Look out Tianjin! (Didn’t you have those huge chemical explosions recently?) Biotech company Boyalife is planning to churn out tons of cloned beef in your neighbourhood. We can hear the cheers of hamburger-lovers across the Middle Kingdom, but don’t get ahead of yourself, here are a few worrying facts regarding China’s cow cloning.
Firstly, ethics. Whether you believe in a deity or not, should people be playing God? If smart people and a decades-long debate have not arrived at a global ethical consensus, the choice certainly should not be left to the profit-driven private sector.
Secondly, can any government be trusted to responsibly lead the human race into the cloning era? Let’s be frank, China doesn’t have a superb track record in certain things. Melanin poisoning. Slavery in the brick industry. Metal dust explosion in Kushan. Pipeline explosion in Qingdao. Tianjin chemical explosions. Several of the most polluted cities on earth. Anecdotal evidence isn’t encouraging.
Most questionably, it’s not just about beef. Boyalife’s CEO has come out and said they may clone humans eventually. That’s worrying in any country. And raises even bigger questions within China, with its decades-long one-child policy – which let’s not forget – was because they felt people were already making too many people.
With all the uncertain ethics and unanswered questions, the cloning debate cannot be settled easily.
You may say, “well, people need to eat.” Well, humanity has gotten this far without cloning for food. Admittedly, there hundreds of millions of malnourished people, but Boyalife’s cloned beef isn’t likely to reach them anyway. So making more meat won’t solve global hunger. And given that cows are the single-biggest contributor to global greenhouse gases – in the form of methane – more beef is not a solution, but a brand new problem.
Add the fact that most of the scientific community agrees overpopulation is the single-biggest threat to the human race, and cloning (be it beef, or eventually human) looks even more questionable.
Don’t think overpopulation is a huge problem? Here’s what global wildlife expert David Attenborough, renowned writer Isaac Asimov, and legendary physicist-rockstar Stephen Hawking think.
Anyone who entertains the idea of cloning humans (or even considers it) has a lot more explaining to do. Cloning is like Pandora’s box. You open it. You don’t like what’s inside. Too late. This could be our future, people. Chew on that next time you tuck into a juicy hamburger.
