EDITOR Doug Kouma OPINION EDITOR Anthony Nguyen EDITORIAL BOARD Paula Lavigne Joshua Gillin Jessica Kennedy Jeff Randall Erin Gibson Our VIEW Black sheep? Endless possibilities with technology to done Hello, Dolly. Not the play, but the cloned sheep. Dolly, a seven-month-old sheep, is helping usher in a new era in science—bringing human ity one step closer to the science-fiction “re ality” of cloning. On Saturday, Ian Wilmut at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland—work ing with the biotechnology company PPL Therapeutics—announced that he and his team had succeeded in cloning a sheep. And according to experts, the last physi cal barrier to reproductive technology has now been breached. Wilmut and his team managed to remove a mammary cell from the udder of an adult sheep, fuse it to an egg from a ewe and clone the original sheep. The next step for the team and those who follow will be cloning transgenic sheep — animals whereby insertion of a gene or genes into its DNA can create one that has more meat, more wool and can make more money for sheep herders—all the while lowering the market price for consumers. Now the public must come to grips with this new and fascinating development. Although cloning a living being such as a sheep is considered creation, we must re alize that throughout the history of human ity, we have tinkered with the natural order of the world. Whether it be producing hy brid crops or inbreeding animals to give rise to stock with particular qualities, we, in es sence, are “creators.” Cloning a person and cloning a sheep —although potentially similar in technique —would entail major differences. The uproar here is the potential misuse of the technology to “bring back” the dead or clone a living person. But the reality is that even' if such blatantly unethical tech niques were attempted, they would not re sult in the creation of the “same” human. Cloning a new Abraham Lincoln would not bring back a great American leader. The new person would not have had the same experiences and interactions that made Lin com wno ne was. If it’s even possible to clone a human, doing so would only create a being who re sembled Lincoln physically; his personality would be dictated by many other factors. And even if the technology to clone be comes widespread or falls into the hands of those who would misuse it, those who fear a thousand Adolf Hitlers or dictators with supersoldiers running rampant can rest easy. Clones would still have to be bom and grow up, just like children from natural fertiliza tion. “Nurture” should count for at least as much as “nature.” The ability to clone will certainly change the way we view the world and ourselves. But rather than dredging up thoughts of a “brave new world” and scaring ourselves — after all, this is not another Manhattan Project, designed to destroy an enemy — we should realize the potentially positive and fascinating benefits we all stand to gain. Editorial Policy Unsigned editorials are the opinions of the Spring 1997 Daily Nebraskan. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the Univer sity of Nebraska-Lincoln, its employees, its student body or the University of Nebraska Board of Regents. A column is solely the opinion of its author. The Board of Regents serves as publisher of the Daily Nebraskan; policy is set by the Daily Nebraskan Edito rial Board. The UNL Publications Board, established by the regents, supervises the production of the paper. According to policy set by the regents, responsibility for the edi torial content of the newspaper lies solely in the hands of its student employees. Letter Policy The Daily Nebraskan welcomes brief let ters to the editor and guest columns, but does not guarantee their publication. The Daily Nebraskan retains the right to edit or reject any material submitted. Sub mitted material becomes the property of die Daily Nebraskan and cannot be re turned. Anonymous submissions will not be published. Those who submit letters must identify themselves by name, year in school, major and/or group affilia tion, if any. Submit material to: Daily Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska Union, 1400 R SL Lincoln, Neb. 68588-0448. E-mail: letters@unlinfaunl.edu. Mehs ling’s VIEW DN LETTERS Off the Beam The Daily Nebraskan’s coverage of the men’s gymnastic team has been pathetically small this year. Why is it that other sports get large articles detailing their progress and record while the men’s gymnastic team gets a Vi-inch blurb or is tacked on to the very end of an article concerning the women’s gymnastic team? UNL and Francis Allen have one of the best teams in the nation this year, not to mention a great tradition of excellence. I would appreciate, and expect, a little fairness in the DN’s coverage of UNL athletic teams. Simeon Bukacek sophomore history No Revelation Here Gee Cliff Hicks, I must say you are a gifted writer. You kept my interest throughout your column (DN, Monday) even though you failed to make any grand point. Let’s see now: Words have meanings—we can easily strip the meanings away so that we weren't offended—because words are just words and it’s the “idea behind them” that causes all the trouble. Hey Cliff, I heard somewhere that 1+1=2. No really, it was quite a revelation. Sorry Cliff, but it’s just that all you did was state the obvious. Although, there was one thing that you?re really screwy about. You think if we remove an offensive word or accept it as just a word then the idea no longer (