| IMHO..
There are some intriguing possibilities, however I think it is very dangerous to meddle with. DNA is an incredibly complicated thing - it seems simple to look at, but any change may have any number of cascading effects which may not be immediately apparent. What if, for example, sequences are being tinkered with which affect improved long-term memory, etc and which seem to be going fine, but over the course of decades, it is discovered that some other underlying brain function was adversely affected (say, long term memory in old age, for example)? Such an effect could only be discovered once the subject has reached old age. By that time the subject may have already had children, grand children, great grand children, all of whom may be carriers for the modified DNA sequence and before you know it, you've got issues with propagation of an undesirable trait which would never have naturally occurred in the first place.
My suspicion is that if pursued, human cloning and DNA manipulation may yield some positive results but will inevitibly lead to complications. It may potentially open the door to previously unknown genetic diseases or organisms that take advantage of some genetic weakness as a result of tampering. It may introduce undesirable features into the general human DNA pool. The risks are too great because our understanding of what complex coding is involved is too limited to realistically make sound judgements. | |
