Is the publics perception about cloning wrong?
Public misconception often happens around cloning. They tie in what they’ve heard about developments in genetics and embryology and assume that they’re one and the same thing. For example, that the human genome project has something to do with cloning – well it doesn’t. Cloning is an embryological technique that has really very little to do with genetics. Its applications are in curing disease. One of the big problems is that on virtually every television programme about cloning, there will be somebody standing there presenting and saying, “what happens if I clone myself?” and an immediate copy will appear next to them. Well, if we ever were to allow cloning to happen for humans we would generate a baby. So, a clone of myself as a forty year old male, would generate a bouncing baby boy. It would be genetically the same as me but would not be what we think of as a clone – it would not be an identikit copy. It would grow up in a new environment and its personality or lots of its genes wo
