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Cloning in the Popular Imagination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 1998

DOROTHY NELKIN
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and the School of Law, New York University
M. SUSAN LINDEE
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Abstract

Dolly is a lamb that was cloned by Dr. Ian Wilmut, a Scottish embryologist. But she is also a Rorschach test. The public response to the production of a lamb by cloning a cultured cell line reflects the futuristic fantasies and Frankenstein fears that have more broadly surrounded research in genetics and especially genetic engineering. Cloning was a term originally applied to a botanical technique of asexual reproduction. But following early experiments in the manipulation of the hereditary and reproductive process during the mid-1960s, the term became associated with human biological engineering. It also became a pervasive theme in horror films and science fiction fantasies. Appearing to promise both amazing new control over nature and terrifying dehumanization, cloning has gripped the popular imagination.

Type
SPECIAL SECTION: CLONING: TECHNOLOGY, POLICY, AND ETHICS
Copyright
© 1998 Cambridge University Press

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