ZetaTalk: Cloning Bans
Note: written Mar 15, 1997
Humans react to hearing about genetic engineering projects conducted by aliens with horror, not because the results are horrible but because of horror stories they
have been told. Are these horror stories true? Without exception, genetic engineering experiments done by humans have been positive, not negative, resulting in
improved crop yields, less disease, and stronger off-spring. Man’s horror of genetic engineering stems from stories of monster makers such as Frankenstein, which
are fiction.
- Piecing together humans from dead parts is absurd, as the difficulty in getting still living organs to successfully transplant demonstrates. This is a continuous
struggle, with the transplantee’s immune system continually suppressed so rejection does not occur.
- Selective parentage, where the best breeding bull is set among the cows or seed is taken from the highest yielding plants, is indeed the first step toward
genetic engineering, one practiced by man since he began domesticating plants and animals.
- Injecting DNA into cell structure, for adoption, is a step man has taken just recently, resulting in hope for those crippled by genetic diseases such as Cystic
Fibrosis. Here only local cells are altered, much akin to salving a wound, but nonetheless this is a step on the genetic engineering ladder.
- Snipping and replacing DNA is a step we, the Service-to-Other Zetas who are speaking to you here, have long mastered. Should mankind learn this step,
monsters might indeed be produced, but would scarcely live. Nature herself snips and replaces DNA each time a conception occurs, with the egg and sperm
coming together to make a whole. Her mistakes are regularly flushed as natural abortions, and clumsy man would find he could do no better.
- Ancient pictures of half man/half beast creatures have engendered speculation that such creatures were created, perhaps by the ancient gods, the giant
hominoids from the 12th Planet. This is absurd on its face, as genes affect the organism in totality, not selectively. How would a man’s arms and hands be
on top, but hooves be below, when hooves and fingernails are controlled by the same genes?
- Cloning, a recent accomplishment of mankind, is nothing more than an artificially induced conception. If one can mix an egg and sperm, creating a fertilized
egg, one can insert whole DNA into an egg to produce the same result. This is a simple mechanical maneuver, not a feat, and should not elicit fear. What is
the worst that can happen? Another like the other, which God made.
