I will be the first to admit it, i have very strong views on cloning. The issues i have are they aren't doing this for a good research purpose. Second i dont view this as a great development, it's a step back and gives unregulated science. Unregulated science is a recipe for disaster. What steps did they take to decide this was a good thing, and how does it benefit us to have the ability to clone a dead creatures? An example, Dr Joseff Mengele in WWII did random research on twins and provided information we still use today. In his process he brutally murdered many people but resulted in better human survival, however is ethics were clearly wrong.
In respect to where science could logically go with this....... bringing back extinct species or long dead animals, I whole heartidly believe this is a bad decission. What good will come from it? Animals that died had their chance for survival and lost. Even animals that humans killed off. DO i think its sad they are dieing? Yes, of course. But, for some reason they didn't survive in the world today. plain and simple they are done. SOme people will use the excuse, "we need to restore the natural balance in an area. However, if the controlling species is dead, then nature needs to find it's own balance. Usually nature chooses disease, starvation, or aggression to control overpopulation. Bringing back a dead animal or an extinct animal will lead to the same problems we have in the pet trade. how many environments have been ruined by invasive species? Again there is a reason these creatures died. Heck the movie Jurrasic park is an over exagerated example of science gone wrong.
This science was not used to help regrow limbs or organs for people. The use of brain cells to grow the animals proves that that is not the case. to use brain surgery to regrow a limb or a heart or kidney is not a viable way to do things, the risk to people is too great. This is just science to say they did it. It proves nothing, and the fact that they did this over a hundred times and only had 7 survivors shows it's not a viable science. I have serious objection to the process. This is not responsible science. At least with Dolly the procell left the possibility of cloning for viable and good uses. This isn't even science for understanding, it's science for a process and to see if they can do it. THis process is of NO benefit to people, unless you are cloning lab animals after the host experiment has passed away.
I have yet to see how this is a major breakthrough. I am a natural clone (aka Identical twin) and I know how different twins can be. So translate that to clones. When cloning the only thing you will know, if things go correctly less than 10% of the time, is that the beings look the same and have the same DNA. So, in my opinion nature has already provided the answers to cloning successfully.
