Common sense on cloning

Here's a remarkably sensible article on cloning animals for food from William Saletan, who is usually sensible though not always right, at slate.com. He notes the ironies of fears over cloning. The "right" (generally) is terribly upset at the prospect of human cloning, while the "left" (generally though not universally) is terribly upset at the prospect of animal cloning. I suspect the left just is naturally suspicious of anything that looks like it might be good for business.

Elvis, the 19-month-old Angus calf on the Web site of ViaGen, a cloning company, was cl0ned from a side of beef. ViaGen tells farmers that through cloning the properties of their best animals can be reproduced exactly.

The notion that we shouldn't mess with animal genetics is more than a little silly. Humans have been breeding animals and manipulating their genetic properties, with increasing levels of sophistication, for 15,000 years or so. As for safety, the main fear is that cloning, unlike normal reproduction, can fail to reprogram genes for normal embryonic development. But those safety fears haven't been borne out in extensive studies, because if the reprogramming error is serious enough, the animal dies too young to be milked or eaten.

This is not to say there can't be problems with cloning animals for food, or that it isn't legitimate to look very closely at potential problems. But knee-jerk Luddite opposition is just silly.