Is Extinction Only Temporary?

Logic Bomb writes: "A group of researchers at a privately-owned Massachusetts company are trying out an experiment that could help solve some of earth's problems with endangered species. An article from the Washington Post details their project to create a cloned Asian Guar using a good ol' American cow as a surrogate mother. The new guar, 'Noah,' is due to be born next month -- in other words, the project is a success. The company sees great possibilities for earth's wildlife, because as long as an appropriate surrogate mother can be found -- of the same or another species -- there is hope for any endangered animal. The next project is to bring a species of Spanish mountain goat back from extinction(!). Giant Pandas are on the schedule too."

Comments

Do we really want to save animals from extinction?

[Skim123]

Extinction weeds out those species that can't adapt to the current environment. Why should we worry about saving unfit species? Where the hell are we gonna keep them? Preserves? Zoos? Scientific labs? Folks, their species are dying for a reason, because they can't adapt to the changing environment (most likely the encroachment of man). In any case, let the fit live, and let the unfit die. It's seemed to work just fine that way for hundreds of millions of years before man was around...

human surrogates

[konstant]

We have neanderthal DNA extracted form ancient bones. Anybody want to be the mom of a slope-headed baby?


-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!

But what's the point?

[RevAaron]

The reason (most) of these species are extinct is a loss of habitat caused by "civilization" moving in and changing it, whether to take resources or to build houses or businesses. In most cases of extintions caused by such a situation, the native habitat of these plants and animals are still in the state they're in when the species went extinct.

So, what am I trying to say? With no habitat to go back to, to repopulate, what's the point of bringing them back? Just to say we can do it? Putting them in a non-native habit will simply change that environment, possibly bringing other species to extintion. Put them in a reserve or zoo? Completely artificial- they would be serving the purpose for which they evolved, so why bother?

While we're bringing back things from extinction..

[Mr. Neutron]

Here are some suggestions for what they should bring back:

Desktop environments that don't require a PIII 800 to run smoothly.

Websites that aren't full of tables, frames, and layers that take two minutes to render.

Newsgroups that aren't full of illiterates, flames, and spam.

Those elegant, sturdy, indestructable IBM keyboards that you could spill coffee on and they would still work.

/. polls that are interesting and enlightening, and actually tell us something about the current readership.

JennyCam, back when Jenny was naked all the time.

Local BBSes, back when they were cool and had real geeks on them.

New Star Trek series that don't suck.

That's about all that I can think of now. Anyone care to add to the list?

--
"How many six year olds does it take to design software?"

Habitat Timesharing

[victim]

Great! Now we can destroy most of the remaining habitat for commercially nonviable species and timeshare it. Say something like...

• 2010-2040: gazelle, lions, elephants
  
• 2040-2070: wildebeast, leopards, rhinos
  
• 2070-2100: gnus, hyenas, buffalo
  
• 2100-2130: repeat...

I'm sure we can make it a big event, the changing of the beasts. Maybe switch over a different ecosystem every four years, sell tickets to the extermination of the previous tenant species and the release of the new creatures.