Michael Zuk is a Canadian dentist who bought John Lennon's rotted molar at auction for $31,000 in 2011.
He has begun DNA sequencing as the first step towards...........................
cloning John Lennon.
Wow.
Apparently Lennon had given the tooth to his Weybridge housekeeper Dot Jarlett, in the mid 1960's. She passed it down to her daughter.
Right off the bat you have to wonder how the deal went down. Did Lennon offer her the tooth out of ego? Was it typical Lennon humor? Was he trying to help her, knowing it would be worth something?
I asked myself if I would hold on to one of his teeth. At first I flat out thought "No." Ridiculous. Then I got honest with myself. Yeah I would. I would keep it, I would take it out and rub it for luck, hoping that some of Lennon's talent and success would rub off on me and radically alter the course of my life.
I would put the tooth in my mouth and talk with a cockney accent hoping to invoke the spirit of John Lennon in a desperate attempt to de-normalize my existence.
I became amused as I began to research cloning. As usual, online info is all over the place in relation to truth.
The Hindu says that the technology for cloning humans is available and standardized. I was a little uncomfortable with The Hindu when I read in the opening paragraph of the article that "this news hit the headlines, since Lennon was a member of the famous quartet, The Beatles, who were a rage in the 1960's and 70s."
The wording of that sounds a bit distant, as if the writer had to research who this Lennon was. It also sounds like Lennon needed explaining to The Hindu's readers.
Turns out the Hindu is India's national paper.
The Huffington post reports that "in1996, Dolly the sheep was cloned by implanting genetic material from a sheep's udder cell into an egg, which in turn was implanted into a surrogate sheep mother........................ Seventeen years later, however, sheep cloning remains out of reach, even assuming DNA could be pulled from the tooth."
Lee Silver, Ph.D., is a professor of genetics at Princeton University, where his laboratory is attempting to identify genes that influence personality and behavior.
Silver believes that cloning could become viable within 10 years "because there is a demand among a small number of people for this technology to have babies."
This may not be as evil as it sounds. Silver says "the only people who will really end up using cloning are people who can't have biological children another way."
As far as an ego maniacal mom or dad trying to create an exact replica of themselves, Silver says "...what the egomaniac will end up with is a baby that will kind of look like he looked as a baby that will grow up into a boy that won't listen to him. ...........he's not going to achieve immortality, he's just going to have a son. He's not going to be able to control the life of that son."
As far as recreating superstars, for instance Michael Jordan, Silver says "But I don't think it's very realistic, because the child that comes out of that cell, even though that child will be genetically identical to Michael Jordan, I can guarantee you that there is no way that child will ever make it into the NBA. Because Michael Jordan is more than his genes."
BOOM.
This is my long winded way of getting to exactly that point. And to give credit where credit is due, both The Hindu and Huffington Post make the same point.
Cloning humans may become scientifically possible in the future. But you cannot program in personality quirks, life experiences, knowledge, misperceptions, opinions and twisted views.
If we try to clone John Lennon, we may wind up with a Frankenstein Lennon. Something that looks and sounds like John Lennon but writes and sings Justin Bieber-like pop trash. With Bieber's depth of knowledge and integrity.
Lennon would never have been into cloning. I know this from our many conversations.
Not sure about Yoko though. If John was good in bed..........................
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