fox2! wrote:In C.J. Cherryh's Cyteen, various corporate and family interests try to clone the founder and chief scientist of their company after she is killed in an accident, down to replicating certain events on her life in the life of the clone. The results are not exactly what they expect.

The same plot as in the film The Boys from Brazil

Puidwen wrote:I had a bit of fridge logic. If Anton Zilwicki is really right about Detweiler being right, wouldn't that suggest the logical thing to do would be to clone certain exceptional people?

Which is exactly what the Detweilers did: B through G Detweiler are clones of A (Albrecht) Detweiler. I don't think the GA would want to emulate those (not that they know about that yet).

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Puidwen wrote:I had a bit of fridge logic. If Anton Zilwicki is really right about Detweiler being right, wouldn't that suggest the logical thing to do would be to clone certain exceptional people?

Which is exactly what the Detweilers did: B through G Detweiler are clones of A (Albrecht) Detweiler. I don't think the GA would want to emulate those (not that they know about that yet).

A really good cloning system would continue to act after growth began so that the epigenetic modifications were duplicated.

Puidwen wrote:I had a bit of fridge logic. If Anton Zilwicki is really right about Detweiler being right, wouldn't that suggest the logical thing to do would be to clone certain exceptional people?

Jonathan_S wrote:That assumes that whatever made them exceptional would carry through into their clones (nature vs nurture; but also genetics vs embryonic environment). Cloning isn't a Xerox® machine.

And that's before you get into the morality questions about whether the exceptional individual's rights over their genetics should prevail over society's (presumed) benefit of having more such exceptional individuals around.

And you wouldn't want to over-focus on cloning at the expense of natural genetics; otherwise you lock yourself into only getting what you got before and losing the exceptional fortuitous genetic combinations you might get with trillions of uncontrolled genetic merging (aka conceiving kids naturally)

And, if carried very far runs the very real risks of causing a genetic caste system to evolve (even if an informal one); where folks that aren't clones of exceptional individuals are viewed (possibly even by themselves) as lesser than - as not able to do great things or make major contributions. And that's insidious crap all its own.

"Cloning" does not adequately express what was being done within the Onion; for example, the Detweilers were the most heavily modified of the various genome lines. Their geneticists were not simply trying to copy exceptional people, they were trying to make them even more exceptional. Although normal reproduction was allowed within the levels (in the hope of a "golden" child); it was considered inefficient, because it more often resulted in a regression to the mean.

The place were the original Detweiler was right was where he wanted to make improvements to humanity as a whole; not as later Detweilers decided to only make improvements to certain human individuals.

phillies wrote:A really good cloning system would continue to act after growth began so that the epigenetic modifications were duplicated.

I've hard time envisioning how that would be possible. Epigenetic development means that genes are switched on and off over time depending on different types of internal and external stimuli and the end result is a long chain of events akin to the butterfly effect.

Joat42 wrote:

phillies wrote:A really good cloning system would continue to act after growth began so that the epigenetic modifications were duplicated.

I've hard time envisioning how that would be possible. Epigenetic development means that genes are switched on and off over time depending on different types of internal and external stimuli and the end result is a long chain of events akin to the butterfly effect.

The question would be how to read the donor's epigenetics to determine how to get a specific result and reproduce them reliably. We certainly can't go back to the mother (at the time of the donor's gestation) and record them there after the fact.

Not saying that's even possible, just that that would be a requirement.

We already know babies are tubed in the Honorverse regularly- and the ability to "healthily" effect the epigenetics is a must during gestation. One could conclude that that such controls are not an issue in the Honorverse in order to produce healthy children that are not all copies of the same pattern, and don't have any bad (or worse) effects in contract to natural birthing.