Text A　

　　Cloning offers the possibility of making exact copies of ourselves. Should this be allowed? What benefits and dangers may cloning bring?

A Clone Is Born

Gina Kolata

　　1   On July 5, 1996, at 5:00 p.m., the most famous lamb in history entered the world. She was born in a shed, just down the road from the Roslin Institute in Roslin , Scotland , where she was created. And yet her creator, Ian Wilmut, a quiet, balding fifty-two-year-old embryologist, does not remember where he was when he heard that the lamb, named Dolly , was born. He does not even recall getting a telephone call from John Bracken , a scientist who had monitored the pregnancy of the sheep that gave birth to Dolly, saying that Dolly was alive and healthy and weighed 6.6 kilograms.

　　2    No one broke open champagne. No one took pictures. Only a few staff members from the institute and a local veterinarian who attended the birth were present. Yet Dolly, who looked for all the world like hundreds of other lambs that dot the rolling hills of Scotland , was soon to change the world.

　　3    When the time comes to write the history of our age, this quiet birth, the creation of this little lamb, will stand out. The world is a different place now that she is born.

　　4    Dolly is a clone. She was created not out of the union of a sperm and an egg but out of the genetic material from an udder cell of a six-year-old sheep. Wilmut fused the udder cell with an egg from another sheep, after first removing all genetic material from the egg. The udder cell's genes took up residence in the egg and directed it to grow and develop. The result was Dolly, the identical twin of the original sheep that provided the udder cells, but an identical twin born six years later.

　　5    Until Dolly entered the world, cloning was the stuff of science fiction. It had been raised as a possibility decades ago, then dismissed, something that serious scientists thought was simply not going to happen anytime soon. Now it is not fantasy to think that someday, perhaps decades from now, but someday, you could clone yourself and make tens, dozens, hundreds of genetically identical twins. Nor is it science fiction to think that your cells could be improved beforehand, genetically engineered to add some genes and remove others.

　　6    True, it was a sheep that was cloned, not a human being. But there was nothing exceptional about sheep. Even Wilmut, who made it clear that he was opposed to the very idea of cloning people, said that there was no longer any theoretical reason why humans could not clone themselves, using the same methods he had used to clone Dolly. "There is no reason in principle why you couldn't do it." But, he added, "All of us would find that offensive."

　　7    We live in a time when we argue about pragmatism and compromises in our quest to be morally right. But cloning forces us back to the most basic questions that have plagued humanity since the dawn of recorded time: What is good and what is evil? And how much potential for evil can we tolerate to obtain something that might be good? Cloning, with its possibilities for creating our own identical twins, brings us back to the ancient sins of vanity and pride; the sins of Narcissus, who so loved himself, and of Prometheus, who, in stealing fire, sought the powers of God. So before we can ask why we are so fascinated by cloning, we have to examine our souls and ask, What exactly so bothers many of us about trying to make an exact copy of our genetic selves? Or, if we are not bothered, why aren't we?

　　8    We want children who resemble us. Even couples who use donor eggs or donor sperm, search catalogs of donors to find people who resemble themselves. Several years ago, a poem by Linda Pastan, called "To a Daughter Leaving Home," was displayed on the walls of New York subways. It read:

        Is it my own image
        I love so
        in your face?
        I lean over your sleep,
        Narcissus over
        his clear pool,
        ready to fall in --
        to drown for you
        if necessary.

　　Yet if we so love ourselves, reflected in our children, why is it so terrifying to so many of us to think of seeing our exact genetic replicas born again, identical twins years younger than we? Is it one thing for nature to form us through a genetic lottery, and another for us to take complete control, abandoning all thoughts of somehow, through the mixing of genes, having a child who is like us, but better? Normally, when a man and a woman have a child together, the child is an unpredictable mixture of the two. We recognize that, of course, in the old joke in which a beautiful but dumb woman suggests to an ugly but brilliant man that the two have a child. Just think of how wonderful the baby would be, the woman says, with my looks and your brains. Aha, says the man. But what if the child inherited my looks and your brains?

　　9    Cloning brings us face-to-face with what it means to be human and makes us confront both the privileges and limitations of life itself. It also forces us to question the powers of science. Is there, in fact, knowledge that we do not want? Are there paths we would rather not pursue?

　　10    The time is long past when we can speak of the purity of science, divorced from its consequences. If any needed reminding that the innocence of scientists was lost long ago, they need only recall the comments of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the genius who was a father of the atomic bomb and who was transformed in the process from a supremely confident man, ready to follow his scientific curiosity, to a humbled and troubled soul, wondering what science had let loose.

　　12    As with the atom bomb, cloning is complex, multi-layered in its threats and its promises. It offers the possibility of real scientific advances that can improve our lives and save them. In medicine, scientists dream of using cloning to reprogram cells so we can make our own body parts for transplantation. Suppose, for example, you needed a bone marrow transplant. Some deadly forms of leukemia can be cured completely if doctors destroy your own marrow and replace it with healthy marrow from someone else. But the marrow must be a close genetic match to your own. If not, it will lash out at you and kill you. Bone marrow is the source of the white blood cells of the immune system. If you have someone else's marrow, you'll make their white blood cells. And if those cells think you are different from them, they will attack.

　　13    But suppose, instead, that scientists could take one of your cells -- any cell -- and merge it with a human egg. The egg would start to divide, to develop, but it would not be permitted to divide more than a few times. Instead, technicians would bathe it in proteins that direct primitive cells, embryo cells, to become marrow cells. What started out to be a clone of you could grow into a batch of your marrow -- the perfect match.

　　14    More difficult, but not inconceivable, would be to grow solid organs, like kidneys or livers, in the same way.

　　15    Another possibility is to create animals whose organs are perfect genetic matches for humans. If you need a liver, a kidney, or even a heart, you might be able to get one from a specially designed pig clone.

　　16    The possibilities are limitless, scientists say, and so, some argue, we should stop focusing on our hypothetical fears and think about the benefits that cloning could bring.

Text B

　 PROFITS OF PRAISE

Janet Graham

　　It was the end of my exhausting first day as waitress in a busy New York restaurant. My cap had gone awry, my apron was stained, my feet ached. What I carried felt heavier and heavier. Weary and discouraged, I didn't seem able to do anything right. As I made out a complicated check for a family with several children who had changed their ice-cream order a dozen times, I was ready to quit.

　　Then the father smiled at me as he handed me my tip: "Well done," he said. "You've looked after us really well."

　　Suddenly my tiredness vanished. I smiled back, and dater, when the 10 manager asked me how I'd liked my first day, I said, "Fine!" Those few words of praise had changed everything. 　　Praise is like sunlight to the human spirit; we cannot flower and grow without it. And yet, while most of us are only too ready to apply to others the cold wind of criticism, we are somehow reluctant to give our fellows 15 the warm sunshine of praise.

　　Why --- when one word can bring such pleasure? A friend of mine who travels widely always tries to learn a little of the language of any place she visits. She's not much of a linguist, but she does know how to say one word --- "beautiful"--- in several languages. She can use it to a mother holding her baby, or to a lonely salesman fishing out pictures of his family. The ability has earned her friends all over the world.

　　It's strange how chary we are about praising. Perhaps it's because few of us know how to accept compliments gracefully. Instead, we are embarrassed and shrug off the words we are really so glad to hear. Because of this defensive reaction, direct compliments are surprisingly difficult to give.

　　That is why some of the most valued pats on the back are those which come to us indirectly, in a letter or passed on by a friend: When one thinks of the speed with which spiteful remarks are conveying, it seems a pity that there isn't more effort to relay pleasing and flattering comments.

　　It's especially rewarding to give praise in areas in which effort generally goes unnoticed or unmentioned. An artist gets complimented for a glorious picture, a cook for a perfect meal. But do you ever tell your laundry manager how pleased you are when the shirts are done just right? Do you ever praise your paper boy for getting the paper to you on time 365 days a year?

　　Praise is particularly appreciated by those doing routine jobs: gas-station attendants, waitresses --- even housewives. Do you ever go into a house and say, "What a tidy room?" Hardly anybody does. That's why housework is considered such a dreary grind. Comment is often made about activities which are relatively easy and satisfying, like arranging flowers; but not about jobs which are hard and dirty, like scrubbing floors. Shakespeare said, "Our praises are our wages." Since so often praise is the only wage a housewife receives, surely she of all people should get her measure.

　　 Mothers know instinctively that for children an ounce of praise is worth 45 a pound of scolding. Still, we're not always as perceptive as we might be about applying the rule. One day I was criticizing my children for squabbling.

　　"Can you never play peacefully?" I shouted. Susanna looked at me quizzically.

　　"Of course we can," she said. "But you don't notice us when we do. "

　　Teachers agree about the value of praise. One teacher writes that instead of drowning students' compositions in critical red ink, the teacher will get far more constructive results by finding one or two things which have been done better than last time, and commenting favorably on them. "I believe that a student knows when he has handed in something above his usual standard," writes the teacher, "and that he waits hungrily for a brief comment in the margin to show him that the teacher is aware of it, too."

　　 Behavioral scientists have done countless experiments to prove that any human being tends to repeat an act which has been immediately followed by a pleasant result. In one such experiment, a number of schoolchildren were divided into three groups and given arithmetic tests daily for five days. One group was consistently praised for its previous performance; another group was criticized; the third was ignored.

　　Not surprisingly, those who were praised improved dramatically. Those who were criticized improved also, but not so much. And the scores of the children who were ignored hardly improved at all. Interestingly the brightest children were helped just as much by criticism as by praise, but the less able children reacted badly to criticism, needed praise the most. Yet the latter are the very youngsters who, in most schools, fail to get the pat on the back.

　　To give praise costs the giver nothing but a moment's thought and a moment's effort perhaps a quick phone call to pass on a compliment, or five minutes spent writing an appreciative letter. It is such a small investment--- and yet consider the results it may produce." I can live for two months on a good compliment," said Mark Twain.

　　So , let's be alert to the small excellences around us --- and comment on them. We will not only bring joy into other people's lives, but also, very often, added happiness into our own.