Heck no, I think we should continue to tamper. I'm all about tampering and messing with what we don't understand. I enjoy the scientific pursuit after all. But I think we can do a lot more tampering in animals before we do it in a human. I would never suggest that we need to have perfect knowledge before we do it. (Do you seriously think I'd be so unreasonable?) But our knowledge right now is piss poor. We can easily improve on it, and we will.
At what point, to you, is the "tampering with animals" aspect of things developed enough to warrant "tampering with people" and why? I'm not trying to make a point here and I'm not trying to create a right/wrong situation. I'm also not trying to paint you as unreasonable - there are a number of Ph. Ds in my family and in 10th grade I actually took the "pro human cloning" side of a debate in class (I lost, entirely on emotional grounds). My argument is that knowledge of the situation does not aid one in finding a different philosophical position on cloning, it allows one to find a different practical position on cloning. And while your position is certainly more nuanced than, say, the Catholic Church, there's still an inherent "we shouldn't muck about with things that have souls" in the discussion. I'm interested in having my argument disproven, however. Show me what you got.
So, like I said, I see the human cloning issue mostly through the perspective of technological limitations that I am aware of, rather than a fundamentally ethical one. Of course, there are ethical dimensions to most issues, so I’m not saying I have no ethical underpinnings. Like you point out, the notion of ‘not ready yet’ is rooted in a notion of what is and what is not ethical. The question that you put forward about which point is it ok to move from animal to human is an interesting one. There are established guidelines for animal testing for drugs and surgeries. I would guess that the point I would pick would fall on the conservative side of those guidelines. And yes, at some point, there would be a ‘good enough for me’. But, hell if I know enough about cloning right now to pick it. If I did, I’d be bullshitting you. I hate doing that. I can share my perspective, but I’m not the right guy if you’re looking for some good sparing on this issue, or to be moved from your own position. I’d be happy to read if someone else wants to grab the ball, but this just isn’t my game.