“but there’s really no tangible scientific evidence for the existence of a “soul””

by soul i mean, “the little thing” that make me exist, even if i’m just matter, i’m here, i am existing, thinking, I AM.

what i mean was, those cow are no different from regular cow

spirit, soul, cousciousness, me, it’s all the same for me

Either way, I do detect a trace of thee old “sarcasm” in Xacur’s post… something people on the interbutts seem to have a hard time picking up on.

In any event, doing a little more reading, it seems that much of this argument is moot – the cloned animals will be used for breeding stock. Which I guess makes far more sense.

The argument that it’s a living cow and therefore due to the complexity of “being alive” is proof that it’s safe is pretty weak – Typhoid Mary was a living Mary and look what happened there.

Currently, cloning is far from foolproof, and most evidence points that there is some abnormalities at the cell level reproduction (Dolly the sheep developed autoimmune problems very early in her life, other clones have reproduction problems, etc). Does that directly translate into danger at the food level – probably not, but the key word is probably.

Personally I’ll let others be the guinea pigs and wait a few years.

There is no rock-solid proof as in a mathmatical proof or something. It can only proved as in “deemed safe enough based on everything we currently know and have observed”. Similar principle to drug approval. If something wierd turns up in the future, the topic of safty of this type of food would probaby be reevaluated.

Look, we can probably eat a retarded cow, or even one with, say, Huntington’s disease (genetically transmittable and gets worse with every generation; ok, ok, I don’t know if cows can really have Huntington’s disease, just an example). Anyway, so something went “wrong” with their DNA, but I would think it would make no difference to us because it all gets digested in our tummies. Meat is meat. You know, like Soilant Green. If, say the cells of the cow contained a gene that produce cholera toxin, yeah, I might not eat it (but maybe the cow wouldn’t live in the first place).

I would hope that those who are doing the cloning would have pretty good control over whether their animals contain any genes that might code for something harmful.. It’s in their interest to do so, economically, that is.

So, yeah, I’d eat cloned beef. It probably tastes exactly like the real stuff. I mean EXACTLY.

Nope, seems like a fair call to me these days….

“no, i never said “doesnt go wrong””

You’re right – you said “don’t* go wrong.” Can you elucidate on the difference here?

*Actually you said “dont”, which is not a word I am familiar with. I see “cant” often, and wonder why the references to slopes or angles…

Oh, and for anyone wanting a little more beef in the argument, the FDA doesn’t see a problem either:
“After six years of intensive research on whether meat, muscle tissue and milk from cloned animals are fit for human consumption, the FDA says they “are as safe as food we eat every day.”"

calves born with 2 head are rare, but they are shown on TV more often than the other 1.5billion cows.

so you’re saying correctly replicating 3billion DNA bases, then correctly attaching them to another 3billion DNA bases(which were also replicated), then successfully going through birth close to 3 out of 4 times, isnt efficient?

“I reiterate, your proof is..?”

Mcdonald’s.

Case closed

Or why calves are born with 2 heads, or 6 legs, or albinism, or… or… or….

And those are just the surviving (well, aside from anencephalic fetii) examples. In humans, 1 in 4 pregnancies ends in miscarriage in the first 6 weeks, and about half of those miscarriages have been shown to be due to chromosomal disorders in the fetus.

So yes, tons of things can and do go wrong, routinely, with natural reproduction.

virus/germs are way too complex, therefore its nearly impossible for some kind of random mutation to give rise to them.

IMO, eating a cloned cow is safer than buying milk from china(low blow~)

the only difference betxen a clone and a regular one is theyr birth

There is no need to be afraid that some sort of “scary virus/germ” will emerge from the cell-multiplication-gone-bad. The chance of that happening is equally big as in nature, which is basically 0 anyway.

I do agree with the labelling of cloned products though. Because some people might have moral issues with it and therefore will not want to eat such “lab”-meat.

And to do a wild prediction for the future. I think that eventually we’ll be going to eat meat that has not been attached to a cow at all. I’m sure that eventually we’ll just be eating cells that have been cultivated as some type of meat (sirloin, entrecôte, T-bone) as one huge slab of tissue, never having been attached to something that had legs and a brain and could walk around eating grass.

Personally, I’d maybe eat it, if it’s specially labeled and if it has quality and price advantadges over normal meat. But even then probably not regularly.

We eat too much meat anyway, especially here in Germany. ^^