“I think I’m a clone now, there’s always two of me hanging around.”

If Weird Al had only known.

We’re at an interesting place in history. We have before us a scientific possibility that was formerly only reserved for science fiction books and bad movies. At some time in the near future, we may be able to clone ourselves.

I think cloning is a bad idea. Now before you fly off the handle and accuse me of fearing technology and believing all scientists are evil, let me explain.

Right now, cloning is in an infant stage. Although stories of cloned sheep, cows and headless frogs make the front page, the truth is, we can’t clone much of anything with any sort of consistent success. So far.

Dr. Richard Seed, the now infamous Chicago physicist, wants to clone people. Whether he will actually be able to is a matter of opinion. It’s also a matter of Seed’s available resources, ability and ego. (“Nobel prize, here I come.”) But someone, sometime, is going to do it.

In its current phase, cloning is unbelievably difficult and astronomically expensive, not to mention banned in the United States. But it’s not going to stay that way.

Here’s a historical example. For just a moment, I’d like to take you back to an era in which a computer was as expensive as a small house, not to mention almost as large as one.

Who could have known then that computers would be in nearly every house and on poor college students’ desks? Who could have known then that computers would be used for purposes completely different than the military uses for which they were originally designed?

We can’t imagine the outcomes of cloning, as innocent as the process may seem now.

Cloning is difficult. It took 277 tries to make Dolly, the Scottish sheep. But with the recent cow cloning, using a new-and-improved technique, it only took 50 tries. We’re getting better. We can’t possibly be naive enough to think technology won’t make human cloning a viable reality in a very short amount of time.

At the moment, cloning technology is in the hands of people who want to use it in the most noble of ways. No one wants to program brains or make human machines. But no one, not even friendly, helpful scientists, can stop the advance of technology once it gets going.

Just to dispel a few misconceptions — no, Saddam Hussein does not have cloning technology now to build his own zombie army. But look ahead 10 years into the future.

Say that not only can scientists clone humans, they can do it quickly, cheaply and completely within a laboratory, eliminating that pesky mother that’s now needed to bear a child. Of course, so far this technology has been limited to good uses, such as producing new organs and helping infertile couples.

But, Saddam has a renegade scientist who’s obtained this technology. He successfully clones a whole bunch of copies of a genetically superior guy. They grow up in a completely controlled environment, with Saddam as their only moral influence. Then, when one of Saddam’s surviving sons (if there are any left) has taken over the country, presto — a whole bunch of morally corrupt twins looking forward to mayhem with no regard for their own lives.

This can’t happen now, and would probably never be able to happen. But isn’t the simple thought of it enough to make you stop and think?

The possibilities involved in cloning are both amazing and frightening. But do we want this present and future technology in the hands of people like Hussein and sons?

I don’t even want this technology in the hands of Dr. Seed. After all, he did say in a CNN interview that “Cloning and the reprogramming of DNA is the first serious step in becoming one with God.”

Cloning shouldn’t be feared like it was the realization of “Brave New World.” However, the potential outcomes of “playing God” should be examined very closely by all of us.

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Sara Ziegler is a sophomore in journalism and mass communication from Sioux Falls, S.D.