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Scientist Seeks 'Adventurous Human Woman' For Neanderthal Baby
theodp writes "Harvard geneticist George Church recently told Der Spiegel he's close to developing the necessary technology to clone a Neanderthal, at which point all he'd need is an 'adventurous human woman' to be a surrogate mother for the first Neanderthal baby to be born in 30,000 years (article in German, translation to English). Church said, 'We have lots of Neanderthal parts around the lab. We are creating Neanderthal cells. Let's say someone has a healthy, normal Neanderthal baby. Well, then, everyone will want to have a Neanderthal kid. Were they superstrong or supersmart? Who knows? But there's one way to find out.'"
He's not seeking such a woman, nor is he planning to do so. He is just thinking out loud, what if...
It would make sense to clone a mammoth first, using an Asian elephant as a surrogate. The last mammoths on Wrangel Island were alive only 2000 years ago, so their DNA should be much more intact. If we can clone the mammoth successfully, then we can do the neanderthal next.
Yeah, because right now only the smart people are breeding, and idiots don't have any kids.
Thats really unfair on the baby. How would you like to be related to a Kardashian?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Bad how? That this unnatural "experiment" could find its way out of labs, end up fucking (or fucked by) humans, and then unknown genes be introduced into the human gene pool?
It would be an increase in genetic diversity, which could be a plus.
If the genes reintroduced are useful, then they might spread far down the generations. If they are extremely bad, then they statistically won't get very far.
Interbreeding and genocide aren't mutually exclusive. It probably took centuries, if not millennia, to drive the Neanderthals to extinction.
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
You are missing the posters point. If we have the ability to reproduce much faster than we are not able to stop the mass of people.
Let me illustrate, and PLEASE nobody call this racism.
How many children are produced in the Western world? How many children are produced in the emerging world? Who is the less ignorant? BTW I use ignorant, and not less intelligent here. Drum roll, less children in western world, and less ignorant people in the western world. You could argue that the western world is being drowned out by ignorant emerging world people. The irony here is that as we become more knowleagable we produce less children, dooming our society so to speak. However, with enough generations that ignorance is removed.
In essence the Neanderthal could have indeed been the one with the more brains or life experience or what you want to call it. But they were drowned out by the number of people reproducing. Remember that back then people used clubs on each other and there was not much civility.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"