Alun M. Anderson

About the author: Alun M. Anderson is editor of New Scientist, a weekly science magazine published in London.

Though it is easy to imagine bizarre uses of cloning technology that resemble science fiction scenarios, it is also not difficult to think of beneficial uses for the new procedure. Cloning could assist infertile couples or those suffering from genetic diseases to have healthy children. Human cloning research should not be banned.

Dolly is surely the most remarkable animal ever born. She can't trace her parentage back to a ewe or a ram like every other sheep that has ever existed. Instead, she was artificially created by scientists in Scotland—grown from a single cell taken from the udder of an adult sheep. She is an identical clone...