Cloning Through the Ages?

Genetic Engineering In the Movies

1. Jurassic Park

2. Multiplicity

3. Gattaca

Cloning Through the Ages?!

1. Daedalus and Icarus

2. Frankenstein

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: When Dreams  Hit Reality

Poor Victor Frankenstein: by realizing his dream of creating life he spelled his own doom. Victor took body parts from various dead bodies and assembled to form a new body. He used an electrical current to bring the creature to life, and then ran from it in fear because of its grotesque appearance. His creation is helpless, alone in a world where no one understands him. He decides to take out his anger on Victor, killing both his brother and his friend.

The creature then demands that Victor create a companion for him. Victor begins but then destroys the companion, upset at himself for ever doing it in the first place. In return, the creature kills Victor's wife and his best friend. Victor decides to track down the creature, and is discovered near death in the arctic by Captain Robert Walton. Victor dies shortly after he is rescued. The creature comes to see Walton, tells him of his plans to commit suicide, and then leaves again. The shock of all this is too much for Walton, who decides not to go to the North Pole, instead taking his crew back south to their home.
   

What does this have to do with cloning? More than anything in the world, Victor wanted to be the first to create life. Now we Dr. Richard Seed, a scientist who has become a media symbol for a similar dream. Victor didn't seriously take into account the implications of such of feat. No, he didn't care what the creature's life would be like or what society would think of it. If he did he probably wouldn't have created it. Because he chose to create life, Victor ends up dying a sad death, devoid of the people he loved and cared for. Modern society must be very careful how the power of cloning is applied  lest we all end up like Victor.