This millennium would have been much duller had it not been for the Scottsh scientist Ian Wilmut who surprised the world by cloning a sheep, Dolly, from adult body cells of another sheep; Dolly turned out to be a remarkable success of a cloned living object—the first such attempt made by man to play God. Within weeks, the Americans reported their success with monkeys and the fiercest debate of the century erupted suddenly with its flames leaping to engulf a whole century of ideological, religious and ethical rhetoric. Before we delve into this debate, it would be prudent, particularly for those whose dinner-table conversations do not include the intricacies of genetic engineering, to understand how Dolly came into existence.

Human conception is a process of meeting of genetic material between the sperm and the ovum. At the fusion time, the genetic information contained in the male sperm forms one-half of the future nucleus and the other half coming from ovum. It is not exactly a half and half system; some genes are stronger and other recess but we need not understand these intricacies to appreciate out discussion. What we ought to know is that the genetic roulette played a the time of conception produces a unique human being because the permutations and combinations of the new genetic codes are so many that it is astronomically impossible for the same code to be repeated again. And that’s why we are all different, not only in our physical attributes but also in our intellectual, social and even ethical dispositions. The advances made in the recent years to treat infertility have provided new techniques of in vitro fertilisation where an ovum fertilised outside of womb can be transplanted back into womb. What the scientists have long been hoping for was to use these in vitro fertilisation techniques into making a living being out of their choice. Yes, they could select sperms of any male with desired characteristics but there was no possibility of cloning since it would still have to go through the process of selection at fertilisation. But then, a genius of an idea came to their kind (some call it an evil of an idea). Why use sperm at all. If we need genetic material, why not take it all from a mature body cell, any body cell (we have few trillion of them anyway). So, what they did was to take cells from the udder of a mature sheep and also an ovum from another sheep. They sucked out the nuclear material in the ovum and then under an electric current fused the two cells. Suddenly they had an egg that appeared to be fertilised with complete nuclear coding except that it came from one cell. The support material in the ovum was fooled into thinking that it was a real process of fertilisation and when the ovum was placed in the womb of another sheep, it took roots. Bingo, an identical sheep to the sheep that provided the entire nuclear material came to this world. Man had played its best game of this century--acting God. Not so quick, said many. Clinton immediately banned federal support of all research on human cloning while someone in Belgium announced that they have already done it.

Can humans be cloned? This is one question resonating from legislative chambers to scientific laboratories. The answer is in. Not only is it possible, it is likely before the turn of the century. Why the delay of these 2-3 yearsm ainly because they have to convince women to donate enough ova. It took one thousand ova from sheep to clone one. According to Ian Wilmut human cloning is quite far since there are a lot of failures producing defective forms and doing that would be inhumane. Anyway, we can take aside the scientific debate of its possibility of happening and concentrate on the remarkable and astounding repercussions of this event.

To begin with, let me shock you by telling you that a now woman would no longer need a man to have children and she could deliver as many of her alike as she wanted immaculate conception? It is a narcissist woman’s dream. There is no morality issue of using sperms of another man, the woman can use her nail cuticle to generate another woman like her. To make a male baby, she may have to borrow cells. She will have a choice of buying some of the best cells available in the market soon. It will be entirely possible for a Pakistani women, for example, to give birth to Madonna or Tom Cruise one hundred percent copy. Many scientists question whether we will be able to replicate mental characteristics as well as we would the physical characteristics. These scientists are just fooling themselves into not disbelieving the glaring possibilities of cloning. Neuropharmacologists know that Rene Descartes’ "Ï " resides within the brain and not without. It’s all in the dancing of chemical molecules in the brain that produces sensation of existence. Cloning will produce people that think identically, have identical habits, likes and dislikes and if you are ready to believe, the same ethical standards. And that is quite bothersome to many. However, what is more bothersome is the publicity around the discovery. Would a society be able to produce millions of Einsteins or Hitlers. Some say it is possible to use the genetic material from dead people it appears far fetched. But the implications are not.

Mind boggling, unbelievable, sheer imagination or whatever you may want to call it but cloning has forever changed how we will look at others wondering if they are real or not.