"Oh Obi-Wan, you were a great assistance to my father during the Clone
Wars...."
Amazing how that darn science fiction seems to predict future
developments! <VBG!>
As you mention, I doubt it would stop at twins; how about identical
villages of people?
Seriously, if people are bred the way strains of lab mice are produced,
then we may have only seen the beginning of our problems. The resources
of the planet, poorly distributed and allocated as they are, would be
pushed past breakdown by cloning. Even if the quality of the human race
was improved as a result (which is a dubious proposal), someone is going
to have to RAISE and FEED and TEACH all these clones how to be human.
Now imagine that a group decides how the ideal human is constructed
(Shades of Hitler's Master Race!) and clones a few hundred thousand or so
of them. Many thousands of potential parents will have to be found to
raise these clones as their own children; will they be volunteers or
conscriptees? The forced sterilization of people (widely practiced by the
Chinese on the Tibetans) would be small in comparison. Would
intermarriage among clones be forbidden?
I am not preaching banning the research; I am preaching thinking through
the consequences of unleashing yet another experiment before executing
it.
Cheers!
james