If a cloned human is created at lab. where does his soul come from ?

[Roymond]

10 hours ago, Selah7 said:

I don’t believe our Father in heaven would give a spirit to something He didn’t create.

There's nothing in existence that He didn't create, so clones would be no different.

 

[Roymond]

9 hours ago, Selah7 said:

Man may be able to clone, but who knows what the consequences will be.  I wonder what a cloned person would think about the following Scripture:

For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them.

- Psalm 139:13-16 

Probably that some of it plainly applies to 'normal' humans, but mostly it still works.

[BeyondET]

31 minutes ago, Roymond said:

There's nothing in existence that He didn't create, so clones would be no different.

 

Would computers qualify 🤔 

[BeyondET]

Seems artificial intelligence robots etc., pretty much bypasses the need for cloned humans, technically isn't that what they are, probably one day biological AI.

Main issue with cloning humans is with the spindle proteins, only certain animals can be cloned.

Edited February 11, 2023 by BeyondET

[Roymond]

15 hours ago, Tristen said:

I don't think this is cloning. But it raises a host of other ethical issues. 

The described goal in itself isn't cloning; cloning would be for the purpose of confirming that the divided cells will continue to divide naturally.

In fact I recall a bit of a furor over something like this a number of year back when word leaked that some lab team had actually taken cells from a "test-tube baby" (which they didn't have authority from the parents to do) and let them grow for ten weeks, at which point they stopped the growth and examined (I presume dissected) the tiny body -- two huge ethical violations! which prompted the adopting of guidelines for such research.

But at any rate the results apparently established that if you take four or so cells away from a blastocyst they will continue dividing as though they were a complete embryo.

15 hours ago, Tristen said:

 

They are just small strings of single-stranded DNA (usually 20 bases or-so) that are designed on a computer and constructed in a lab. They attach to a specific part of the host DNA to start the DNA replication process for PCR.

 

So they're artificially-constructed copies of one of the two strands of DNA that latch onto the corresponding section of DNA once the strands have separated, and the places they match up with serve as borders to mark a section of DNA to be duplicated?

Edited February 11, 2023 by Roymond
adding clarifying words

[Roymond]

15 hours ago, Tristen said:

I am doubtful that there are any viable solutions to make cloning consistent - especially human cloning.

If you mean taking DNA from an adult to try to make a copy of that adult, yes; I noted the near-impossibility of ever achieving that.

That reminds me of a comment about such cloning back when there were so many failures happening with animal cloning:  a biologist noted that the problem is that the DNA being used is already 'aged', and wryly commented that we'll probably achieve cloning within five years of figuring out how to make people age backwards.

[Roymond]

9 hours ago, BeyondET said:

Would computers qualify 🤔 

As something He created?  Absolutely; as the song goes, "He has created all things".

As sentient beings deserving of a spirit?  My response is "No", but then I don't think that sentient AI is possible unless somehow a human intelligence can be copied onto an AI "brain" (which raises its own questions of course).

[Roymond]

9 hours ago, BeyondET said:

Seems artificial intelligence robots etc., pretty much bypasses the need for cloned humans, technically isn't that what they are, probably one day biological AI.

Main issue with cloning humans is with the spindle proteins, only certain animals can be cloned.

That depends on the purpose of cloning.  If some country wants a million or so cloned males to replace ones that got killed in war so their population is gender-balanced again, robots wouldn't  be much use; if the goal is just more labor then it is pointless.

And there are many reasons in between -- one idea put forth in the late 1990s (if my memory is keeping the years straight) was that each human being would have a clone grown from the same set of early embryonic cells, but with the brain reduced to only what would be necessary for the body to remain alive, to serve as a "parts source" in case a person needed new organs at some point.  Ethical considerations aside, the idea is ridiculous because it would require doubling our food production!

[BeyondET]

54 minutes ago, Roymond said:

That depends on the purpose of cloning.  If some country wants a million or so cloned males to replace ones that got killed in war so their population is gender-balanced again, robots wouldn't  be much use; if the goal is just more labor then it is pointless.

And there are many reasons in between -- one idea put forth in the late 1990s (if my memory is keeping the years straight) was that each human being would have a clone grown from the same set of early embryonic cells, but with the brain reduced to only what would be necessary for the body to remain alive, to serve as a "parts source" in case a person needed new organs at some point.  Ethical considerations aside, the idea is ridiculous because it would require doubling our food production!

Regardless of the purpose, man can't get past the spindle protein loss. It's been tryed and that's what happens.

[Tristen]

3 hours ago, Roymond said:

The described goal in itself isn't cloning; cloning would be for the purpose of confirming that the divided cells will continue to divide naturally.

For me, the purpose and definition of 'cloning' is to generate a physical replicate of the host donor.

 

3 hours ago, Roymond said:

In fact I recall a bit of a furor over something like this a number of year back when word leaked that some lab team had actually taken cells from a "test-tube baby" (which they didn't have authority from the parents to do) and let them grow for ten weeks, at which point they stopped the growth and examined (I presume dissected) the tiny body -- two huge ethical violations! which prompted the adopting of guidelines for such research.

But at any rate the results apparently established that if you take four or so cells away from a blastocyst they will continue dividing as though they were a complete embryo.

If you can remember where you encountered this information, I'd be happy to take a look. I'd make two comments based on what you have described:

1 - I differentiate between 'cloning' and the generation of twins (and also asexual reproduction). As you describe it, this experiment found a way to artificially generate twins. I know that many people describe twins as clones of each other - but I don't think that is useful or precise terminology.

2 - Many of the failed animal clones came to full term and lived for a brief period after they were born. I would therefore suggest that "ten weeks" is inconclusive regarding the long-term viability of the twin generated by this experiment.

 

3 hours ago, Roymond said:

So they're artificially-constructed copies of one of the two strands of DNA that latch onto the corresponding section of DNA once the strands have separated, and the places they match up with serve as borders to mark a section of DNA to be duplicated?

Sounds about right. We've been able to string together DNA base nucleotides for a long time now.

I'd only clarify that you need two primers for a PCR - one for each strand of DNA. They essentially book-end the "section of DNA to be duplicated" (they each mark the starting point of replication - for replication to occur in two directions towards each other).

I would also point out that the "duplicated DNA" is "artificially-constructed" - though typically, initially based on a natural template.

 

3 hours ago, Roymond said:

If you mean taking DNA from an adult to try to make a copy of that adult, yes; I noted the near-impossibility of ever achieving that.

That's what I think of when I hear the term 'cloning'. As I said above, I'm not sure other usages are necessarily helpful.