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 Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2018 4:19 pm
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by Jonathan Sarfati
Headlines are buzzing around the world about the ‘first monkey clones’.1 These were the identical long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) named Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua, born two weeks apart in a Chinese laboratory, in research led by Qiang Sun of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Neuroscience.2
The word ‘clone’ was invented by the evolutionist J.B.S. Haldane, from Greek κλών/klōn, meaning ‘twig’. A clone is defined as a genetically identical copy of an organism produced by asexual reproduction. For example, identical twins are natural clones, produced when a fertilized egg (zygote) divides in two. Note that the identicality is confined to genetics—human identical twins have different fingerprints and personalities.
This means that in one sense, these two monkey babies are not really the first monkey clones. In 2000, headlines proclaimed that a rhesus monkey had been produced by cloning. However, this was just artificial twinning—see New monkey clone? What really happened and what should creationists think?
But what most people think by ‘clone’ is a genetic copy of an adult, or at least an organism developed past the early embryonic stage. Such a clone would be made from the genes in a somatic cell (Greek: σὠμα/soma = body) from the organism.
That is, like the famous Dolly (5 July 1996 – 14 February 2003), the cloned sheep. As we discussed at the time, she was produced by removing the nucleus from a cell from the mammary gland of one Finn Dorset ewe, then transferring it to an oocyte, or immature unfertilized egg cell, of a different sheep, after the cell’s own nucleus was removed.
This fertilized egg was stimulated with an electric shock to stimulate it to divide. It then grew in the womb of a third ewe, a surrogate mother. So, Dolly was born, who was genetically identical to the ewe the nucleus came from—but clearly different from her surrogate mother who was a Scottish Blackface sheep.3
Note that we need not only the DNA but the nucleus of the animal to be cloned, a viable egg cell in which to implant the nucleus. And under current technology, we need a womb as well for the maturation. So although dinosaur DNA fragments have been detected, which would have been impossible if they were really 68 million years old, there is no way that a dinosaur could be cloned from them, contra Jurassic Park/World.
Actually, Dolly was not a total genetic copy, because the cell’s little powerhouses, the mitochondria that contain the ATP synthase motors, have their own DNA. So she was a nuclear clone only—not a mitochondrial clone.
In fact, Dolly’s DNA was so much like the adult that that it even had shorter telomeres, ‘caps’ at the end of DNA molecules that protect the coding regions from damage (from τέλος, telos = ‘ end’ and μέρος, merοs = ‘part’; see Living for 900 years: The countdown to death). At the time, this was thought to be responsible for her premature death, about half the normal lifespan for that breed (see ‘Dolly’ is no babe).
However, this conclusion was premature, based on only one experiment. In fact, Dolly was euthanized because she had a type of contagious lung cancer affecting sheep called ovine pulmonary adenocarcinoma, caused by the Jaagsiekte sheep retrovirus (JSRV). This is readily spread by sheep kept indoors, so it’s better for sheep to be kept outside (even in Bethlehem in December). In fact, four other sheep cloned from the same cell line as Dolly—named Debbie, Denise, Dianna, and Daisy, and born in 2007—were kept outside. Even when they reached 9 years old, much older than Dolly who didn’t make it to 7, they were quite healthy for their sheep age. None had diabetes or hypertension, although one had arthritis but not bad enough to cripple her. So the researchers argued that there is probably some chromosomal renewal during the reprogramming:
On initial inspection, our data in sheep may appear at odds with the health status of Dolly and predictions of premature ageing, which were based on terminal restriction fragment analyses of her genomic DNA20. While telomere length was reduced in SCNT clones relative to age-matched controls in that and subsequent studies in sheep, these effects did not manifest following SCNT in cattle. Further inconsistent reports of shorter telomeres in cloned offspring from other species have led to the consensus that telomere length is generally restored during nuclear reprogramming. The extent of telomere restoration in turn is dictated by intricate epigenetic alterations to telomeric and sub-telomeric chromatin, variation in which could explain discrepancies between species and donor cell types within species. It follows that the relationship between telomere length, health and longevity in multicellular organisms is complex and, for our current cohort of animals, awaits organ-specific cell enrichment and analysis following post-mortem at a future date.4
The researchers euthanized them in 2017, because 10 years is very old for a sheep, and they said they had proved their point that a clone can live a normal lifespan.5 However, we would still expect some greater genetic entropy effects from the mutations accumulated during the life of the animal that was cloned, if this process were repeated over many generations.
These were made using the same process used to make Dolly and her ‘identical twin’ clones, that is, somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). This is actually very hard to do—it took 277 tries to clone Dolly the sheep. So these researchers tried to improve their chances after the transfer by injecting the cell with biomolecules to help the host egg cell reprogram the injected nucleus, so that the embryo can develop.
The researchers tried two sources of donor cell. One was from cumulus cells from an adult monkey—these are cells in a layer surrounding the immature egg cell, a layer that the sperm must penetrate to fertilize the egg. Out of the 181 implanted into 42 monkey surrogate mothers, there were only 17 live fetuses in 12 mothers. Only two of those resulted in live births, and the babies died shortly after that. So this seems to be a dead end, and also provides strong reasons why such methods should never be attempted on human fetuses due to the huge waste-bin of human life that would ensue.
The other source was fetal fibroblast cells. These are cells that generate the material holding body tissues together. 79 of these were implanted into 21 surrogates. Two resulted in healthy live babies, delivered by caesarean section.
In all the babies, as expected, they inherited the nuclear DNA from the nucleus that was transplanted to the egg
That’s what most people want to know. First, a reminder that identical twin humans are natural human clones. But what about artificial human cloning?
We should remember the Dominion Mandate of Genesis 1:28—God gave man dominion over the rest of creation, including animals. God created humans separately, in His image and likeness, unlike the animal kingdom (Genesis 1:26–27). The reasoning for the production of these ‘monkey clones’ was to aid in combatting human diseases on the premise that many apes are similar to humans in terms of the diseases or ailments they suffer. That in itself is not a bad thing. But unfortunately doing such science without this biblical mandate inevitably leads to similar experimentation on humans. That is, ‘nothing is closer than another human, so why not experiment or clone humans?’ This stems from an evolutionary view that humans are just evolved animals, particularly while still in the womb, under the false premise that they are not yet fully human. In the same way we argued that using adult human stem cells to help cure diseases is good, but using unborn humans for spare parts which results in their destruction is immoral, because it results in the murder of the unborn.
Humans were never told to have dominion over other humans, nor manipulate them. Humans should not be experimented on without their consent. Many abuses of humanity throughout history are the result of man outstepping his dominion mandate to oppress other humans, e.g. slavery, prenatal baby butchery (abortion), and euthanasia, and the genocide inflicted during the Holocaust and the man-made famine in Ukraine under Stalin called the Holodomor (Голодомо́р, ‘murder by starvation’).
The Dominion Mandate implies that sheep and monkey cloning are biblically allowable. Whether it’s wise is another matter. Since man is fallen, there is always the possibility that research can be abused. So, careful checks and balances are required. But this is true of many fields of research, not just cloning and other genetic modification. But the Bible also provides the example of Christ curing diseases and disabilities, i.e. alleviating the effects of the curse. So if animal cloning helps to cure human diseases, then it could be a good thing.
Human cloning is a completely different matter. Since it is now a scientific fact that life begins at fertilization or conception, any fertilized human egg is a new tiny human. So an artificial process that generates new human beings knowing that most will be destroyed is deeply immoral. One report of the monkey clones states:
Prof Robin Lovell-Badge of The Francis Crick Institute, London, said the technique used to clone Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua remains “a very inefficient and hazardous procedure.”
“The work in this paper is not a stepping-stone to establishing methods for obtaining live born human clones,” he said.1
And the Roslin Institute of the University of Edinburgh, where Dolly was clones, notes the following:
What are the risks associated with cloning?
Cloned embryos are more likely to be lost during pregnancy than normal embryos, which accounts for the low success rate of cloning. Large Offspring Syndrome (LOS) can also affect some cloned animals. Animals with LOS have growth defects and are considerably larger at birth than animals resulting from natural matings. LOS is more often found in cloned animals from livestock species, such as sheep, than in other cloned animals.
These abnormalities may be caused by the conditions used to grow the cells and embryos in the lab, which might be improved by future research.6
It’s even worse is if clones were destroyed deliberately. Thus cloning humans to harvest organs compatible with a donor, as per the American science fiction-thriller movie The Island (2005), is an abomination—fortunately, the movie portrayed it as such.
But if a human clone were born, it would be a real human, made in God’s image and likeness, so the same rights and responsibilities as anyone else. He or she would not necessarily have the same personality of his or her donor. E.g. a Fidel Castro clone would not necessarily become an atheistic communist mass murderer; instead he could well grow up to be a Christian, free-market capitalist philanthropist.
And any clone would be a descendant of “the first man, Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:45), so would inherit Adam’s sin nature. But this clone would also be related to Jesus Christ, “the last Adam”, another descendant of Adam (Luke 3:23–3 cool , who could thus be his Kinsman-Redeemer (Isaiah 59:20) and Saviour. So clones would also need the Gospel, which is predicated on Creation and the Fall.
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Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2018 6:51 pm
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Emphasis on the underlined, especially the parenthetical statement:
Lady Aryel However, this conclusion was premature, based on only one experiment. In fact, Dolly was euthanized because she had a type of contagious lung cancer affecting sheep called ovine pulmonary adenocarcinoma, caused by the Jaagsiekte sheep retrovirus (JSRV). This is readily spread by sheep kept indoors, so it’s better for sheep to be kept outside (even in Bethlehem in December). [...]
...first of all, I'm assuming he is trying to bring this into the discussion,
Luke 2:7-8 (KJV)
7 And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.
8 And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
...and why: in order to suggest that sheep were out in the fields during the rainy season in Israel [which December falls in]—and trying to defend the December 25th festivity for the Messiah's birth considering that, in Scripture, the lambs were out in the fields the night He was brought forth, ergo December must be a viable date because, "can't keep sheep indoors".
However, there are a number of instabilities in reasoning that arise, which cause us to ignore other Scriptural truth, if we were to suggest this and to suggest JSRV is a reason to keep sheep outside in the fields during December in Bethlehem:
1. the sheep kinds were kept indoors for an entire year during Noah's flood.
Genesis 7:11-12 (NIV)
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.
Genesis 8:13-17 (NIV)
13 By the first day of the first month of Noah’s six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. 14 By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry.
15 Then God said to Noah, 16 “Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives. 17 Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you—the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground—so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number on it.”
So what's a few months...?
2. If the people (even thousands of years after Noah's day) aren't staying outdoors during rain, then much less will they be staying outside for snow—at night.
Ezra 10:13 (NIV)
13 But there are many people here and it is the rainy season; so we cannot stand outside. Besides, this matter cannot be taken care of in a day or two, because we have sinned greatly in this thing.
That is during the day. So, much less will the shepherds be out in the fields—at night—during rainy or snowy weather (if it gets cold enough, that rain turns to snow). December is rainy season in Israel.
The weather in Jerusalem is usually very predictable. There are two distinct seasons in the center of Israel: winter and summer. In between, we're graced with a few delightful weeks of spring.
Fall doesn't really happen much around here - we seem to segue from summer right into winter weather that just gets progressively colder through February. [...]
Winter
Weather in Jerusalem in the winter is a bit less predictable than in the summer.
The wet season starts in November and goes through April. Every few years, we're lucky enough to get a light snowfall and the whole city grinds to a halt so everyone can get out and enjoy the wonder, but most of the time, it just doesn't get cold enough for snow.
http://www.jerusalem-insiders-guide.com/weather-in-jerusalem.html
Rainy season (Nov. to Apr): November—December—January—February—March—April
And that's a modern tourist guide to modern Israel. So when it speaks of it not snowing most of the time (in modern Israel), it's more than plausible to presume that it snowed more often back in the day considering the climate has been getting warmer in the past two centuries. [Graphic: Global warming from 1880 to 2017]
Furthermore, from Biblical history, not even the king and the army (mighty men) went out during winter.
2 Samuel 11:1 (NIV)
In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king's men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.
 http://biblehub.com/commentaries/2_samuel/11-1.htm
Traveling stopped in the winter. Hence:
Matthew 24:20 (NIV)
20 Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath.
...because everyone is sheltered to avoid the inclement weather during winter (and as it pertains to this verse, escaping the desolation would be increasingly difficult, whether it happens during winter or during the weekly Sabbath, because all business is down, no one is working, not even animals. Point is: animals are not outright in the fields, much less at night, during winter, be it heavy rain or snow. Nor is it the time to conduct a census—making people travel in the rainy season [if he is implying that the passages describing the Messiah's birth occurred in December]).
Luke 2:1-11 (NIV)
2 In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2 (This was the first census that took place while[a]Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 And everyone went to their own town to register.
4 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.5 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7 and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.
8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.
Footnotes:
a. Luke 2:2 Or This census took place before
3. As for how sheep are kept outdoors during winter to avoid the "build up of moisture and ammonia in the air, irritating their respiratory tract and causing infection. [+]" (not just JSRV): consider that to be "not indoors" doesn't even equate to "out in the fields"; they can be kept outdoors in a three-sided, sheltered-from-the-wind enclosure that allows fresh air and sun, but still not out in the fields (much less shepherds staying out in the fields during rainy season).
We also have a three sided shelter which provides a wind break for them. The sun shines into the shelter all day, giving the sheep a place out doors, with protection from the wind, without having to be inside the barn.
http://www.livingwithgotlands.com/2015/02/how-can-sheep-survive-bitter-cold-weather/
Examples:  source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/baalands/3453499884/  source: http://www.cromwellsolar.com/commercial-gallery/  https://www.flickr.com/photos/baalands/6193305928/
If sheep are in an outdoor enclosure (thus sheltered), do they need shepherds to be out in the fields at night watching over them? (as opposed to in the enclosure?) December (rainy season/winter) doesn't match the description of the night of Jesus' birth.
All the more considering:
This sketch contains a colored illustration of a sheepfold in ancient Israel. The sheepfold was a rock wall enclosure of loosely stacked stones, and this provided protection against "thieves and robbers" (John 10).
The enclosure also provided protection from wolves and other animals of prey. The enclosure also contained the door of the sheepfold, an opening for the sheep to come in and go out. It was at this opening at the Shepherd would lie, in order for a thief or Wolf to come in he would have to climb over the Shepherd at the door. The Shepherd would also inspect each of a sheep as it passed under the rod at the door of the sheepfold. In the morning the shepherd would call his sheep and they would exit the fold because they knew his voice. [...]
A simple improvised sheepfold. Such is sometimes made by the shepherd when he is a distance from his home, or especially when he may be in the territory of mountains. It is a temporary affair that can be taken down easily when it comes time to move on to another location. A fence is built of tangled thorn bushes or rude bowers. This is all the protection that is needed, as the shepherds often sleep with their flocks when the weather permits. Ezekiel mentions such a sheepfold when he predicts the future of Israel: "I will feed them in a good pasture, and upon the high mountains of Israel shall their fold be" (Ezekiel 34:14). [Manners And Customs of Bible Lands]
More permanent sheepfolds. Such shelters are usually built by the shepherd in a valley, or else on the sunny side of a hill where there is protection from cold winds. This fold is a low building with arches in front of it, and a wall forming an outdoor enclosure, joining the building. When the weather is mild, the sheep and goats are allowed to be in the enclosure during the night, but if the weather is stormy, or the evenings are cold, then the flock is shut up in the interior part of the fold, with its protection of roof and walls. The walls of the enclosure are about three feet wide at the bottom, and become narrower at the top. They are from four to six feet high. Large stones are used in constructing the outsides of the wall, and they are also placed on the top, and then the center is filled with smaller pieces of stone, of which there is much in the land. Sharp, thorn bushes are put on the top of this wall to protect the sheep from wild animals or robbers. There is a gate guarded by a watchman. JESUS made reference to the familiar sheepfold of Israel when He spoke those memorable words of His: "He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter [watchman] openeth. (John 10:1-3). [Manners And Customs of Bible Lands]
http://www.bible-history.com/sketches/ancient/sheep-fold.html
Rainy season is not the season to be outside though (according to Scripture as already addressed).
4. He's assuming to know when the JSRV developed. Was it around during Jesus' day like it is today (if he's going to make insinuations about the night of His birth as it relates to JSRV)? Also, the present conditions and severity of illnesses are not necessarily what was there in the past. JSRV could be a plague developed by YHWH to deal with man's inventing new ways to do evil (e.g. cloning, genetic manipulation, and the like) that was to come.
Romans 1:30 (NIV)
30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents;
Deuteronomy 28:61 (NIV)
61 The Lord will also bring on you every kind of sickness and disaster not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed.
Or on the flip side, it has been around since Noah's day and doesn't necessarily infect sheep for being indoors (or wasn't as severe back then), the way sheep were enclosed on the ark for a whole year.
All that to say, this side remark in the parenthetical statement is misleading about how sheep were kept in the winter/rainy season in Israel, leads the reader to make false assumptions about the night of Jesus' birth (that it took place in the rainy season of December though everything points to: nope, not the rainy season/winter at all), and distracts from the actual legitimate points he is making.
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Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2018 6:26 am
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