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Author Tiddy Smith On ‘Jurassic Park’ and ‘The Boys from Brazil’

In 1996, a sheep called Dolly was born. She was the first mammal in history to be cloned from an adult. For this reason, Dolly had three mothers: the one who provided the egg, the one who carried her to term, and the one who provided the DNA. It was a remarkable leap from science fiction to science fact.

There's a tendency to think of Dolly as a duplicate, a carbon copy, of the sheep whose DNA was injected into the egg; as though Dolly lived two lives, one after the other. But of course, there is more to it than that. Dolly's DNA was just one part of the story of her life. The egg itself (and the womb of the surrogate mother) had all sorts of causal impacts on Dolly's physiology.

So, even physically, Dolly was no carbon copy of another sheep. And she was raised in a totally different environment, which undoubtedly made for a sheep with its own, quite individual, personality. Dolly was as much the result of nurture as she was of nature.

Up until Dolly, the idea of cloning large animals had been restricted to the world of science fiction. Steven Spielberg did it best with his film adaptation of Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park. This cautionary tale of dinosaur cloning was released just three years before the astonishing birth of Dolly. Lucky for us, she never unleashed anything like the havoc of Spielberg's velociraptors.

Two decades before Michael Crichton gave us his tale of terrifying lizards, another science fiction classic came to a more ambivalent conclusion about the risks of cloning. The Boys from Brazil, written by Ira Levin in 1976, presented the world with the horrifying specter of a long-term Nazi cloning program, with an aim to bring forth a new Hitler from samples of the dictator's DNA. In Levin's novel, the architect of this evil scheme is the war criminal Dr. Josef Mengele, working alongside other Nazis who had fled to South America. But the conclusion of Boys from Brazil, unlike Jurassic Park, is tentative and cautious. Levin reminds us that Mengele's sinister clones are not just little carbon copies of Hitler; they are individuals. Adolf Hitler, however cruel and despicable, was as much the result of nurture as of nature.

Author Blog Quote "It's not science fiction any more; it's science fact."

Nowadays, you won't find too many science fiction tales about cloning. And the reason for this is obvious – It's not science fiction anymore; it's science fact. And the truth wasn't half as exciting as we thought. We didn't get velociraptors or baby Hitlers. We got, after all the hype, a little baby lamb.

Dolly died 20 years ago this month at the age of six.

Filed Under: Blog, Science Fiction, Tiddy Smith Tagged With: clones, cloning, DNA, Jurrasic Park, Michael Crichton, science, Sheep named Dolly, Steven Spielberg, The Boys From Brazil
February 27, 2023 By Tiddy Smith Leave a Comment

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DEATH BY TALONS by Tiddy Smith

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Author Tiddy Smith Explores ‘Owl Theory’ and North Carolina’s Infamous ‘Staircase Murder’ in DEATH BY TALONS: Did An Owl ‘Murder’ Kathleen Peterson?

It was not enough to suggest that Kathleen began to bleed outside. It was not enough to point to prior owl attacks on humans. Larry needed a smoking gun. And he would find it. —from DEATH BY TALONS by Tiddy Smith On December 9, 2001, Kathleen Peterson was found dead at the bottom of a […]

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Get DEATH BY JTALONS The unusual death of Kathleen Peterson in her home in Durham, North Carolina has attracted a tremendous amount of media attention since it occurred in December, 2001. It was first brought to international prominence by Jean-Xavier de Lestrade’s docuseries The Staircase, released in 2004. It was later rereleased in extended form […]

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Scholar and DEATH BY TALONS Author Tiddy Smith Answers “Who Is Larry Pollard?”

Get DEATH BY JTALONS Thomas Lawrence Pollard, better known as Larry Pollard, was born in Durham, North Carolina in 1948. He was the son of Julia Davis Pollard and Forrest Pollard sr. Studying law at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, he would go on to work in some of the most prestigious legal […]

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Get DEATH BY JTALONS I have always been intrigued by claims of the strange and unusual: Things like ghosts, extraterrestrials, sea monsters and sinister conspiracies. ghosts, extraterrestrials, conspiracy, Ira Levin, Rosemary’s Baby, The Boys from Brazil For this reason, perhaps, my favourite fiction writer was always Ira Levin. I remember reading Rosemary’s Baby for the […]

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The Owl Theory and the Michael Peterson Case It was a couple of weeks before Christmas in 2001 when Kathleen Peterson was found dead at the bottom of her Durham, North Carolina property. She had bled terribly from deep slices in her scalp. Her husband, Michael Peterson, claimed that she must have fallen down the […]

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Author Tiddy Smith Explores ‘Owl Theory’ and North Carolina’s Infamous ‘Staircase Murder’ in DEATH BY TALONS: Did An Owl ‘Murder’ Kathleen Peterson? March 14, 2023 A Fatal Owl Attack Has At Least One Historical Precedent, Says Author Tiddy Smith March 1, 2023 Author Tiddy Smith On ‘Jurassic Park’ and ‘The Boys from Brazil’ February 27, […]

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Author Tiddy Smith I am a New Zealand philosopher of religion who has always been fascinated with the strange and unusual. I hail from the town of Dunedin, a Scottish settlement in the lower portion of the South Island, where I earned my PhD from the University of Otago. I presently live in Jakarta with […]

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Author Tiddy Smith On ‘Jurassic Park’ and ‘The Boys from Brazil’

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