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If Extinct Species Can Be Brought Back... Should We?
retroworks writes "Rebecca J. Rosen interviews experts in this edition of The Atlantic, to ask about the ethics and wisdom of using cloning, backbreeding, or genome editing. Over 90% of species ever to exist on earth are no more. The article ponders the moral and environmental challenges of humans reintroducing species which humans made extinct."
Should we be brought back if we go extinct?
I want my Dodo-burger and my Moa-burger too.
They can wait with the elephant bird and the terror bird until I get peckish again.
Gastornis parisiensis they can keep, I don't want them to tread on my feet.
But more seriously, instead of editing the genes so that Californian Grizzly doesn't eat people, they could do some editing so that they can be employed to pick oranges, that would be the day.
If we're talking about my Mother-in-law, I think we all agree the answer is 'no.'
T-Rex burger anyone?
This has been beaten and debated in a three part documentary, with a fourth sequel supposedly in the works.
Sig: I stole this sig.
If we exterminated a species, we have a moral duty to bring it back and eventually, reintroduce it to it's former natural habitat.
Let me tell you about endangered species...
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
I want to see a stone age man/woman brought back, or preferably a Neanderthal. I want to see if they are as stupid as modern thinkers believe. Just a thought.
We made a species extinct, then brought it back, then made it extinct again!
No flightless bird f*cks with humanity.
If Extinct Species Can Be Brought Back... Should We?
Last time I checked we weren't dead yet. And who'd bring us back if we were?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Did "Jurassic Park" teach nothing?
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
... all the genome edits are open sourced.
Look, no SIG!
God help us, we're in the hands of engineers.
Ancient DNA has proven difficult to sequence or clone, because it is fragmentary, and most of it breaks down into single strands after it is extracted from bone.
However, a new technique developed at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, sequences single stranded DNA. Scientists just announced they used the technique to fully sequence Denisovan DNA from a bone fragment found in a cave in Siberia. They're going to go back to sequence their library of hundreds of Neandertal DNA specimens.
How long before they make Dolly Denisovan?
No, if we, as natural animals, cause the extinction of another species it is because it was unfit to survive and should be left extinct. Human beings are not outside nature and its methods of determining which species are worthy of survival.
Mother Nature isn't some fucking primitive fertility godless, its a bunch of organisms living together. There is no conscious mind directing a divine order for things. If you want to being back something extinct, go do it. Don't give me this bullshit that 'it wasn't fit to survive'. We change the environment whenever we feel like it.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Say we do that, like we edit the genome and make a somewhat different species from the original, will the "do god exists" question be answered? I mean, do humans then qualify for god?
Messing with the ecology once again is just going to make things worse. However, I have nothing against bringing them back for exhibition purposes in zoos.
I think that if it was "ok" enough to make them extinct, then it's fine to bring them back. (Not saying that it was really ok to make them extinct in the first place).
Whether animals that naturally went extinct should be brought back is another question, but even then, I think for some limited case, like Zoos, larger animals should be safe.
Is it even practical to bring back an extinct specie? I am wondering how many individuals with varied genetic code is required to avoid the issue of inbreeding.
Lets say I found two perfect genetic samples: One male and one female. I placed them into my magical DNA-To-Fertile-Adult(tm) machine, so now have two organisms set to reproduce. But then we run into a problem: Even if those two have 30 offsprings any further mating will result in genetic deterioration due to inbreeding.
So we need to have quite a bit more samples. What is a minimum population count that we need to hit in order to avoid this? Could we possibly have that many different samples of an extinct organism to fulfil such a quota?
Yes, Especially dinosaurs, on an island, where reality tv stars holiday >:-)
No to upset some Muslim people here as mother nature is counted as God. If you mess around with life RDNA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribosomal_DNA you are eventually going to end up with a strain to which you cannot control.
The United States has especially looked for the so called "Holy Grail" of all chemical warfare as Hitler did. What people do not understand is the consequences and or ramifications.
Have a look at Japanese knotweed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_knotweed "It is lovely when it flowers" brought to the UK in the 1800's and Only now after over 100 years the consequences are being realized as it will break through reinforced concrete and keep on going...... but as always; every year it has a beautiful flower.
Does that not sound familiar? I.E "Put up with the wife as she looks pretty once a year". Sorry same goes for other relationships too.
All cows eat grass!
Memories...
It will all go horribly wrong but the musical will make it worth the pain.
If headlines can be worded awkwardly, should we?
It appears to be the only way to bring back Earth to the Sapient Club!
Lisias@Earth.SolarSystem.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Local.Virgo.Universe.org
Whether they are extinct because of natural causes or human causes, If we can bring them back, we should bring them back.
They were here once, and they can be here again.
The DNA sequence alone is not enough to recreate the extinct species. Even if we recover the DNA perfectly. The embryo development is a complex process. Unless you have a surrogate uterus at the right temperature that douses the embryo with the right chemicals at the right time, it would not develop normally.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I initially read the title "If Extinct Species Can Be Brought Back... Should We?", as asking if we humans should be brought back, after having become extinct. So I'm going to respond to that, but I think it'll apply to these other species as well.
If there were someone capable of bringing us back, that all depends on that species. If their environment doesn't really benefit from having us around, then I wouldn't expecet them to bring us back. And with them being a species with similar capabilities as humans, with technology and a decent understanding of reality, I wouldn't think we could offer something significantly different. And they themselves would probably be the biggest negative impact on their own environment, so they really wouldn't need another species like them.
We are all God's parents.
Humans should definitely be brought back!
I misread the title as "Should we, the humanity, be brought back once we are extinct ?".
Interesting question...
The New Zealand Moa went extinct because they were damn tasty.
That is a good enough reason to bring them back.
If they make only a few of them for the zoo, sounds fair enough - if they let them in the wild the ecosystem can be messed up. But can we make just a few of them for the zoo and have a solitary life ? How ethical is that ?
Chinese River Dolphin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baiji
#1, it happened in my life time. It makes it more personal. It feels like someone could have heard a story about the dwindling dolphins around 10 years ago, traveled to China, and done something about it. This really is the case where ONE MOTIVATED PERSON could have saved an entire species. It could have been me. It could have been someone reading this words. WE fucked up.
#2, these were intelligent, attractive, sensitive creatures. It's like killing your dog, or making dogs extinct.
#2, China was not a basket case country ten years ago. Modern, rich, growing, proud. It could reasonably have been expected some Chinese somewhere would have cared enough to at the very least preserve a tissue sample, if not a breeding stock. We're talking about something that the Chinese for thousands of years marveled at, lived with, considered kindred water spirits, perhaps even worshipped. These dolphins feature in ancient Chinese artwork, something their ancestors gazed on and felt kinship with. It's an insult on your ancestors. China: you built a dam, ran some river traffic, polluted some more without thought, and poof: a piece of Chinese identity, a Chinese national treasure, something a part of the fabric of your ancient nation: gone forever. Out of neglect. The slightest atom of national attention and interest and resources would have saved the Baiji.
There's a lot of bullshit nationalist chest thumping in the world, but really CHina: shame on you for this, shame on you. You fucked up. Fix it.
How? I don't know, start with a Indian River Dolphin as a template and engineer. Find some tissue in some bones in the muck somewhere. Bring the Baiji back. You owe your nation this, you owe your ancestors this, you owe the world this.
China, you fucked up. The insult is to your own nation and your own ancestors the greatest. And you have shamed and embarrassed yourself in the world.
Fix it.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Okay, so they got them from Sweden, where they aren't extinct, but still: http://www.ospreys.org.uk/
Reintroducing wolves in Scotland has also been talked about, but it's not clear how well that would work out.
Clearly, George Bush and SUVs are to blame!
Are they fracking mad? What a stupid question. Of course they should! DINOSAURS!
I just read that analysis of the genetic differences between Denisova man and primates have been found, and are restricted to 23 genes only.
This means that, theoretically, with some advances in techology, we could bring them back, and even all evolutionary steps inbetween.
Apart from the zillion of ethical issues, this would be an interesting way to settle the discussion about human evolution once and for all.
"Money is a sign of poverty." - Iain Banks
We definitely should. We need to practice the technique. We'll need for ourselves someday. :)
Hobbits.
I hear Dodo is delicious.
Better engineers than artists. Artist will have pretty things that never work, but engineers will have working things that aren't pretty.
We already have enough republican voters.
Let extinct species stay the way evolution intended them. Dead.
(also, "don't mess with mother nature" and "if it ain't broke don't fix it" ... really
these are big warnings to leave dead species alone.)
E
As long as they are species that have gone extinct in the last couple of centuries, even 500 years, they could be introduced if their original habitat has not undergone complete destruction. I'm thinking of the Indian Cheetah, the Dodo, the Elephant bird etc. - species that have suffered only because of humans.
Of course, these creatures might need tightly protected sanctuaries and might only exist to serve man's ego and curiosity, but if we can breed dogs, horses, cattle and cultivate various plants into differing forms, why not this?
Chat with other atheists http://secularchat.org
First, we were told that its immoral to drive species to extinction. Now you tell us that it's immoral to bring them back. Please make up your minds.
And computer engineers have ugly things that are half broken.
So long as we remove their ability to use door handles.
...What do we name them?
"If Extinct Species Can Be Brought Back... Should We?"
Yes! We should be brought back. I miss us, it's been so lonely around here since the human race became extinct.
I wish I loved the Human Race;
I wish I loved its silly face;
I wish I liked the way it walks;
I wish I liked the way it talks;
And when I'm introduced to one,
I wish I thought "What Jolly Fun!"
~Professor Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh (1861-1922)
Guess I'll have to watch the movie again...
-- http://www.doczayus.com/
I for one welcome our raptor overlords.
We're not extinct yet.
I think the answer should be "yes, we should". My reasons for saying this is somewhat similar to the question "should be travel Mars". Those that were to go to Mars would have to reconsider how they live their life, and cannot continue to polute the environment, and have a very strict focus on recycling. It will be expensive in the first place, but once we spend money on that, we would require dedication to these things, and probably result in new environment friendly technology.
My reasoning here is that if we bring back extinct species, we also have to commit to the project by building an environment they can live in, and maintain it afterwards. That way, if the human factor is the reason they got extinct, they will have at least a minor chance of adapting once again. What we should ask us then is what would happen if they did adapt, then managed to escape. Would they maybe cause other species to become extinct?
Exactly. Look at Windows 7. It sort of works. Maybe. If you don't mind being harassed every time you want to do something, even if you're an admin.
If you don't mind having to search for something because everything is hidden.
If you don't mind having to wait while it "Prepares" to do something.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Oh. Give me a second to put on my goggles, black vinyl gloves and white lab coat. Ok that's better. Now... "Yes! Muahahahahahahahaha!" If only to give some scientist somewhere the opportunity to yell "It's alive!"
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
All the historical records claim that Dodo's were delicious, and easy to raise.
There actually *is* a good reason to bring them back. Not the least of which is that we caused them to go extinct to begin with.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Betteridge's law: "Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word 'no'".
If the question is "Should we", the answer is "yes", thus falsifying Betteridge's law.
There's a lot of early snark going on here. But they're missing an Elephant In The Room. What about the Religious questions? "God put them there, we killed them off, so of course we should do God's Will to put them back!" The article dares to mention "the natural evolution of Earth". Oh, I'm sorry, 41% (or whatever it is now) doesn't believe in evolution, right?
New wrinkle. Watch them try to Patent the processes that create the extinct animals. Wanna see what that trial looks like? "The Samsung Grizzly looks too much like Apple's iBear! Cease and Desist and re-Extinct the Samsung Grizzly!"
So if you're gonna get into ethics, get into ALL of them.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
"yes"
Why not if we can fix it.
Why bother about possibly new biological balance issues considering what we do in the first place?
Higher bio-diversity is most likely better in the long run I suppose. More likely some of it succeed.
"But it already failed!", yeah, but maybe not because it wasn't all that suitable for life in their inhabitant sans bullets.
Hunters, meat eaters, settlers. buy and throw away. All part of the problem.
I wish we could agree on giving 50% of the surface area back to wild life and just use the other 50% our self.
Here's irrefutable proof from fundamentalforms:
"Elsewhere it has been argued with success that Noah maintained the largest repository of animal DNA ever assembled in his "Ark". Researchers have concluded that Noah's greatest contribution was not the ark that he built with alien assistance but the monumental task of cloning every animal from the DNA samples which he saved and protected on the ark.
Interestingly, research has come to light in recent years that relates this cloning operation to the story of Ham and the uncovering of Noah's nakedness after Noah became drunk. Alternate theories abound. However students of scripture, archaeology, and crypto-history alike are coming to some definite conclusions about just what really happened to Noah and Ham after the flood.
Scholars working from papyrus and copper scrolls found at Qumran, Masada, and Megiddo had been able to piece together a basic account of just exactly what happened.
Noah was not cultivating grapes to get drunk. Noah was operating a sophisticated scientific operation designed to reconstitute animals from the DNA samples he posessed. Ham was a necessary participant. Through an ingenious scientific process lost to history. Ham would seed the DNA into Noah's body. Noah acted as an incubator for the animal zygotes until they reached a certain level of development. At that point they would be transferred to the uterus of a cow or antelope.
At any one time, a hundred or more zygotes were living free in Noah's abdomen. It was Ham's job to "impregnate" Noah with the cloned embryos as each batch was ready. What was unknown to Noah however was that Ham had saved DNA from a dubious source prior to the flood.
Prior to the flood, Ham had been in a homosexual relationship with a member of the Nephilim, the giants in the land for which God sent the flood in the first place. The Nephilim were fallen from heaven along with their leader Satan. Ham combined the DNA from himself and this Nephilim and produced a clone. This clone he introduced into the body of Noah. This is the sin of Ham.
No one is quite sure where these desendents are today. Several races have been accused of being the descendants of Ham over the years. Anyone from the blacks of Africa to the Jews of Germany. One thing is certain, the Nephilim still exist in a mutated form in our world today.
MLH "
There you have it: the case for paleocloning.
If we don't bring them back, a probe will come and vaporize our oceans in a few hundred years.
Should we introduce species to new habitats? For example, should we introduce rabbits to Australia?
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
if a woolly mammoth is the best steak ever, then it is our duty to bring them back.
Because why the fuck not? If it becomes possible, people will do it, and there's not a god damn thing you can do to stop them.
If a species foolishly relies on clean water, or on yummy food that humans would rather have for themselves, or on polar ice, or if it is yummy itself but not easily domesticable -- then it's likely to go extinct due to our actions. But don't worry, because it's just a normal case of one species evolving, or invading a new ecosystem, and changing the ecosystem as a consequence. We are not the first species doing this kind of thing, and we are not going to be the last one.
If, on the other hand, an extinct species had enough foresight to be extremely cute, easily domesticable and not particularly dangerous, big enough for cuddling but not so big as to make the feeding costs prohibitve -- then the odds are that it will be resurrected. Basically that's just another case of the ecosystem changing due to the presence of a new (or evolved) species. The only thing that is new is the discontinuity that occurs when a species jumps over a century or so. But basically that's just an invasion from a different ecosystem, so again something that happens all the time.
Should we make plans so that our species can be reintroduced if it ever gets extinct?
Only if they're blond and have huge fun bags.
I found the whole Jurassic Park lunch debate scene interesting when Dr. Ian Malcolm says "This isn't some species that was obliterated by deforestation, or the building of a dam. Dinosaurs had their shot, and nature selected them for extinction". Such a statement suggests that human beings are somehow not part of nature.
No seriously, breed them up to attain "Least Concern" status and they would make a good dish. They were stupider than chickens so they would be easily domesticated, I don't know how good they taste but I would be willing to try it.
Wait.... it sounds like Jurassic Park all over again! Along with computers that have a GUI where a young girl will say "It's a UNIX system! I know this!"
You must master your joystick like a fisherman masters bait! - Gimpy
found doing an image search for baiji:
http://www.ecowalkthetalk.com/blog/2010/09/07/witness-to-execution-how-we-failed-to-save-the-yangtze-river-dolphin/
is that a baiji in formaldehyde?
can a biochemist reading this thread speak to what formaldehyde does to dna? (assuming it's formaldehyde)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
If we can bring back a species that has become extinct, then do we have to worry nearly as much about keeping them from becoming extinct in the first place?
Cavemen used to carry their fire around with them, because if it went away, they had no way of recreating it. When they could create it whenever they wanted, they stopped worry about whether it should go away. Why shouldn't that be our approach to species?
What you call discovery, I call the rape of the natural world
If we think rabbits are important to keep around and they're going extinct everywhere else, yes. This is what's being done with Tasmanian Devils right now.
Why is important to keep species going extinct? Pandas, for example. Disappearance of 100 pandas from Chinese forests - will it break ecology?
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Do we bring back extinct hominids? There five that died out recently enough to have left DNA and we've recovered DNA from several of them. Bringing them back would open a Pandora's Box of issues about rights and how they could survive in a world where even Amazon tribes are disappearing at an alarming rate.
That made me burst out a laugh. Thanks.
Gees, get your number right. We've known for decades that the earth has wiped out 99.5% of all life that has ever lived on this spinning ball.
By saying 90% you're essentially pandering to the argument that man has killed or destroyed a substantial number of species. Which is not true, but good propoganda/marketing material for "green" groups to play on peoples guilt to farm money out of them.
Exactly. If you don't mind being harassed every time you want to do something, even if you're an admin.
I believe you are talking about UAC? you can turn that off .
"To cherish what remains of the Earth and to foster its renewal is our only legitimate hope of survival." - Wendell Berry
"The natural world is the larger sacred community to which we belong." - Thomas Berry
"Plans to protect air and water, wilderness and wildlife, are in fact plans to protect man." - Stewart Udall
"The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think." - Gregory Bateson
"If we are to go on living together on this Earth, we must all be responsible for it." - Kofi Annan
"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity." - Albert Einstein
"Waiting until something is just about completely extinct before protecting it is the wrong way to keep a species alive." - Me
All philosophical pondering as to how science will effect the future to Hollywood movie script writers.
- Holy crap, I've got MOD points! Who thought that was a good idea.