# Hello everybody
![stormtrooper-1343772_1280.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmcLpkUjP2yBJEftYFpiYimzxZRpCmmbS9rJgHjf5K3YM7/stormtrooper-1343772_1280.jpg)
*pixabay.com*

So I was reading a question on quora today, as is my usual routine, I was looking for a weird, scientific or crypto related question that I could answer.

I came across a question that intrigued me:

**If a criminal creates a clone of herself that has all of her memories of a murder, is clone guilty of the crime? What if the clone doesn't know she is a clone?**
[Quora question](https://www.quora.com/If-a-criminal-creates-a-clone-of-herself-that-has-all-of-her-memories-is-the-clone-also-guilty-What-if-the-clone-doesnt-know-that-shes-a-clone-Is-your-verdict-fair-to-the-clone-and-the-victim)
> Quite an interesting discussion opened up there, and a lot of sides were taken. I would also throw to through the question out here as well to steemians. Whats your answer to this question?
For me I believe a clone , whether with the memories or not, was not the individual that committed the crime. A clone may look exactly like another individual, but cloning tests from animals have shown that while the physical attributes will be exactly the same, biology and life in general has shown that it is impossible for two people, clones or not to have the same intentions. The moment the clone opened her eyes, she is exposed to a different environment, different stimuli, different interactions. The pathway of the clone becomes different from that of her predecessor.


# Cloning in a bit
That aside, the question led me to study deeper about the process known as cloning. 

It is the stuff of science fiction, the most recognized being star wars, where clones are pretty much central to the plot of the movie. The topic has been touched in star wars, westworld, aliens have been cloned such as the movie *aliens* *avatar* , animals have been cloned in *jurassic park* *godzilla*, even in video games such as hitman.

**So what is cloning**
Biologically speaking, clones are genetic copycats, every single bit of DNA is identical between the original and clone(s) and unlike what sci-fi movies often lead you to believe, clones exist naturally, in the form of identical twins.(A single egg split two ways, so the genetic materials is exactly the same between the two, however environmental factors, and so many other things shape the personality,  physical attributes and way of life of the two)

There are a number of methods used for cloning, two of which include 
> artificial twinning
> Somatic cell nucleus transfer

## artificial twinning
In the early stages of child formation, literally the first few days after a sperm fertilizes an egg, the embryo is made up of unspecialized cells. In normal conditions, this either randomly divides forming natural twins, or stays in one piece and becomes a single child.

However, in artificial twinning, these artificial cells are separated by way of *science* and grown separately in petri dishes, before being put into a surrogate mother and born as twins.

## Somatic cell nucleus transfer(SCNT)
This really involves the collection of cells from an grown organism, and infusing the chromosomes into an egg(reproductive egg). Now from high school biology, we know that multicellular organisms have two types of cell(which then subdivide into the various other cells that exists)
Somatic cells, which have two sets of chromosomes and germ cells which have one set. Germ cells are the reproductive cells.  Having said that, a quote from a website explains cloning from somatic cells quite well.

> *SCNT cloning procedure*
> *Somatic cell: A somatic cell is any cell in the body other than sperm and egg, the two types of reproductive cells. Reproductive cells are also called germ cells. In mammals, every somatic cell has two complete sets of chromosomes, whereas the germ cells have only one complete set.*

> *Nuclear: The nucleus is a compartment that holds the cell's DNA. The DNA is divided into packages called chromosomes, and it contains all the information needed to form an organism. It's small differences in our DNA that make each of us unique.*

> *Transfer: Moving an object from one place to another. To make Dolly, researchers isolated a somatic cell from an adult female sheep. Next they removed the nucleus and all of its DNA from an egg cell. Then they transferred the nucleus from the somatic cell to the egg cell. After a couple of chemical tweaks, the egg cell, with its new nucleus, was behaving just like a freshly fertilized egg. It developed into an embryo, which was implanted into a surrogate mother and carried to term. (The transfer step is most often done using an electrical current to fuse the membranes of the egg and the somatic cell.)*

[cloning in a nutshell](http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/cloning/whatiscloning/)
![somatic-cell-nuclear-transfer.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmQ97dV4JAiBBasPdiHciJaKC76uACrLwrCHSAoDtpyrs7/somatic-cell-nuclear-transfer.jpg)
[Picture source](https://www.papermasters.com/somatic-cell-nuclear-transfer.html)
To date, quite a number of animals have been cloned. Some for scientific research, and others for not-so-scientific research.
The list include animals like a monkey, cattles, a camel born in 2009, cats, commercially available dogs from south korea, a gaur(an endangered species), horses, rabbits sheep and some others.
[Animals cloned](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_that_have_been_cloned)

It isn't a very successful operation or venture when it comes to cloning, and reading through the article, you can see that certain animals(cattle and dogs for example) are more accepting to cloning procedures than others.

# Me and my clone
![me_and_my_clone_by_coralinexnorman303-dakbfrw.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmfAGW1bg1k2vEdCiKwRmAXzpvzGH6ucfnFjV6VrDUDnh7/me_and_my_clone_by_coralinexnorman303-dakbfrw.jpg)

[gravity x2](https://coralinexnorman303.deviantart.com/art/Me-and-My-Clone-638787740)
So if all these animals have been cloned, some rightly surviving only a few minute, and others surviving a lifetime, what stops us from cloning humans?

What is that which stops me from having my personal clone who can do all my bidding while the real me sits at home and eat my face fat?

Well;

The truth is, there are a lot of sides when it comes to human cloning, and just like how animal disease testing vs human disease testing is a stuff or controversy, so too is human cloning.
Going over that wall to **"create"** a human is a big step for humanity. Sure when it comes to cloning of sheep, cattle and other animals, many do not seem to care, afterall, we have belittled animals so much that they are our food, our pets, our sports. 

The problem runs deep, and as many would put it, it is a matter of religion, ethics, morality, scientific possibilty etc.

Not to offend anyone, but ill be speaking really freely.
Religiously speaking, some of the larger outcry against cloning comes from the fact that the souls would have no *soul*. Different religion have their different concept of what a *soul* is, but i suppose it is that which makes someone *alive* the essence of life, of living. Dolly the sheep didnt have no soul, but she didnt turn out to be a lifeless killing machine or something, neither did any cloned animal thus far become a demon spawn, hell bent on world destruction.(just making a tight joke here, I'm a christian please ehn biko).

No, in terms of religion, i do not think we have to worry about much, except that we would be playing god.

A more pressing concern why human cloning should not be done would be the moral and ethics behind it. Like the question dropped at the beginning, if i knew my clone would be the one getting in trouble for my wrong dids, I would simply line them up, and commit crimes on a spree, or you know, use my clone to evade police and the aw, all the while committing crimes. My clone would be my alabi, "no officer, i was in my hotel room under tight surveilance".

A market for clones *would* erupt. Clones would be sold as cheap labour, I could make a clone to transfer my brains to when i am old, i could make a clone simply to harvest the organs, i could make a clone to skip out of work. 

# *my favorite - a **clone army** :D*

Humans as we are are not just responsible enough to take care of another human being. Will the rights attributed to the originals be given to the clones? Would we relegate clones to second class citizens?

All manner of questions arises when cloning humans, scientifically right now, cloning humans and primates is a veryndifficult process, and trully, the only reason why commercial clones arent available right now is because profit isnt there to be made. Robots are a much better choice as of right now, even though A.Is uave their own flaws.

Who knows what the future holds, maybe humans could be flash cloned and sentboff to explore the cosmos on our behalf. Maybe the future could see a giant human organ cloning industry.

# maybe we already have clones among us, and we just dont know:D

# Thanks
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