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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloning | 9/9 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloning | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T14:17:46.685988+00:00 | kb-cron |
=== Cloning as resurrection === Cloning has been used in fiction as a way of recreating historical figures. In the 1976 Ira Levin novel The Boys from Brazil and its 1978 film adaptation, Josef Mengele uses cloning to create copies of Adolf Hitler. The Norman Spinrad's satirical The Iron Dream, published in 1972, concludes with 300 seven-foot-tall, blond, super-intelligent all-male SS clones in suspended animation launched into space to begin the Hitler analog's galactic empire in the aftermath of a genocidal race war. (They had won a Pyrrhic victory, the subhumans' leader having as his last act detonated a doomsday weapon, specifically a cobalt bomb, irredeemably contaminated the gene pool). In Michael Crichton's 1990 novel Jurassic Park, which spawned a series of Jurassic Park feature films, the bioengineering company InGen develops a technique to resurrect extinct species of dinosaurs by creating cloned creatures using DNA extracted from fossils. The cloned dinosaurs are used to populate the Jurassic Park wildlife park for the entertainment of visitors. The scheme goes disastrously wrong when the dinosaurs escape their enclosures.
=== Cloning for warfare === The use of cloning for military purposes has also been explored in several fictional works. In Doctor Who, an alien race of armour-clad, warlike beings called Sontarans was introduced in the 1973 serial "The Time Warrior". Sontarans are depicted as squat, bald creatures who have been genetically engineered for combat. Their weak spot is a "probic vent", a small socket at the back of their neck which is associated with the cloning process. The concept of cloned soldiers being bred for combat was revisited in "The Doctor's Daughter" (2008), when the Doctor's DNA is used to create a female warrior called Jenny. The 1977 film Star Wars was set against the backdrop of a historical conflict called the Clone Wars. The events of this war were not fully explored until the prequel films Attack of the Clones (2002) and Revenge of the Sith (2005), which depict a space war waged by a massive army of heavily armoured clone troopers that leads to the foundation of the Galactic Empire. Cloned soldiers are "manufactured" on an industrial scale, genetically conditioned for obedience and combat effectiveness. It is also revealed that the popular character Boba Fett originated as a clone of Jango Fett, a mercenary who served as the genetic template for the clone troopers.
=== Cloning for exploitation === A recurring sub-theme of cloning fiction is the use of clones as a supply of organs for transplantation. The 2005 Kazuo Ishiguro novel Never Let Me Go and the 2010 film adaption are set in an alternate history in which cloned humans are created for the sole purpose of providing organ donations to naturally born humans, despite the fact that they are fully sentient and self-aware. The 2005 film The Island revolves around a similar plot, with the exception that the clones are unaware of the reason for their existence. The exploitation of human clones for dangerous and undesirable work was examined in the 2009 British science fiction film Moon. In the futuristic novel Cloud Atlas and subsequent film, one of the story lines focuses on a genetically engineered fabricant clone named Sonmi~451, one of millions raised in an artificial "wombtank", destined to serve from birth. She is one of thousands created for manual and emotional labor; Sonmi herself works as a server in a restaurant. She later discovers that the sole source of food for clones, called 'Soap', is manufactured from the clones themselves. In the film Us, at some point prior to the 1980s, the US Government creates clones of every citizen of the United States with the intention of using them to control their original counterparts, akin to voodoo dolls. This fails, as they were able to copy bodies, but unable to copy the souls of those they cloned. The project is abandoned and the clones are trapped exactly mirroring their above-ground counterparts' actions for generations. In the present day, the clones launch a surprise attack and manage to complete a mass-genocide of their unaware counterparts.
== See also ==
Frozen Ark The President's Council on Bioethics
== Notes ==
== References ==
== Further reading == Guo, Owen. "World's Biggest Animal Cloning Center Set for '16 in a Skeptical China". The New York Times, 26 November 2015 Lerner, K. Lee. "Animal Cloning." The Gale Encyclopedia of Science, edited by Katherine H. Nemeh and Jacqueline L. Longe, 6th ed., vol. 1, Gale, 2021, pp. 230-231. Gale Academic OneFile, link. Accessed 27 Apr. 2026. Dutchen, Stephanie (11 July 2018). "Rise of the Clones". Harvard Medical School.
== External links ==
Fieser, James; Dowden, Bradley (eds.). "Cloning". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. ISSN 2161-0002. OCLC 37741658. Cloning Fact Sheet Archived 2 May 2013 at the Wayback Machine from Human Genome Project Information website. 'Cloning' Freeview video by the Vega Science Trust and the BBC/OU Cloning in Focus, an accessible and comprehensive look at cloning research from the University of Utah's Genetic Science Learning Center Click and Clone. Try it yourself in the virtual mouse cloning laboratory, from the University of Utah's Genetic Science Learning Center "Cloning Addendum: A statement on the cloning report issues by the President's Council on Bioethics" Archived 8 January 2009 at the Wayback Machine. National Review, 15 July 2002 8:45 am