If I may try to rephrase Myles's statement, I'd say that reproductive organs and survival instincts have taken over life over the course of evolution. That's what controls us and all animals and plants. It's not so much a purpose, it's what has taken over due natural progression. In the long run, the forms of life which weren't focusing on reproducing on surviving didn't make it as far as we have.

If a living organism can't reproduce, it's still life, but it will disappear very quickly since it will have no offspring.

As to the point of cloning neanderthals, I'd rather see us focusing on the important state of the art right now: creating artificial life. Just like Wintersong said:

This is the next step we are going to make. I don't know if you're aware, but we have been able to create the first artificial lifeform by emptying a host cell of its DNA contents and injecting our self-made DNA into it. After we get more proficient, we will be able to start creating plants and animals that have more desirable traits than the ones nature provide us. There will be setbacks, there will be all sorts of hurdles and unseen complications, but this is the path we're going down on. Occasionally we'll create something that might get out of hand, but we'll probably survive.

Creating new custom life will lead to creating enhanced human beings. This is not the same thing as cloning, though. And this is not about improving an already living human like in most movies - that's nearly impossible, or at least incredibly much more complicated than creating an improved creature from birth, when you only have to modify one cell. When we're far enough down this path, we've conquered one of the two main battles we have left against nature: we're able to control evolution and speed it up infinitely.

The other battle we have left is being fought at the same time - aging. It would be interesting to know which comes first, the ability to stop the aging of cells, essentially leading to endless life, or the mastery of evolution. Once we are able to do to humans what some tree cells already do, which is to not age, the whole concept of human life will change. These things seem like science-fiction, but if you study the field and start to get a grasp of how life actually functions, how aging works, what makes us the way we are in terms of species and how we evolve, it is actually pretty clear where we are heading.

I just wish I was born a bit later to see the biggest breakthroughs happen. I don't believe the biggest stuff is coming yet within the next 60 years...

Oh, and these breakthroughs will totally destroy most religions. Unless they can adapt, which they have done remarkably well within the last 2000 years or so.

Stopping aging would be the worst mistake humans could make........unless we leave this planet. We are already overpopulated, stopping aging or allowing endless life would be torture for anyone who lives on this crowded, barren, stressed out planet.

Improving already living organisms is one of the most popular areas of research today. You should look into nanoparticles, synthetic viruses, stem cells........ect. Now that the human genome has been decoded, there's all kinds of things we can tweak..............from preventing diseases to improving living conditions.

And Doc's right about surviving an accident. That's all we need is to create something that causes formation of neurotoxic prions and we're all screwed.

DNA has not proved that in fact most scientists do no believe they inter married as there has been no conclusive evidence in the DNA genome

I realize it's probably (tragically) going to happen because most things we do are mindless. However, it's much more complicated than just adding a synthetic helicase enzyme to our DNA. Also, if you want to suggest something that helps cells divide, that's probably cancer. The tricky part of living forever is transferring life into a fake body because the human body will inevitably die. I'm not saying we won't find a way to do it, but it's (thankfully) outside our grasp right now.

I personally think Hitler should DEFINITELY be cloned, maybe one of the first humans to be cloned. Want to know why? Great studies for Psychologist ... have them grow up in different enviromnents under different families, and have a government owned Psychologist be "therapist" to each child and track their psychological behavior.

It would be an AWESOME study of nature vs nurture ... even better than studying twins. Especially if you had 10 of them in various cultures (of America).

for instance, one can grow up in Miami, another in small town Mid-west, another in Northern California, another in Oregon, another in New York, another in Massachusets, another in small town Tennessee, another in Dallas Texas, another in Chicago ... invaluable information. And different types of familes too. Perhaps have half grow up in familes that look like thelm, and the other half grow up in families of a different race.

Not sure if you've seen this or not: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1987568,00.html

My understanding of it is that aging is the result of our cells no longer being able to split and thus slowly dying off throughout the body. When a cell splits, a little piece of the "bottom" of the DNA is lost, I forgot what this was called, but when that stuff runs out the DNA can no longer split and the cell dies. Simply adding more of that stuff to certain cells would supposedly stop aging.

Cancer is a mutation in the DNA that causes it to replicate rapidly and uncontrollably. Allowing a cell to replicate more times before dying is not the same thing as it will continue to replicate at the same rate as normal. Obviously allowing all cells to live and split forever would cause problems though.

And ya, I don't see people ever transferring consciousness between bodies. If you copied every memory and electrical frequency (brain waves or whatever) to a new body, it wouldn't be you it would be a copy of you. We are our bodies not just our minds. At best we can transfer our brain to a new body, or to some sort of tank filled with a fluid that sustains it eternally while we control a remote body over the internet (I didn't watch that movie). If we can keep a brain alive forever though we can keep a body alive as well.

I believe a life form deserves more than what some corporation wants it for. Of course it's an argument about ethics but also a lot deeper than that. You start 'selecting'  trait which are 'desirable' then you alter their frequency and the number of individuals with that trait and not another. When one trait is selected for another (and even more/less related traits) are altered and/or lost. You then have altered the species ability to respond to other pressures/events. *poof, you're extinct.

Unfortunately everything is NEVER considered. If it were, why did the latest economic catastrophe occur? We'll patch that problem more or less (less is more likely) and the one that's coming will be yet another unanticipated event or series of events.

We are blinded by what we accept as 'fundamental' and 'constant'. Real estate values always increase. Right?

That's just an example of our biases.  There are many others and more fundamental and correlate that with our arrogance and you've got a disaster which may not be recoverable to any meaningful degree.

I don't know about adding more DNA to a cell...........Excess DNA would mean more genes, which would have to be placed on another chromosome, and when there is an extra chromosome, bad things happen. Chromosome 21 or even just a part of it (that's one more than normal) is what causes downs syndrome. I don't want to live forever with downs syndrome. Also, almost every single cell in the human body is replaced every year, so it would seem really tedious to somehow replicate that action or ensure it keeps happening.

Nerve cells are occasionally replaced (the rate at which this happens varies from one part of the brain to another). New nerve cells form from adult stem cells in the brain and essentially compete with nearby nerves for business. So ya, just plain throwing in bunch of nerves at a time would probably be a bad thing. However, if you were to over time replace neurons as fast as they degraded, either with new neurons or technologically based artificial neurons, you would effectively stop the aging process of the brain. As for how to do it, nanotechnology would have to be involved, with nanobots advanced enough to be currently called science fiction (or in other words, widely available in 30-50 years).

Neat, my topic is hot! 

Anywho, I think it's important that everyone understands the difficulty of genetically modifying organisms (since this is where the topic seems to have have, which is interesting in and of itself.)  Unfortunately, in most science fiction movies and literature biological technology like genetic engineering and reproductive cloning are depicted falsely and outlandishly.  Now don't get me wrong, I love science fiction and curiously, it's generally the hardcore sci-fi fans that are actually more familiar with how real science works.  However, when laypeople see movies like "Splice" they are left with vivid and patently false ideas about how the field works. 

So let's go through a few elements of bio sci fi that highly implausable. 

Species Hybridizing: The concept that we can mix and match whatever organisms you'd like is probably the most enduring plot device in the sci-fi genre, and it's completely and utterly impossible.  Only members of a biological genus can hybridize, and no amount of gene tinkering can make it happen otherwise.  So yeah, no repto-bird-bug-humans.

The Cat in the Vat: Cloning people or critters in vats.  Another distant implausability.  As of now and into the very distant future, reproductive cloning requires a female surrogate of the species being cloned.  In other words... they have to be born, raised, and mature just like anyone else.  In essence, a clone is just an identical twin of the individual being cloned.  So I guess you could say that nature clones people regularly.  No shared memories.  No accelerated growth (another impossibility).  No switching conciousness between bodies.  Curiously, a majority of the public is under the impression that if we were to clone someone, it would be done in some kind of chamber or vat.  Consequently, they take their science illiteracy to the voting booth. *facepalm*

Designer People:  The idea that we can one day in the near future create "designer people" with a broad range of selected genes is possible, but *very* limited.  Most genes code for proteins that very active and influence a broad range of other proteins.  We'll probably only ever be able to add genes or cassettes of genes to a person's genome that are simplistic and not very active.  The primary application will probably be alterting well known damaged genes will functional ones to prevent chronic diseases.  Other than that, you there's not much you can do in the area of engineering humans.

Actually? I was thinking H. sap. and a truly intelligent species.