Cloning Gods' Creations

I recently read an article about cloning in the Seattle Times newspaper.
The sub-headline read:
“Animal clones have proved far more complex than mere “doubles” – opening the new lines of genetic research and holding the promise of medical advances. But mysteries and controversy linger.”

The essence of this story is about an FDA announcement in December 2006 that meat from cloned cattle, pigs and goats s is safe to eat.

Samples of cloned beef and ordinary beef, required for the testing by the U.S.. Food and Drug Administration were provided by a company named Cyagra.

This is an American company in the cloning business that charges $17000 for a healthy cloned calf. Even they admit cloning for food isn’t financially viable at this time but there is no explanation of the need to have FDA approval.

It was 10 years ago Scottish scientists introduced “Dolly” the cloned goat to the world.

Dolly died at 6 suffering from arthritis and lung disease.

Cyagra Z, one of the American companies first clones, died in late January. She had gone from 1000 pounds down to 500 pounds and died of unknown causes.

In the 10 years since Dolly, cloning has revealed that clones are not identical to the DNA donor they are produced from and in the case of Cyagra Z, she was half the size of her DNA donor.

From here on the story gets more complicated as involved clone scientists explain they now know there is epigenetic code which is written by proteins and other chemical structures that surround or attach to DNA and determine how the code is read.
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Doesn’t it seem that so often we hear in news stories that we can trust information if it is based on ‘good’ science.
It’s a deceiving premise when as Christians we know that only Gods science is complete and that man’s science is simply a step by step process of discovery.
We are dazzled and amazed at the incredible discoveries that scientists make.
The concept of intelligent design is impacting more scientists these days as being the only logical explanation for some of the intricate perfection they discover.

Yet we commonly hear of how science makes good science discoveries and then months or years down the road replace that science with some more good science.

The cloning science reported in this article is by its own admission incomplete.
Yet I don’t understand the desire to approve food for human consumption that so little is known about.

With a sociologist now the Liberal Leader of Canada, its time for voters to prepare themselves to be manipulated for their votes on a level they have never experienced before.
To have any possibility of understanding what this means a little sociological kindergarten should be compulsory for everyone of voting age.
Unless of course you have a sociologist in your midst.
If so it may be too late …you have to vote Liberal just to keep yourself out of therapy.

Having only received a few glancing blows from contact with a sociologist in training ..read, studying for a PHD, I was able to turn on my computer and google to an enlightening website as I fought off the urge to declare allegiance to the Big Red L party.

So just what do sociologists believe?
How do they think?
What kind of soil are they rooted in?

The one thing I discovered when having a discussion with my sociologist friend is that it was very difficult to have a very enlightening conversation. That sociologist intellect provided such a higher insight on any worthy subject that it was difficult to communicate intelligently on any level lower than their own. And it seemed to me that if I did make a good point, the response became a plethora of large words that the whole point of the conversation wound down to an uncomfortable silence of change of topic.

Cutting back to the political scene, I was amazed how quickly Mr. Dionne was able to create sociological momentum in the way of casting out the spectre of Prime Minister Stephen Harper as the “worst” Prime Minister ever in terms of his environmental record.

Suddenly it seemed nearly every news commentary and government related story had some reference to global warming, and the incredible blame that needed to be layed at the feet of the minority government eco terror leader who has changed the course of global climate change in a few short months in power.

This slickly crafted strategy has us average Canadians hardly know what is happening to us. It’s like we have suddenly been given spiritual insight. Of course! The secret plan of that Conservative scoundrel…We should have known there was a diabolical plan hidden in the dark heart of Mr. Harper.

So if Mr. Dionne can uncover this global mystery in his first few weeks isn’t it just common sense knowledge to put this man in control so he can save our great land.

My sociologist friend says a good education provides the opportunity to become a critical thinker. Grasping that thought I head to my google site.

Wouldn’t you know it, critical thinking is mentioned in the first two paragraphs of the web page.
Quickly the page moves to the topic of how sociologists go about socially modifying knowledge.
“The sociology of knowledge involves the social psychology of consciousness and belief. This cognitive branch alerts us to the facts that we live in a second-hand world, that most of what we "know" is generally received uncritically from others, and that models of decision-making must take into account the roles of pluralistic ignorance, emotion, and the bearing of knowledge type (e.g., scientific, religious, commonsensical…”

The simple fact in this statement is that if you have not been taught “critical thinking” then you do not have the capability to decifer what is fact.

The underlying sociological theme we are being drawn into is that there is no right and wrong in the world so we as individuals can choose whatever we think is right.

Once we’re in that mind set we’ll believe anything, even the fact or non-fact that we have the most credible, straightforward, straight talking Prime Minister in Canada in decades.
We’ll even start to believe that we have a Prime Minister who has managed to govern effectively in a minority parliament for a short period of time has somehow managed to create an environmental disaster in Canada.

I think that Mr. Dionne has so little in the way of real issues to deal with that he dug into his sociological mind set to figure out a way of creating a magical mystery tour that will lead the catastrophe of global warming to the Prime Minster’s doorstep.

Sitting in Vancouver in January 2007 with a foot of snow on the ground and -10 I’m thinking global climate adjustment. Global climate adjustment has been with us since the beginning of time and in my house we believe there’s a Big Guy in charge of all of it and His name is not Stephen Harper.

Truthiness. Word of the year for 2006 says Associated Press. Although I SHOULD KNOW BETTER, I was surprised to hear that ''words'' were up for consideration in an Oscar like environment. Guess I missed the original announcement for all the words that were nominated.
I don’t want to discuss the fellow who apparently invented the word and what he says it means. When I heard the word for the first time, it started me thinking about how it reflects on how our world runs in the 21st Century. Less and less on one truth…more and more on truthiness. What is put forth as truth. The entitlement of everyone to have their own truth.

This topic easily could turn into a deep philosophical discussion by using a comprehension defieing tangle of words that everyone except the word smiths who relish the opportunity to express themselves with massive explanations that leave mere mortals with blank expressions thick with a glaze of HUH?

A PHD to be, person I know often pulls out the phrase that goes something like this, ‘the essence of higher education is being enlightened to think critically about everything’.
This concept is very idealistic in the sense that to me it creates the ground rules for everything to be questioned with potential total disregard for the facts. That does not mean that I don’t accept that critical thinking is not an important part of the education process. Thinking that is grounded in finding solutions to problems, determines the facts, sorts out the problem areas and then figures out how those problems can be fixed: Man is very good at this as evidenced by all the technology imbedded in everyday life.

Call me a conspiracy theorist but to me critical thinking seems to be aimed at creating intellectual and spiritual anarchy. In the spiritual vein, preferably people would not acknowledge any god but if they choose to, which ever one they picked is okay because everyone is entitled to believe what they want. Once people are convinced to do that then all the moral codes of conduct rooted in Biblical ‘truth’ can be thrown out.

What I see us left with is truthiness. It eliminates a single truth for anything. If it sounds like the truth to you no one has the right to disagree and they probably won’t. They’ll just be happy with what they think is right.

There must be truth. If there wasn’t, gravity wouldn’t be reliable, 2 plus 2 wouldn’t always be 4 and not everyone would die. So far all the health research in history has not kept one person from dieing. All the honest accountants always get the answer 4 and you will always get to the bottom of the hill on skis, even if you do have a garage sale on the way.

Find truth and accept it whether or not you like the answer. That is where our evolution as human being lies not in popularizing the idea that we’re merely smart animals and a little spirituality of some kind is just a genetic quirk.