Genetics today is on the cutting edge of biological science, and scientists working in this area are involved in a wide variety of pursuits that will have profound implications for our future on this planet, with projects including the creation of new biologic entities, curing diseases, manufacturing synthetic versions of biologic substances, identifying different genetic codes and what they do, and perhaps finding a way to control that genetic information to produce animals with certain characteristics or without certain characteristics, including greater strength, resistance to disease, and a higher yield in meat, eggs, dairy products, or whatever they provide. Geneticists have already accomplished many of these things with grains, plants, and even certain farm animals. They are addressing disease through the creation of new strains of bacteria by means of recombinant DNA technology. Speculation about the future may be surpassed by the reality in a very few years. Cloning is one of the techniques being used in genetic research and offers the promise of the development of new strains of plants and animals with specific traits. Cloning and other genetic research is also applicable to human beings, and this raises a number of ethical issues which have to be addressed before such research proceeds--if it is to proceed at all. Indeed, there is good reason to decide in favor of caution if not an outright ban on the engineering of human beings.
The word "clone" is derived from the Greek "klon," meaning twig or slip. Clone refers to asexual reproduction, or vegetative reproduction. The cloning of plants is an established practice because of the ease with which plants are propagated or cloned from a twig or a slip:
The edible part of the potato is an expanded stem known as a tuber, which, like other stems, has a number of buds or eyes. When placed in soil, each bud is capable of yielding an entire plant, and the crop so pr...