Medical and scientific advances are reasons to rejoice as humans advance into a new era where innovation advances human understanding and enables the formation of new possibilities . However, a major scientific innovation appears to have the exact opposite effect. As news of a cloned mammal spread across the country, opposition to cloning was almost instantaneous, perhaps too instantaneous. The hasty reaction of an overwhelming part of the population indicates that an already existing ideology towards cloning had developed even before cloning was carried out. Scientists and philosophers agree that the prior use of generic engineering in literary works, even unconsciously, has caused the vast majority of individuals to develop a negative or unrealistic perspective regarding cloning. Apprehension about cloning has only been heightened by the media's negative and biased reaction to Dolly the Sheep news, as well as new science fiction books and films focused solely on on the potential negative risks of cloning. was a real possibility or problem until the 1980s, when successful nuclear transfer in mammals was reported. However, cloning became a reality in 1996 with the birth of Dolly, the first cloned animal from an adult cell (). It became increasingly clear that a large majority of the population was against it. Perhaps it was the lack of clear scientific information that individuals received when the news of Dolly spread that led the public into a period of fear and confusion, or perhaps it was the attempts Previous attempts to manipulate human genetic traits occurred in the 1930s and 1940s, when the Nazis attempted to manipulate human genetic traits. to create a super-race known as eugenics (40), which many individuals feared would discover...... middle of paper... their dignity” (Marcus 408). For more than a century, people have been warned, through literature and films, of the moral fallacy of genetic engineering. Was it, then, a mere coincidence that the instant negative public reaction when cloning became a real possibility? Or is it possible that the novels, films, and news that individuals use for entertainment purposes have actually had a greater psychological impact that has resulted in the formation of beliefs nurtured in humans by years of prejudice, fictitious and unrealistic scenarios that resemble reality. Can humans separate fact from fiction as useful new innovations arise, such as therapeutic cloning where the harvesting of embryonic stem cells could be used to potentially cure diseases or replace damaged organs. Quite simply because they were made to believe that nothing good could come of genetic engineering...