> Cuban cows > by Devine, James > 21 May 2002 17:54 UTC > > from SLATE's summary of today's news from major US papers: > >An article in > the [Wall Street JOURNAL] says that Fidel Castro is pushing > his scientists > to clone milking-cows, with the goal being to replicate a famously > productive, and now deceased, Cuban bovine beast. Castro > turned to that plan > after his previous scheme to provide endless milk proved a touch > unrealistic. The idea, according to the paper, was "to > provide families with > miniature milk-cows that they could keep in their apartments. > The pint-sized > beasts would graze on grass grown in drawers under > fluorescent lights."< > > I'm sorry, but it sounds as if Fidel -- or one of his advisors -- has > partaken of some grass grown in drawers under fluorescent > lights. The intent > is good, but Lysenko's ghost is hovering near-by. > > ^^^^^^^^ > > CB: How does the alleged cloning plan violate the dogma of no > inheritance of acquired characteristics ?
it doesn't at all. The problem is that the whole cloning field has had all sorts of hype, utopian or dystopian implications, etc., but is turning out to be much more mundane. It turns out that clones have all sorts of medical problems, while there are many deaths in the process that produces a living clone. The Cubans (like many others) seem to have gone for the hype, though it's likely they'll figure out the reality. Put another way, Lysenko himself wasn't a bad egg or a bad scientist. The problem was the hype, and even worse, the Stalinist imposition of an ism named after him as the True Orthodoxy. (Perhaps I was too poetic: the "ghost of Lysenko" refers to Lysenkoism, not to the man himself.) JD
