Life Among the Clones

How to Defeat Your Own Clone: And Other Tips for Surviving the Biotech Revolution by Kyle Kurpinski and Terry Johnson. Bantam. 2010. 180 pages. Paperback. $14.

Genetic manipulation and human cloning are possible, write bioengineers Kyle Kurpinski and Terry Johnson in How to Defeat Your Own Clone. They point out that medicine is gaining the abilities to alter genes, delete them, or copy them in their entirety, and speculate on where the innovations might lead.

Mass production of clones might lead to a nightmare world of viral warfare, clone rebellions, and super-intelligent clones that take over the workforce and drive non-clones into unemployment. Scenario: A government-funded battalion of Chuck Norris clones imposes a rough Norris Law everywhere and forces all television stations to play reruns of Walker, Texas Ranger around the clock. An army of Bruce Lee clones rises up to resist them, and the biggest kung fu battle in world history ensues, at the end of which society lies in ruins.

Alternatively, genetic manipulations might lead to a better world in which doctors undo any physical injury or ailment via on-demand generation of any human body part. Children everywhere are born immune to HIV and diabetes, and they are smarter and stronger than ever before. Medicine treats every major disease and anticipates every newly emerging one.

The authors detail what clones are, what they are not, and how we might expect clones to behave. They also delve into the potential family and social dynamics you would likely encounter after cloning yourself. Your clone could be your best friend — or a dangerous enemy. The authors argue that you should think now about what you might do if you do get cloned.

Kurpinski and Johnson lay out in precise detail what it would take to clone a human being and why present technology cannot yet achieve it. They also explore the role that stem cells might play in finally making cloning a reality. Since stem cells can transform into any cell in the body, researchers might use one to generate a complete human being. All they’d be doing is replicating the process of human reproduction.

“Complex organisms don’t exist as a single cell, but they all start as one — a very special one — and this phenomenon is what will allow us to replicate the development of a specific individual,” write Kurpinski and Johnson.

Real clones will be very different from the clones in science-fiction movies and television shows. Your clone will not necessarily have your personality, likes, and dislikes, for example. An individual’s thoughts and memories come from life experience and do not get carried over in genetic codes.

“Popular culture has been misrepresenting clones since the term was applied to Homo sapiens,” write Kurpinski and Johnson. “If you want to make the most of the biotech revolution, you’re going to have to unlearn the most egregious of culture’s misapprehensions.”

Among the things that biotechnology can do is genetically engineer lab mice to run faster and farther than average mice, and to not accrue body fat at the same rates.

These same enhancements might enable humans to change their genomes to be stronger and less prone to obesity. Extended life spans, faster recovery times from injuries, and immunity to diseases and addictions will all be feasible. Individuals might change their appearance, raise their intelligence to unnaturally high levels, or program themselves to thrive on three or four hours of sleep a night.

“Whether you want to be smarter, prettier, or genetically battle-ready, your body will be yours to enhance — and so will your clone’s,” write Kurpinski and Johnson.

But are all of these enhancements things that we would want to see? The authors stay relatively mum on this question.

Having new powers to change the human body carries deep ethical dilemmas. Individuals who use medical treatments to boost their strength and intelligence might become a new ruling elite, for example. And a society of people who only sleep four hours a night sounds like a society of workaholics. Kurpinski and Johnson thoroughly relate the mechanics of what we could develop, but they say little on whether we should develop it.

Nevertheless, How to Defeat Your Own Clone is a lighthearted, erudite look at the many directions that biomedicine could lead society.

About the Reviewer

Rick Docksai is a staff editor for THE FUTURIST and World Future Review.