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Originally Posted by ahimel  We have no reason to think that cloned food will be any different from non-cloned food. Your body doesn't check the DNA, it only pulls the proteins apart into amino acids and then builds completely different proteins from those building blocks. Diseases can't be carried in amino acids, since bacteria are bigger than amino acids. |
As a food it won't be any different whether cloned or not; people are just spooked by the concept. But the repercussions for the environment are very frightening. Some farm animals can become feral if they escape (including pigs, horses and goats). If they start interbreeding, or cross breeding with their wild ancestors it'll create a mess of the gene pool in the wild. There is already an issue with genetically modified farm raised fish escaping into the wild. I think if this sort of trend continues, humans are going to be responsible for great disruptions in the natural ecosystems of this planet.
I have a very bad feeling about the future with the way things are going now: land, water and air pollution, greenhouse gas induced global warming, genetic modification of both plants and animals, and now cloning. I think human extinction by cybernetic Terminator-style machines can be safely considered to be the least of our worries when compared to everything else on our plate.