really scary--fear of cloning

This is a generational thing, I think...paranoia over cloning.

To me it's all mad science--like this painting by Joseph Wright of Derby of an experiment on a bird in an air pump? Why on earth would anyone do that? Science gone crazy...

To me cloning is something that will never happen, like that cure for cancer we've been talking about as long as I've been alive. But when I was in art school--lo just those few years ago--I realized that people in their teens and twenties really think about it and worry about it. Ethical concerns, pollution of the gene pool, identity crises, corruption of the food supply...and I choose to remain blissfully unaware as if it will never affect me--though it probably already has. Cloning, in my addled, aging mind is about as purposeful and probable as that poor bird in the air pump.

OK, so you can be frustrated with my willful ignorance, but isn't this painting cool? An English artist belatedly applies a Baroque sensibility to his fear and wonder over technological and scientific innovations of his time. It was painted in 1768--before the Declaration of Independence. I just love this guy.