Australian Billionaire Wants To Build Jurassic Park-Style Resort

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Australian Billionaire Wants To Build Jurassic Park-Style Resort

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday July 31, 2012 @06:13PM from the what-could-possibly-go-wrong dept.

lukehopewell1 writes "Australian billionaire Clive Palmer has already floated a plan to rebuild the Titanic to scale and sail it around the world, but now the mining magnate has found a new use for his money: cloning dinosaurs. Palmer reportedly wants to clone a dinosaur and let it loose in one of his resorts in Queensland, Australia. The billionaire has already been in touch with the scientists who helped clone Dolly the sheep to see what it would take to clone a dinosaur from DNA."

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Awesome! by Elgonn · 2012-07-31 18:14 · Score: 5, Funny

I don't care how stupid, impossible, and just damn right eccentric this sounds.
1. Re:Awesome! by Jane+Q.+Public · 2012-07-31 18:21 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Crichton was trying to make a point with his Jurassic Park novels. It was a cautionary tale about "the law of unintended consequences".
2. Re:Awesome! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-31 18:23 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Doesn't it come across as "never do anything because there might be unintended consequences", though? I mean, the point of unintended consequences is you can't predict whether anything you do will have bad ones or not.
3. Re:Awesome! by niftydude · 2012-07-31 18:24 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Don't hold your breath. Clive Palmer has a long history of shooting his mouth off about grandiose schemes, then not following through with any action.
  
  --
  You can never know everything, and part of what you do know will always be wrong. Perhaps even the most important part.
4. Re:Awesome! by jcr · 2012-07-31 18:33 · Score: 2
  
  Oh, is that what he was getting at? What I got from that movie is "don't clone dinosaurs unless you've got armored vehicles to wrangle them with."
  -jcr
  
  --
  The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
5. Re:Awesome! by CheshireDragon · 2012-07-31 18:38 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Like every other eccentric out there. No one cares that the rich are crazy, only the hobo on the street corner.
  
  --
  "That's right...I said it."
6. Re:Awesome! by Kam+Solusar · 2012-07-31 18:39 · Score: 2
  
  "There is a problem with that island. It is an accident waiting to happen."
  -- Ian Malcolm, Jurrassic Park
  
  --
  The Angels have the Phone Box
7. Re:Awesome! by SomePgmr · 2012-07-31 18:43 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  I thought the take-away was, "Pay your programmers well, or things will go horribly wrong."
  Also, don't breed that really large, featherless, murderous variety of chess playing velociraptor with opposable digits. They're not worth the aggravation.
8. Re:Awesome! by davester666 · 2012-07-31 18:57 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Or "don't go with the lowest bidder for the computer system controlling everything in your park".
  
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  Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
9. Re:Awesome! by Daniel+Dvorkin · 2012-07-31 19:01 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Crichton was trying to make a point with his Jurassic Park novels. It was a cautionary tale about "the law of unintended consequences".
  And so? Why should we take Jurassic Park, or any work of fiction, as a guide to the way this would work in the real world?
  Cautionary tales of Science Run Amok are at least as old as modern science itself (Frankenstein was published in 1818, arguably about the point where science as we understand it today was emerging from the morass of religious teleology, superstition, and philosophical maundering) and for just as long, they've been held up as examples of why we shouldn't do this or that: "That which we know now is Good and Right and The Way Things Are, but this new knowledge you're seeking is in the realm of Things Man Was Not Meant To Know!" And for the entire time, science has gone ahead anyway, and within a generation or two everyone pretty much agrees that it was a good thing ... just in time to complain about whatever new field of knowledge is opening up and is therefore Scary and Dangerous.
  I'd say spending any amount of money to clone dinosaurs is a bad idea, but that's not because the end result will be people getting eaten by raptors. It's because we don't have any dinosaur DNA* and aren't likely to have enough to get anything like a complete sequence, nor do we have nearly enough basic biological knowledge to create a viable embryo even if we did have the genetic information. Now, speaking as a bioinformaticist, if Clive Palmer wants to devote a portion of his considerable wealth to creating the knowledge that would allow us to clone dinosaurs if we were lucky enough to retrieve some reasonably intact tissue, I'll applaud -- but I hope he's not expecting to have a pet stegosaurus any time in the next few years, or even decades.
  *Not counting bird DNA, which of course is plentiful, but reconstructing the ancestral sequences back to the point necessary to create "dinosaurs" as most people think of them would be just about as huge a challenge as building the whole thing from scratch.
  
  --
  The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
10. Re:Awesome! by metrix007 · 2012-07-31 19:09 · Score: 2
  
  Is it 100% certain that birds came from dinosaurs? I thought that was just a popular hypothesis?
  
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  If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
11. Re:Awesome! by Lotana · 2012-07-31 19:11 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  I have read several of his books and came to the conclusion that either he is really afraid of all science and technology or just writing his books targeting the audience that are. Every single book came down to: "See? SEE?! This is why you fucking scientists shouldn't do anything remotely exprimental!!!"
12. Re:Awesome! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-31 19:13 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  No matter how primitive the technology, it's possible to construct a cautionary tale of how it will fail: http://dresdencodak.com/2009/09/22/caveman-science-fiction/
13. Re:Awesome! by Daniel+Dvorkin · 2012-07-31 19:16 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  I think it's pretty well accepted at this point. Early birds and feathered ground-dwelling dromeosaurs are anatomically almost identical. Obviously there's no way to be sure without DNA, but we're probably about as sure that aves is a subset of dinosauria as we are of anything in paleontology. (IANAP, terms and conditions may apply, see your local paleontologist for details.)
  
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  The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
14. Re:Awesome! by easyTree · 2012-07-31 19:27 · Score: 2
  
  On communist earth, us eat dinosaurs.
  Humans are pretty scary. I'm seeing a possible future with McVelociraptor Burgers.
  
  --
  Requiem for the American Dream
15. Re:Awesome! by MobileTatsu-NJG · 2012-07-31 19:29 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Eh, I suppose. The real point of it is: "Turn pages and tell your buddies to buy this book."
  
  --
  
  "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
16. Re:Awesome! by nyctopterus · 2012-07-31 19:30 · Score: 2
  
  It's pretty much certain at this point. The skeletal anatomical evidence alone would be enough, but now there's a whole slew of independent confirmation from soft tissues, molecular studies, and behavioural evidence. We are more certain birds are dinosaurs than we are most other dinosaurs are dinosaurs.
17. Re:Awesome! by Twinbee · 2012-07-31 19:38 · Score: 2
  
  So after the death of the dino, how long would we have to extract complete DNA? 10 years? 1000?
  
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  Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
18. Re:Awesome! by silentcoder · 2012-07-31 19:49 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Not in the least. Read the forewords and author's notes as well and you'll see a very different point of view: science for PROFIT is extremely risky.
  His concern isn't science for the sake of knowledge, but the inherent dangers of doing science for the sake of money. That become science done in secret rather than open, science that cuts corners to save costs, science that is applied for dubious rather than nobel goals.
  He loves genetic engineering and it's possibility to improve lives for example, but as he shows in "Next" - he despises the idea of "gene patents".
  The problem with Jurassic Park wasn't that it was science, but that it was consumerist-driven.
  
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  Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
19. Re:Awesome! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-31 19:50 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Using nothing more than signal chemicals (something like growth hormones) applied at the right spot during the right moment of embryo growth, it's possible to make chickens grow teeth. A different substance applied at the base of the spine during early embryo formation gets you a chicken with a long, dinosaur-like tail. You can do something similar to the wings too, unbending them in a way that makes them more like handclaws.
  This is without any genetic modification at all. The data to revert a chicken to something with dinosaurlike claws, teeth and tail all still exists in the standard modern chicken genome. There's nowhere near enough data preserved in chickens to reverse what evolution has done to them over tens of millions of years, but there is a lot more preserved than you might expect.
  Look up Jack Horner's "chickenosaurus" concept for the details. His book has info on the experimental background to the idea.
20. Re:Awesome! by silentcoder · 2012-07-31 19:57 · Score: 2
  
  >And for the entire time, science has gone ahead anyway, and within a generation or two everyone pretty much agrees that it was a good thing ... just in time to complain about whatever new field of knowledge is opening up and is therefore Scary and Dangerous.
  Because the atom bomb was a good thing, so is computers used to destroy privacy, drone strikes killing civilians who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time - all examples of science driven technology that wasn't possible until quite recently... it's not as simple as you think. Science is knowledge, knowledge is power, power can be used for good or evil (the same nuclear power can produce energy, the same guidance systems in drones can make safer plane landings, the same computers can help dissidents revolt against terrible governments more safely), the point of cautionary science fiction I always thought was to warn us about the potential evil, so we can avoid that while still using the knowledge for good.
  
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21. Re:Awesome! by Daniel+Dvorkin · 2012-07-31 20:10 · Score: 2
  
  Because the atom bomb was a good thing, so is computers used to destroy privacy, drone strikes killing civilians who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time
  The atom bomb was (and is) a good thing. Notice how no one's actually tried to take over the world lately? It's not because people have grown any less ambitious or bloodthirsty since the days of Alexander or Temujin or Napoleon or Hitler.
  As for the other examples, yes, of course these technologies can be misused. But I think you'd be hard pressed to argue that computer and aviation technology in general haven't made the world a better place. Cautionary tales such as Frankenstein, and the moden Luddite favorites Gattaca and Jurassic Park, tend to argue against science and technological advancement in general: not "You shouldn't use this knowledge to do that specific thing," but "This knowledge should be left alone forever." Which is fundamentally a pretty dumb idea, and even dumber when people use computers to express it.
  
  --
  The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
22. Re:Awesome! by hvm2hvm · 2012-07-31 20:15 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  science that is applied for dubious rather than nobel goals
  Yeah, all scientists should have a nobel as a goal, not money
  
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  ics
23. Re:Awesome! by aliquis · 2012-07-31 20:31 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  "Pay your programmers well, or things will go horribly wrong."
  No problem. I/we/she/whatever knows UNIX! ;D
24. Re:Awesome! by tehcyder · 2012-07-31 20:32 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  It's not the scientists who cause the problem in Jurassic Park, it's the selfish, money-obsessed fat-arsed geek who fucks everything up.
  
  But I can see why most slashdotters would not like this interpretation.
  
  --
  To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
25. Re:Awesome! by DrXym · 2012-07-31 20:56 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Dinosaurs and unicorns simply didn't make it onto the ark. That's all you need to know.
26. Re:Awesome! by silentcoder · 2012-07-31 21:33 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Nice comeback - though I obviously meant to type "noble".
  That said - most people miss the point of the Nobel prize, I just hope most scientists don't. Alfred Nobel made his money from an invention called dynamite. While it later found use as a weapon of war, that wasn't the purpose of his creation. Dynamite is derived from the Latin for "alive" - and it was created to SAVE rather than TAKE lives. Specifically dynamite was invented for mining purposes - the most common mining explosive prior to that was nitro-glycerine, dynamite is MUCH safer to work with and it saved millions of lives by reducing explosion-accidents in mining.
  Nobel firmly believed that science and knowledge are the greatest tools to advance a peaceful world with happier and longer-living people. His prize was intended to encourage scientists to do just that- produce knowledge for the good of mankind. This is also why the only NON-science prize is the peace prize. There is no Nobel-prize for business or economics (no really there isn't - the so-called Nobel-prize for economics was created much later by a bunch of Swiss bankers and has no affiliation with the fund Nobel left or the committee who awards the prizes from that fund).
  Nobel was a humanitarian. The irony is that the very life-saving invention that convinced him of science's great potential for humanity was also just a few decades later such a major part in racking up the body counts in the world wars. Nobel would not have been pleased...
  
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27. Re:Awesome! by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · 2012-07-31 21:35 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  It's been pointed out the problems in Jurassic Park are not Man's Arrrogance in playing God but rather lousy zookeeping and corruption and sabotage.
  
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  (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
28. Re:Awesome! by silentcoder · 2012-07-31 21:56 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Not at all. Even if all money is made in a profit-based market - and thus the funding for science comes from there- that doesn't mean that science has to be done with a profit motive.
  Crichton is strongly opposed to privatization of science and believes it must be tax-funded as a public-good without a profit motive, he also strongly opposes laws that allow publicly funded research to be patented.
  Now that tax-money may have been made by profit-seeking companies originally, but the intermediary step prevents THEIR motivations from becoming the motivations of the SCIENTISTS.
  His point is science should be done for knowledge, if somebody can use that knowledge to make a profit that's fine- but that somebody must not be the scientist. I tend to agree.
  If you take that approach, then you can prevent the kind of stupid laws that want to turn universities into more "business-like" entities, if anything they are TOO MUCH like private enterprize already, they OUGHT to operate as a public service. Nobody ever asks if a neighbourhood playground makes MONEY - we just build them because it's better to live in a world with them than a world without them. That is what science should be. A neighbourhood playground.
  
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  Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
29. Re:Awesome! by Krneki · 2012-07-31 22:10 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  science that is applied for dubious rather than nobel goals
  Yeah, all scientists should have a nobel as a goal, not money
  This is why we need a troll-funny mod option.
  
  --
  Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
30. Re:Awesome! by michelcolman · 2012-07-31 22:22 · Score: 2
  
  So even if we had complete dinosaur DNA, that would not be enough to recreate them because they also need to receive certain chemicals at specific times during embryo growth? (which would come from the mother dinosaur or the composition of the egg, I presume).
31. Re:Awesome! by Lotana · 2012-07-31 22:22 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  it must be tax-funded as a public-good without a profit motive
  His point is science should be done for knowledge, if somebody can use that knowledge to make a profit that's fine- but that somebody must not be the scientist.
  That would be ideal. Unfortunately that only works if people at large are happy to pay taxes to fund the science. In the real world we live in, majority of people bitch and whine about taxes that don't bring them direct, immediate benefits.
  Science investment brings with it incredible returns, but in incomprehensible forms that can only be put into practical inventions many years later. Majority of people would rather have more money in their pocket to spend on whatever they feel like at the moment, rather than being put towards something that they don't understand nor can imagine ever being useful. Another aspect is the anti-intellectual slant that seems to be quite prevalent.
  Thus taxes get cut, government science programs are on the top list to get slashed (Since majority of voters care about them the least and don't employ as many people), so researchers must turn towards profit-looking private investors to survive.
  Idealism just doesn't survive in the real world.
32. Re:Awesome! by michelcolman · 2012-07-31 22:24 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  I thought dinosaurs had never existed in the first place, and their bones had been planted into the soil by God to test our faith? Now you've got me all confused...
33. Re:Awesome! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-31 22:36 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  If it's any consolation, velociraptors were not that big and looked rather ridiculous
34. Re:Awesome! by silentcoder · 2012-07-31 22:37 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  >That would be ideal. Unfortunately that only works if people at large are happy to pay taxes to fund the science. In the real world we live in, majority of people bitch and whine about taxes that don't bring them direct, immediate benefits.
  Sad, but true, not an insurmountable problem however. The difference is in education: teach people the value of knowledge, that all scientific research DO bring tangible benefits and that making it publicly available gives you as an individual a greater SHARE of that benefit. For example if all drug-research was done publicly, and made by whoever had a factory, without patents, then medicines would be MUCH, MUCH cheaper for all of us.
  >Science investment brings with it incredible returns, but in incomprehensible forms that can only be put into practical inventions many years later.
  Some generations have figured that out in the past, often the next one undid the progress, but like I said, it can be done.
  >Idealism just doesn't survive in the real world.
  This I radically don't agree with. Idealism is the only thing that changes the real world.
  To quote Richard Stallman: "If I had set out to say 'a mostly free operating system is okay' back when even that seemed impossible to most people, then we would not have had completely free operating systems available today. We have completely free operating systems because we set out to create nothing less than the ideal. Idealism is stating the ideal, and pushing for the ideal, even if you never quite get there, because every step you get closer is an improvement".
  
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35. Re:Awesome! by thegarbz · 2012-07-31 22:58 · Score: 2
  
  That is such an understatement.
  - We've got a guy who started a football team, bought some expensive players, and then completely abandoned the club.
  - This is a man who said the CIA funded the greens exclusively so they could destroy the Australian economy.
  - This man's billboard is still standing in the area where he was going to run for election directly against the opposing treasurer who just won the world's best treasurer award. Not that he's running for this seat anymore.
  Between rebuilding the Titanic and now Jurassic Park it's amazing anyone gives him any airtime anymore.
36. Re:Awesome! by kramulous · 2012-07-31 23:03 · Score: 2
  
  I've meet Clive a few times. He is made out to be a crazy coot but the man is actually quite intelligent. He loves science. He has a *lot* of money and will be making a *lot* more in the near to medium future. He's happy to donate just for the possibility. He loves thinking big.
  
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37. Re:Awesome! by silentcoder · 2012-07-31 23:19 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  >- no? So tell me then, what is the motivation if it is not for profit? So how do you measure scientific output, how do you figure what scientific paths to pursue?
  Knowledge, knowledge is the most valuable commodity in the universe, far moreso than profit - especially monetary profit. Besides which - all knowledge ultimately translates into profit anyway - but sometimes that takes centuries.
  That's exactly why profit should NOT be a motivator. Where is the profit in studying planets around stars 20 milion lightyears away ? It will never be profitable -but it could ultimately turn out to the most important thing humans ever did.
  >Do you understand why science developed mostly starting with the industrial revolution, which was the consequence of free market capitalism?
  You've got the cause and effect exactly BACKWARDS. Science can, and does, drive industry - but while industry can drive science it must NEVER be allowed to.
  For-profit science didn't EXIST during the industrial revolution, the idea of academic research being patentable, the idea of a PHD holding patents was unthinkable in those years (as it OUGHT to be today). Scientists produced knowledge, some of that knowledge was used by industrialists to create products, but a lot of it wasn't useful for products.
  In fact the vast majority of non-university scientists in the industrial revolution were priests ! Why ? Because priests had lots of free time, which they devoted to research, and no profit motive to detract from researching what was INTERESTING.
  By your logic one of the greatest scientific discoveries should never have been allowed to happen: Darwin's theory of evolution. Since Darwin was trained in theology and medicine, and never worked as either, and his research was absolutely useless to ANY industries that existed at the time (in fact it would take almost 70 years for the next piece of the puzzle - genetics to be discovered - and another 50 years before industries were able to make use of that combination for anything at all, it's only STARTING now).
  You're another typical "free market uber alles" capitalist who refuses to see even the POTENTIAL value in PUBLIC goods.
  Let me guess, you want eternal copyright too - because knowledge in the public domain has no value according to you.
  What value does Shakespeare have, what profit is there in Snow White - how can there be value in something that belongs to EVERYBODY ?
  Oops... idiot.
  
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  Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
38. Re:Awesome! by GameboyRMH · 2012-07-31 23:24 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Utahraptors, on the other hand...
  
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  "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
39. Re:Awesome! by ACE209 · 2012-07-31 23:29 · Score: 2
  
  Notice how no one's actually tried to take over the world lately?
  No - just policing the world and snatching a few resources here and there.
  
  --
  "we are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."
40. Re:Awesome! by Christopher+Fritz · 2012-07-31 23:32 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  For those who, like I, were curious, here is an article about chicken with teeth:
  Mutant Chicken Grows Alligatorlike Teeth.
  Some interesting lines:
  
  ... Matthew Harris of the University of Wisconsin noticed that the beak of a mutant chicken embryo he was examining had fallen off. Upon closer examination of the snubbed beak, he found tiny bumps and protuberances along its edge that looked like teeth--alligator teeth to be specific.
  The mutant chickens Harris studied bear a recessive trait dubbed talpid. This trait is lethal, meaning that such mutants are never born, but some incubate in eggs as long as 18 days.
  ... a chicken's underlying ability to grow teeth derives from a common ancestor with alligators--archosaurs--that is more recent than the one linking birds and mammals. Nevertheless, the underlying genetic mechanism that produces teeth in mice, alligators and mutant chickens remains the same.
  Exactly how the mutation causes the chickens to sprout teeth is unknown, Fallon notes, but a similar effect can be produced in normal chickens. Harris proved this by engineering a virus to mimic the molecular signals of the mutation and caused normal chickens to briefly develop teeth that were then reabsorbed into the beak.
41. Re:Awesome! by TFAFalcon · 2012-07-31 23:36 · Score: 2
  
  The problem is that (unlike in Jurassic park), the people that take the risks aren't the people killed when things go wrong. At worst, they might loose the money they put into their company, but in most cases even that won't happen.
  What should be done is that the people that made the decision that ultimately killed someone should be charged with involuntary manslaughter AND the limited liability of the company itself should be removed. So any owners would have all of their assets spent compensating the victims or their families)
42. Re:Awesome! by bitt3n · 2012-08-01 00:04 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Crichton was trying to make a point with his Jurassic Park novels. It was a cautionary tale about "the law of unintended consequences".
  and as a result, some dude's building a dinosaur park. I bet Crichton never intended that.
  
  --
  how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
43. Re:Awesome! by silentcoder · 2012-08-01 00:08 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  >Value can be measured in the real world, it's not that hard, either people want it and are willing to SPEND on it, and thus you can have profit and you can measure efficiency or people don't want it and then there is NO VALUE except for what is in your head.
  That's an economist's definition of value - it's not an accurate or complete picture. Knowing the movements of the planets is information we cannot use to make a product, we cannot sell it, we cannot make anything out of it, if we ever can it won't be for probably hundreds of years - yet it DOES have value.
  Any and ALL knowledge have value. In fact, the value of it is INFINITE since knowledge cannot be used-up. It's a true post-scarcity supply.
  Economists measure that value as "zero" - but that's because economists are using a too limited view.
  >If you are not seeing this, then all you are talking about is mental masturbation, sure sure, you can have your mental masturbation, you can have your mental orgasm even because you believe that you have some knowledge that wasn't there previously, but if this knowledge never translates into anything that the economy actually is willing to pay for with profits, then its purely irrelevant, it was no more relevant than any other form of entertainment.
  That kind of view is the antithesis of human progress. All knowledge has infinite value just by existing.
  >My argument is that the basic science is done in the private sector as long as there is no government stealing money from the private sector, and it's done as a side effect of people searching for profit.
  If we limit science to that which has the potential for profit (or at least the currently VISIBLE potential for profit) we destroy it, not least because it isn't science AT ALL unless the results are freely available. It's only science WHEN it is public domain, until then - it's not science.
  Fundamental principle of the scientific method is peer-review, public scrutiny and openness - directly contradictory with a profit motive.
  >Before 1913 there were no income taxes, there were no corporate taxes, there were no payroll taxes, there were no capital gains taxes, no taxes on dividends, no taxes on rent, no taxes on PRODUCTIVITY
  Not only an idiot, an idiot who thinks America is the world. Read the bible, the first version of income taxes will be found the very first chapter of Kings I. 4000 years ago the governments charged taxes. Most of the Industrial-age scientific revolution came from Britain, not America and that WAS a welfare state. Most scientists were not employed by industry but by the church or by TAX-FUNDED academia (which Britain had, had for hundreds of years by then). The idea of tax-funded academic research was already WELL ESTABLISHED when it gave us Isaac Newton in the 1600's !
  >But how necessary is it to have government stealing money from the private sector to fund research into such things, what is the efficiency of this model?
  It takes something of fixed/limited value to buy something of infinite value that only gets MORE valuable the bigger the supply becomes and MORE valuable the more people have access to it. It's the greatest deal in the world, the ultimate investment.
  >It is the institutions that are concerned with education that allow the environment to develop that is necessary to do scientific research, including basic sciences.
  Cause and effect reversed - AGAIN. It's institutions that are concerned with research that double as the best training grounds for other researchers. That should be the total extent of university education: training the next generation of scientists. Everybody who does not WANT to be a scientist should NOT get a degree, but go to some or other form of trade school.
  >You are completely wrong, putting the cart ahead of a horse, thinking that the education and science came before the free market capitalist looking for profit.
  The first example of a University was Plato's academy, established in 387BC, it charged no admissi
  
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44. Re:Awesome! by silentcoder · 2012-08-01 00:09 · Score: 2
  
  Ad Hominem fallacy.
  What kind of person Crichton is has NO bearing on whether or not he is right about something or not.
  
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45. Re:Awesome! by Rei · 2012-08-01 00:14 · Score: 2
  
  Let me add a couple more:
  The main message of "Airframe" was "The media is evil lying scum"
  The main message of "The Andromeda Strain" was "Scientists shouldn't do anything experimental and I am an idiot when it comes to biology."
  
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  "... Sean Hannity, whose surgery to remove those bolts from his neck was apparently successful, ..."
46. Re:Awesome! by M8e · 2012-08-01 00:21 · Score: 2
  
  Yes, dinosaurs have never existed and any fossils is just to test our faith.
  DrXym meant dragons and inucorns. Dragons did exist, the bible says so, But there is no bones or fossils after them.
47. Re:Awesome! by silentcoder · 2012-08-01 00:32 · Score: 2
  
  The only thing that determines whether something is worthy of debate is the likelihood of it being right. NOT the source of the statement, but the MERIT of the statement.
  If anything this was an ad hominem attack taken to an even worse than usual level.
  
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  Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
48. Re:Awesome! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-01 00:36 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  I'm not the least interested in profit when I do science. All my research is centered around world domination.
49. Re:Awesome! by Rei · 2012-08-01 00:40 · Score: 2
  
  The real goal would be twofold: the historic and the modern.
  From the historic side, chemicals have been recovered from dinosaur bones, not just mineralization. While DNA recovery is unlikely, one can identify the remains of proteins and other compounds and get a sense of what chemicals the dinosaurs were producing and in what quantities. The cellular structures of some dinosaur bone and even soft tissue is known and inferences can be made thusly about how different genes were being expressed on the microscopic scale. And of course we have a pretty good sense of how they were expressed on the macroscopic scale, in particular regarding bone and what we can infer from them about tendon and muscle.
  From the modern side, one can sequence as diverse of a range of avian clades as possible. You can then reverse-populate a genetic tree, getting a good sense of out what is old and what is a modern mutation. This should enable backpopulating avians back to their latest genetic bottleneck. You won't be able to pin down a single specific genome, and a number of what you come out with as "possibilities" won't have been the actuality, while some actual genes may have since been altogether lost, but you should be able to figure out a lot. You could likewise use data from reptiles, in particular crocodilians, to try to infer some pre-dinosaur genetic datapoints which you could blend with your avian results to narrow down the possibiltiies or add more genetic diversity. Lastly, you have the option of reactivating genes that have been clearly broken by obvious mutation sequences if you feel it necessary and if the data suggests that there's a chance they might have been active in the past. Combining the two concepts, for example, if your inference from birds comes up with a broken gene at their bottleneck and your inference from reptiles comes up with a working gene at its bottleneck, then the gene broke at some point between when crocodilians branched off from what later became the dinosaurs, and when birds branched off from the raptors. So not only do you have the option of using or not using the gene, but you have the option of using it for older dinosaur species you're trying to recreate and not using it for newer species.
  Combining this all, you can basically mix the range of known possible genes with the desired expression patterns of those genes and their known family trees to try to recreate species from the past. Perfection? Far from it. But I bet a well-funded project could get some interesting results.
  
  --
  "... Sean Hannity, whose surgery to remove those bolts from his neck was apparently successful, ..."
50. Re:Awesome! by Rei · 2012-08-01 00:46 · Score: 2
  
  There's no reason one has to pay attention to the views of anyone. If they're going to be an arse, they deserve any "being ignored" that they get.
  
  --
  "... Sean Hannity, whose surgery to remove those bolts from his neck was apparently successful, ..."
51. Re:Awesome! by michelcolman · 2012-08-01 01:02 · Score: 2
  
  Dragons did exist, the bible says so, But there is no bones or fossils after them.
  He probably used those to make the dinosaur bones.
52. Re:Awesome! by cayenne8 · 2012-08-01 01:21 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  ...but... when was dynamite used as a weapon of war?
  Well, it sure was abpopular weapon for Clint Eastwood in some of his spaghetti westerns....
  
  --
  Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
53. Re:Awesome! by silentcoder · 2012-08-01 01:29 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  >But that isn't gonna pay any bills, let you go on a great vacation trip, nor get you laid.....
  Knowlege creates all the means by which bills can be paid, and indeed the ability to create bills in the first place. Knowledge lets you know where to go on vacation, why you may want to go there, and why it's good to take vacations. And knowledge of sex is the difference between bad and good lovers - good lovers most certainly DO get laid more often.
  Your point exactly ?
  
  --
  Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
54. Re:Awesome! by silentcoder · 2012-08-01 01:35 · Score: 2
  
  Most recently, the 1960's one of the most academic and scientifically progressive eras in American History.
  Granted the real source of that drive was the urge to outdo Russia - but it put a man on the moon, and all the science and technology needed for one of the most incredible feats of engineering ever achieved grew from that.
  Along the way thousands of other scientific advancements were made by building on pieces created for that goal, and still other ideas pursued towards that goal which proved to be useless for it would later turn out to be very valuable for other work.
  It was in this same period that radio astronomy first became big - and one of it's first major discoveries was made by a female Grad Student studying reams of paper, we call them pulsars. We still don't know for sure what a pulsar is ! We have one theory that at least makes sense, but zero proof for it. We know they exist, we have no idea what they are. But knowing they exist is one step toward finding out what they are.
  
  --
  Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
55. Re:Awesome! by silentcoder · 2012-08-01 03:57 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  >No, it's because no one is willing to spend their own money for this "infinite value" good
  I am. The day my government STOPS allocating a share of my taxes to university subsidies and research grants is the day I will revolt against taxes, same goes for welfare programs.
  I owe my success to two things - hard work, and privilege. I had privilege. And privilege is a debt, debts must be paid. Welfare isn't TAKEN from me, it's paying my debt - by taking some of the results of my privilege and using it to provide privilege to those who don't have it. A debt that is paid forward. Paying Forward: still the single best idea Benjamin Franklin ever had.
  In short: speak for yourself.
  >That gives us a good idea of the level of bullshit you're spreading here. If science truly were of infinite value to us, then we would all without exclusion devote all of our collective efforts to scientific discovery and knowledge. It isn't so we don't.
  That's argument by pushing to the absurd - a fallacy. And the reasoning is flawed. Just because something has infinite value, doesn't mean it's the ONLY thing that does, or that it's value is interchangeable with all that does - or more importantly all that is neccesities.
  Knowledge however is what all other value is built on, and it's usually not POSSIBLE to predict which knowledge will be most valueable ahead of time - any more than it's possible to predict which starving artist is creating paintings that will, after his death, sell for millions.
  We can't tell the Van Gogh from the idiots until a century later- what makes you think we can truly evaluate the value of any other knowledge ?
  Knowledge lets us create value, it increases the availability and reduces neccesity of all other things - that is important, but it doesn't do so instantly, hence we need to devote some, perhaps most, resources to other needs - but the idea that we should only pursue such research as we can see a profitable cause for is ... er... stupid.
  Why then do we fund astronomy ? Anything beyond the engineering needed to plant satelites have ZERO profitable returns for the foreseable future. Why do we fund (most) biology ? What monetary value is there in knowing that Elephants are related to Mannatees ?
  And why is it that the second largest scientific breakthroughs of the entire 20th century was made by it's LEAST capitalist nation ?
  Clearly science exists JUST as well in socialism as in capitalism - just as long as the science itself is allowed to NOT be capitalist.
  If you do research for profit, then there is value in secrecy - and secrecy is the OPPOSITE of the value of science.
  
  --
  Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
56. Re:Awesome! by Jane+Q.+Public · 2012-08-01 04:43 · Score: 2
  
  While Crichton may have put it in terms of profit motive, the themes in his book actually tend to be centered around greed, which is not the same thing.
  
  However, whether Crichton mentions it or not, a theme that is just as common in his books (though not universal), and goes all the way back to The Andromeda Strain, is: "Be careful when you mess with Mother Nature, because living things have a knack for escaping their cages."
  
  And I think that is one of his more prophetic themes, because we have actually SEEN it happen, again and again, from invasive species to biology lab breaches to GMO crops.
  
  Don't let anybody try to tell you otherwise: those recent virulent-flu experiments were dangerous beyond the capabilities of the containment facilities in which they occurred. They should never have been allowed... but of course, authorities didn't hear about them until they were a fait accompli.
57. Re:Awesome! by tsmithnj · 2012-08-01 05:51 · Score: 2
  
  The Toronto Raptors also look ridiculous....
58. Re:Awesome! by RespekMyAthorati · 2012-08-01 05:56 · Score: 2
  
  Everything is scary in Utah.
59. Re:Awesome! by darkmeridian · 2012-08-01 06:35 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Gatling created his machine gun trying to save human lives. In the days of the Civil War, most of the deaths were from infections of otherwise non-fatal wounds or disease. Most of the soldiers were dying before they had the chance to shoot the other guys. Gatling thought that if he could create a gun that enabled one man to do the work of a hundred men, then 99 men could stay home from the battlefield.
  Let's just say that this didn't turn out the way he expected it to.
  
  --
  A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
60. Re:Awesome! by TheLink · 2012-08-01 14:32 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  While large creatures are probably dangerous to humans, they are unlikely to be a real danger to humanity, unless they are as intelligent as humans AND people decide to give them equality or near equality with humans. Because if bad things happen, they'd just end up near extinction like the other large creatures or large predators. Who believes we can't kill practically every last tiger or elephant in the world if we really wanted to? If dangerous dinos somehow escape the humans will come with guns and hunt them down, heck all the big game hunters will be fighting to get licenses to do it. The only way there'd be millions of them is if they end up being farmed by humans for meat, leather, feathers or other stuff.
  
  The smaller creatures on the other hand could end up as pests like rats. But if they breed via eggs, they better be able to keep their eggs (and young) safe or the rats, cats and dogs will exterminate them too.
  
  The even smaller stuff like old viruses and bacteria? Now that's what scares me. But they are probably being introduced regularly already from all that thawing ice - albeit not at such scale.
  --
  
  Too many replies beneath your current threshold
Interesting...And.. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-31 18:20 · Score: 4, Funny

Just for the record, he did actually watch the movie, so he knows how this turns out right?
1. Re:Interesting...And.. by detritus. · 2012-07-31 18:35 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Which one, Jurassic Park or Titanic?
2. Re:Interesting...And.. by Daniel+Dvorkin · 2012-07-31 19:08 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Jurassitanic. The touching story of a doomed love between a beautiful woman and a scrappy, determined raptor, set against the background of one of the greatest theme park disasters of all time. It'll be the date movie of the year.
  
  --
  The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
3. Re:Interesting...And.. by drkim · 2012-07-31 19:14 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Which one, Jurassic Park or Titanic?
  Actually, that would be pretty cool...
  Hundreds of carnivorous dinosaurs roaming freely around a luxury cruise ship, which sinks at the end...
  I smell reality series!
  (Frantically calling Writers' Guild)
4. Re:Interesting...And.. by Hrshgn · 2012-07-31 23:27 · Score: 2
  
  The title is obvious as well:
  "Dinosaurs on a ship".
Meh by srussia · 2012-07-31 18:22 · Score: 3

Someone send this guy a DVD of "Weird Science". I'd go to that theme park.

--
Set your phasers on "funky"!
1. Re:Meh by Teancum · 2012-07-31 18:55 · Score: 2
  
  If there is a theme park for weird science, I'd say it would have to be the Exploratorium. If you happen to ever get to the San Francisco area in your travels, it is most definitely a geek out site to visit and check out... especially with your kids if you have them with you but going by yourself is also worth the time as well.
  They could also use some benefactors and philanthropists to help them out, but to me it is what a museum really ought to be instead of a bunch of stuffy static exhibits.
Did I miss something? by Apotekaren · 2012-07-31 18:23 · Score: 2

I thought there were lots of talks about this after the movie came out, and the definite answer was that it was impossible because DNA does not preserve that long, no matter how nicely that mosquito was encapsulated in amber.

--
She: Hey, are you a traitor? Me: No, I'm atheist.
1. Re:Did I miss something? by pegasustonans · 2012-07-31 18:43 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  I thought there were lots of talks about this after the movie came out, and the definite answer was that it was impossible because DNA does not preserve that long, no matter how nicely that mosquito was encapsulated in amber.
  True, though nobody ever said it would be impossible if the specimen were encapsulated in ice.
  It may be possible if dinosaurs are ever found preserved in ice. Though, I wouldn't hold your breath.
  The reason DNA degrades in amber is, among other things, due to background radiation, a factor which is less worrisome when dealing with ice.
  The likelihood of finding a dinosaur or specimen with intact dinosaur DNA in ice, however, is ridiculously low. Nevertheless, if I were a billionaire intent on blowing money, I could think of worse ways to spend it than a dinosaur hunting expedition to Antarctica.
  
  --
  And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
2. Re:Did I miss something? by mosb1000 · 2012-07-31 20:37 · Score: 2
  
  I could think of worse ways to spend it than a dinosaur hunting expedition to Antarctica.
  Incidentally, Antarctica was probably ice free at the time of the extinction of the dinosaurs.
3. Re:Did I miss something? by Attila+the+Bun · 2012-07-31 21:01 · Score: 2
  
  True, though nobody ever said it would be impossible if the specimen were encapsulated in ice.
  Trouble is you need to find a place which has continuously stayed below freezing for the last 65 million years, plus a species of dinosaur which would have lived in such a place. I'm unaware of any woolly-mammoth type dinosaur thought to have lived in a freezing climate. And whilst the last of the dinosaurs was walking the earth, Antarctica had a sub-tropical climate.
4. Re:Did I miss something? by GameboyRMH · 2012-07-31 23:34 · Score: 2
  
  Came here to say this. Even wooly mammoths frozen in ice haven't fared too well. The current plan for restoring them involves manual DNA repair and breeding with modern elephants.
  Fun news but without a good DNA source this is quite impossible.
  
  --
  "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I'll be first in line by SuperKendall · 2012-07-31 18:24 · Score: 2, Funny

I know UNIX, so I should be plenty safe.

--
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
1. Re:I'll be first in line by CheshireDragon · 2012-07-31 18:41 · Score: 2
  
  That little girl 'thought' she was a hacker too. I thought her using the mouse with a graphical interface was so cute.
  
  --
  "That's right...I said it."
2. Re:I'll be first in line by metrix007 · 2012-07-31 19:12 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Not as cute as all the nerds "in the know" scoffing at the graphical interface in the movie, despite it being the graphical interface used by IRIX (yes, it's a UNIX) at the time.
  
  --
  If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
Palmer's Jurassic Park plan extinct by rjames13 · 2012-07-31 18:24 · Score: 4, Informative

Colourful mining billionaire Clive Palmer may have a costly penchant for resurrecting remnants of the past, but he has no intentions of extending that to long-extinct reptiles, sources say.
The Sunshine Coast Daily reported on rumours that the mining magnate plans to clone a dinosaur from DNA, so it could roam free through a Jurassic Park-style area at his Coolum golf resort.
It was reported Mr Palmer had been in deep discussion with the people who successfully cloned Dolly the sheep.
But a source close to Mr Palmer rubbished the suggestion today.
"It's absolutely ridiculous," the source said.
However, Mr Palmer is expected to reveal highly-anticipated redevelopment plans for his luxury Coolum resort on Friday.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/palmers-jurassic-park-plan-extinct-20120731-23bvr.html
Clive Palmer is a media troll by CoolGopher · 2012-07-31 18:28 · Score: 2

Palmer just likes the lime light and will say anything to get it. Nothing to see here...
1. Re:Clive Palmer is a media troll by tehcyder · 2012-07-31 20:50 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Does anyone have an update as to how the Titanic project is now doing?
  Sunk without trace.
  
  --
  To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Missing tag? by baderman · 2012-07-31 18:31 · Score: 2

Maybe you should add the "what could possibly go wrong" tag? :)
Re:Wasn't this the plot of a movie? by I(rispee_I(reme · 2012-07-31 18:43 · Score: 2

Not in the novel. Spielberg changed the ending of the movie to allow for a sequel.
Spin doctoring by gargleblast · 2012-07-31 18:47 · Score: 5, Interesting

This is just Clive Palmer's way of deflecting press coverage. Palmer is one of several Australian mining billionaires, and the Treasurer is expected to talk soon about their opposition to mining tax. Clive would rather have http://google.com/search?q=clive+palmer+news link to anything else, e.g. dinosaurs and his new resort.
I don't know about these "Dolly" scientists by dingen · 2012-07-31 18:49 · Score: 2

The billionaire has already been in touch with the scientists who helped clone Dolly the sheep to see what it would take to clone a dinosaur from DNA.
He does know Dolly died at the age of six, while the average life span of sheep is at least twice that long and lots of sheep (when properly cared for) live up to 20 years?
Unless he's ok with his T-Rex barely reaching adulthood, he might want to look elsewhere for better cloning scientists.

--
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
Jurassic park lesson by rossdee · 2012-07-31 19:21 · Score: 4, Insightful

The lesson I got from Jurassic Park was - Don't clone the meat eaters. Brontosuars and Siplodocis may not be as excitinfg as T-Rex, bit they won't eat you.
Re:Jurassic Park by MobileTatsu-NJG · 2012-07-31 19:33 · Score: 4, Funny

I thought it ended ok, but IANAL.

--

"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Atmosphere by Zontar+The+Mindless · 2012-07-31 19:45 · Score: 2

Doesn't quite have the ring of "sharks with frickin' laser beams", but the effort is appreciated.

--
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Re:Wasn't this the plot of a movie? by jamesh · 2012-07-31 20:22 · Score: 4, Funny

I distinctly remember that happening in a movie from my youth. It was even based on a book! As I recall it didn't end well for those involved.
A futuristic amusement park where dinosaurs are brought to life through advanced cloning techniques? I think the movie you're thinking of was "Billy and the Clonasaurus".
Re:clive palmer by tehcyder · 2012-07-31 20:57 · Score: 2

is a fucking ratbag who is wealthy enough for the fucking idiots of the media to hang off his every word. He was even given the title of "a queensland gem" or some such utter crap, probably because he is a fat ugly cunt with money and an ego to match.
Stop beating around the bush and tell us what you really think of him.

--
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:Yea ok by michelcolman · 2012-07-31 22:37 · Score: 2

If you give me a couple of billion dollars, I'll get you a pony! Anything else?
Just like something out of the US old south by dbIII · 2012-08-01 02:56 · Score: 2

He's got to be where he is by breaking the rules. He started off as a department of mines clerk with inside information and the ability to get leases before anyone outside of the department, got a lot of special treatment later from a government that ended up with half the ministry in jail for taking bribes, then shot from mere millionaire to billionaire on the back of a very strange and dubious deal where he bought Queensland Nickel Refineries for far less than they were making a year in profit. I won't say he's crazy from his claims that a rival political party to the one he bankrolled was "funded by the CIA", I'll say it was a very deliberate lie just like all the rest that got him to where he is.
I haven't met him, because I'm in the minerals exploration business and Clive doesn't do that sort of thing - he just takes stuff from other people once they've found something. He's a bloated leech that adds nothing and just uses the courts as a blunt instrument.

I's say with his funding to set up the LNP that he's already brought the dinosaurs back to Queensland.
'a pernicious myth' by Darth+Snowshoe · 2012-08-01 03:17 · Score: 4, Informative

Space science is another such endeavor. It's been used as rationalization for some of the most ridiculously overpriced infrastructure (the International Space Station) ever built. Even the unmanned space programs have devolved into building new overpriced widgets rather than actual space science.
New Horizons - first mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt.
Kepler - (at least) tripled the number of known exoplanets.
Messenger - first artificial satellite of Mercury.
Cassini/Heugens - first spacecraft orbiting Saturn and its moons. Discovered methane lakes on Titan. Discovered cryovolcanoes on Enceladus. First landing on Titan. [...]
Dawn - first close-up images of major asteroids (Ceres, Vesta). First demonstration of ion thrusters in space.
Radiation Belt Storm Probes - understanding the (critical to life on earth) Van Allen radiation belt.
Solar Probe Plus - closest man-made object to the Sun.
[...]
It's a pernicious myth that the unmanned space program is not producing new and significant results. I really don't understand why it keeps recurring on this website, amazingly. Is it a myth born out of abject ignorance? (If so, go RTF NASA websites.) Or is it an article of faith of people of a specific political bent, absolutely unsubstantiated by facts or actual knowledge of space science?