Evaluating Social Acceptance of Cloning Technology in Iran's Academic Society

Cloning technology development into reproductive and therapeutic implications in recent years has evoked wide sensitivities across the international community. On one hand, advocates of this technology support it by posing issues like its capability in ameliorating biological deficiencies and curing diseases, and the critics, on the other hand, express concerns by taking moral and societal considerations into account. Developing this technology in Islamic society of Iran, as other societies, requires general understanding and social acceptance. The aim of this research, is evaluating cloning technology, in its two kinds, including reproductive and therapeutic cloning in Iran’s society. For this purpose, Davis technology acceptance model was used. Statistical society of this research includes habitants of Tehran who are 18 and more, and statistical sample, is 316 persons. Questionnaires were used as data gathering tool, and data analysis method contains descriptive statistics indexes, ANOVA test and correlation test through SPSS and smartPLS softwares. Research findings indicate that general understanding of reproductive human cloning is negative, whereas about therapeutic cloning, it is positive. Likewise, gender, is a factor affecting this technology’s acceptance, means that men are optimist about cloning technology and women are pessimist about it. This research findings can offer remarkable policy implications to science and technology policy makers of our country.