In the novel Frankenstein, the scientist begins to make a mate for his creature. However, he destroys the mate before she is completed. He is afraid that if the hideous pair reproduced, their offspring would terrorize the human race.

The fourth objection is similarly melodramatic: human clones could destroy the human species. This could occur in three alarming ways: (1) human clones could overpopulate the planet, leading to the depletion of natural resources, pollution, and environmental disaster; (2) human clones could reduce genetic diversity, leaving humanity vulnerable to disease; and (3) programs of eugenics and genetic engineering could produce cloned and “designer” humans who would make the current strain of humanity obsolete.

In this chapter, I address these doomsday scenarios and explain why they are speculative and improbable. The stereotypes arising from the scenarios, however, are not.

Overpopulation

Let us begin with the idea that human clones could overpopulate the planet. Fear of overpopulation has haunted the world at least since 1798, when Thomas Robert Malthus first predicted that humans would breed until the demand for natural resources exceeded supply, resulting in famine, disease, and death. Today, with the benefit of twenty-twenty hindsight, we know that Malthus's gloomy predictions were overstated. He did not foresee the many agricultural, medical, technological, and political advances that have multiplied resources (e.g., the Green Revolution) while decreasing the inevitability or desirability of high birth rates (e.g., birth control, better medical care for infants and children, and improved social and political status for women).