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Letters
Letters
The Clone Wars • Trolley Problem Rumbles On • Return To Zen, Duh • In His Image • A Spirited Response • Errata Philosophica Extra
The Clone Wars
Dear Editor: In his article ‘DNA & The Identity Crisis’ in Issue 133, Raymond Keogh seems to largely overlook what is arguably the more important implication for him of the definition of identity he provides from The Oxford English Dictionary, ‘The condition or fact that a person or thing is itself and not something else’: that a thing cannot be objectively identified as itself purely on the basis of DNA. For example, a tomato would only be distinguishable from its clone – another thing – through its position and history, as opposed to its genetic structure, which would be identical to the original. Therefore, I posit that an object’s place in time and space is a more precise identifying factor than its DNA. Let me summarise this in a philosophical haiku:
When cloning is done
We are forced to reinstate
Place as defining.
Thomas R.
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