Professor Wants to Raise His Own Clone

In a draft of his upcoming book Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, the economist Bryan Caplan mentions that he'd like to clone and raise himself:

I confess that I take anti-cloning arguments personally. Not only do they insult the identical twin sons I already have; they insult a son I hope I live to meet. Yes, I wish to clone myself and raise the baby as my son. Seriously. I want to experience the sublime bond I'm sure we'd share. I'm confident that he'd be delighted, too, because I would love to be raised by me. I'm not pushing others to clone themselves. I'm not asking anyone else to pay for my dream. I just want government to leave me and the cloning business alone. Is that too much to ask?

I'm surprised that Caplan takes it as a given that his son would be "delighted" by such a scenario. His clone wouldn't be raised by the same parents that he was, but instead would have a father with an extreme sense of his child's likes, dislikes, talents and flaws. That influence -- likely to be domineering and a little creepy -- would produce a much different person over the span of a childhood than how he turned out.

Caplan writes that he has twin sons, but they must not be very old yet or he'd realize that his clone will reject some of dad's traits on principle. Kids have a natural inclination to do things differently than their parents. With my three partial clones, if I'm trying to persuade them to try an activity or a hobby, the least persuasive argument I can use is that I liked it when I was their age.

So no matter how many genes we share, none of my sons will watch One Life to Live with me.

Parenting · Science · Soaps · 2010/04/21 · 2 COMMENTS · Link

Comments

Well, do you expect someone *else* to raise your clone? Duh!

#1 · Jonathan Bourne · 2010/04/29

Ever since seeing that one movie called Duplicity i think where the guy clones his self 5 times or so I have always wanted to do that of myself as well.

#2 · Guy · 2010/06/08