Dredging up thoughts from the past.

Thoughts. 7/13/03 2:23 pm

Having read an article in the Economist on the fetus being the father of our infirmities in older age. This being my 50th birthday and all, it seemed to strike a cord in me. The thought that we are programmed from incidences that occur during our fetal stages and perhaps just after birth was like a lightening bolt to me. The explanation that as we are forming, decisions are being made that are not consious decisions but predicated on the health of the mother and enviromental factors. We are a compilation of our pasts. Just like decisions made today will be forces that make future events happen or more likely. These factors are like a death nell to cloning. Consider 2 cloned eggs placed in 2 different wombs under differing circumstances. One womb/mother is healthy, eats healthy & medical care is readily available. The other womb/mother is on a subsistance diet with no medical care at all. Are we going to have identical clones? No... And that is the genius of this lightening bolt. Uniqueness. Even if one were to consider using one surrogate mother and implanting her with the viable cloned eggs, one birth following the other by a 9 month term there would be differences. Health issues, diseases, stress, diet are things that would factor in the changes/decisions that the fetus would be lncurring. Nothing would be exactly as the previous/future embreyo. Cloning is not something that nature will allow.