A very thought provoking article and well researched

@vanessahampton ! human cloning is tempting on a therapeutic level, stem cell technology is a kind of cellular cloning and may offer many (if not all) advances medicine, when perfected.

Human cloning

also seems narcissistic and dangerous. Ask why complicated organisms generally use sexual reproduction as reliable method. I say generally, because some 50 species of reptile and (it's thought perhaps some dinosaurs could in times of stress) asexually reproduce through a process known as obligate parthenogenesis like stick insects do. Studying how they get around the DNA degradation could provide useful answers that the Nexus 6 models might have found useful in BladeRunner.

Genes accumulate many mutations over a lifetime.

It's estimated that between 100-150 per generation. Not that much per se. If we simply cloned ourselves to have children it seems to immediately break the basic law of nature which says every child has 4 lines of grandparent DNA to create itself from and instead you would just make a copy of yourself which is already degraded.

Over a few generations this could be catastrophic

so there's seems a fairly obvious answer that cloning ourselves is kind of not really the answer to infertility and who wants to clone themselves anyway ? I mean my daughters are already enough like me in both physical characteristics and temperament, I'm glad they have plenty of traits from their Mum ! the fact that zygotes are beginning to be developed from skin cells in stem cell research is a) amazing and b) seemingly more in line with the natural order.

I love evolution as proposed by Darwin.

So easy a kid can understand the baisc. It seems to be a Universal like maths and although I think it's actually a very simplified model of a much more complex and active / retro-active mechanism of nature, I can't help thinking that humans are an odd fit to nature in so many ways that perhaps something exterior; a godlike entity with advanced knowledge did (maybe just maybe) once upon a time in the dark past of our collective beginnings, alter something already present to create us. (It would explain a lot of things). It is a tantalising idea; the ancient alien theory. We may be standing on the edge of being able to perform these chymeric procedures ourselves but that affinity with the idea of Godlike entities, may simply be a predisposition which comes from our own collective experience of our own individual infancy when understandably, we worship our Godlike parents with their seemingly magical powers, omnipotence and larger than life physical stature. To my 1 year old daughter I am 20 foot tall in her world as my parents were to me and my skills are like magic. Even the relatively simple act of enabling her to fly effortlessly through the air.. so you get my idea anyway..

Would we have a reason

to create a species of beings by subtly altering a creature with some of our DNA ? perhaps it would be easy to justify creating a human like race for many different reasons. Even if it were just a routine way to make sure our DNA survived in as many places; planets / solar systems & Galaxies as possible. But I have digressed. If we are soon to become Godlike entities, we best clean up our sh@t first. It just wouldn't do would it. Yes we evolved to become superhuman but we filled the ocean with plastic, drastically altered our biome, caused a mass extinction and denuded the landscape on our inglorious journey. I'll shut up now :) thanks for the inspiration to waffle !