If Extinct Species Can Be Brought Back... Should We? 299
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."
Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wonderful ethical question, but if the human race is known for anything, its the non-subscription to the magazine which ponders over such things.
Someone will attempt to bring them back, now argue about how it should be done.
1.) Any species we bring back is going to share the Earth with us for the foreseeable future.
2.) Humans tend not to mix well with other species unless it's already fairly capable on its own. That's why rats, cats, and dogs thrive, while wolves, various forms of trout, and spotted owls are getting kicked in the teeth.
3.) Chances are they will end up in a zoo. That sucks. Safe for human beings, ease of observation, but it's like never being able to move out of your parent's house.
4.) We have no idea if they can even eat / process the food currently available. Bringing back the equivalent of the panda bear or koala might be great for entertainment, but we know nothing about their habits.
5.) The only species we are likely to bring back are those which we consider 'interesting.' So the slug-like Macedonian newt, which squirts pus out of its eyes, probably isn't going to make it (made up species).
If we really want to bring them back, it's going to require like a dozen Earths, one for every few hundred million years. We only have one at the moment. Perhaps we should wait until time-travel is in vogue, thus saving us a lot of work.
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
If we really want to bring them back, it's going to require like a dozen Earths, one for every few hundred million years. We only have one at the moment. Perhaps we should wait until time-travel is in vogue, thus saving us a lot of work.
You didn't even have to RTFA... you only had to read the summary. The article is about "reintroducing species that humans made extinct".
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Yes, yes. But it's much less of an ethical issue to bring back the Dodo bird than to bring back a T-Rex.
At least for the species that were wiped out by mankind, we know we can wipe them out again if they become a problem.
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think there are more fundamental problems: epi-genetics or genomics or whatever the term is now is a very major factor in what makes up the traits of a species - the same set of genes can be expressed in many ways depending on how they are regulated, so it may not be as simple as reconstructing most of the genes of a species; perhaps they need to be 'booted up' in the right way too?
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Re:whether we should do it (Score:4, Funny)
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.
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
Wonderful ethical question, but if the human race is known for anything, its the non-subscription to the magazine which ponders over such things.
Someone will attempt to bring them back, now argue about how it should be done.
1.) Any species we bring back is going to share the Earth with us for the foreseeable future.
2.) Humans tend not to mix well with other species unless it's already fairly capable on its own. That's why rats, cats, and dogs thrive, while wolves, various forms of trout, and spotted owls are getting kicked in the teeth.
3.) Chances are they will end up in a zoo. That sucks. Safe for human beings, ease of observation, but it's like never being able to move out of your parent's house.
4.) We have no idea if they can even eat / process the food currently available. Bringing back the equivalent of the panda bear or koala might be great for entertainment, but we know nothing about their habits.
5.) The only species we are likely to bring back are those which we consider 'interesting.' So the slug-like Macedonian newt, which squirts pus out of its eyes, probably isn't going to make it (made up species).
If we really want to bring them back, it's going to require like a dozen Earths, one for every few hundred million years. We only have one at the moment. Perhaps we should wait until time-travel is in vogue, thus saving us a lot of work.
Wolves and other predators are generally not having issues because the don't do well on their own, they have issues because the directly compete with humans, and they did not develop firearms. Wolves are among the most adaptable predators ever, but if people shoot them because of their fear or hate (due premature livestock harvesting). That's hardly a case for deficiency on the wolves' part and more a case for humanity's wanton destructive capacity.
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That rather depends on what you're comparing it's subscription rate to. If you're comparing it to (say) American Scientist [americanscientist.org], which is in the same arena, but about 3-to-4 times as hard a read (which is why I reluctantly overcome
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We're not particularly tasty and we don't make cute fuzzy pets.If anything, we seem to be a bit of an asshole species. I see no reason any (presumably alien) civilization would bring us back apart from morbid curiosity or a similarly misguided intention.
Moral? (Score:4, Funny)
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.
Re:Moral? (Score:5, Funny)
We have a moral, ethical and even culinary duty to find out what dinosaurs tasted like. For science.
Re:Moral? (Score:5, Funny)
Like chicken, duh!
And Dodos! (Score:3)
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.
Re:Moral? (Score:5, Informative)
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how the hell is a rat going to make a bird bigger than an ostridge extinct? Even the eggs were probably not crackable by a rat, unless they learned to make tools. Now, perhaps a pig (Kune Kune) but that is not what you suggested.
You haven't been watching enough nature programs if you think rats can't get into eggs. Then again, rats are pretty famous for being able to get into anything.
Even if an egg was sufficiently well-armored, however, the minute it cracked, there would be a different story. A new-hatched chick is pretty helpless if a herd of hungry rats descends on it. Mom and Dad bird might not be able to defend it.
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There is major sign of kiore knawing on seeds (it's a standard dating method) but nil sign of the appropriate marks on moa eggs. The Kune Kune's arrived with the whalers in the late 18th centuary, when even the stories about the Moa's had more-or-less already gone; not so the physical remains of the mass ovens and charred evidence of the enormous fires that would have been driving them into the kill sites.
Whether they tasted delicious or were just so convenient to harvest, within a couple of Centuries of ou
Re:Moral? (Score:4, Funny)
>Moa was apparently delicious... hence becoming extinct.
I disagree with your premise. Chickens, cattle, pigs and sheep all exist today in numbers far beyond what they would have under natural conditions. The only logical conclusion is that being tasty to humans is actually an evolved survival trait (from the point of view of the species as a whole - not the individual members who get eaten).
Re:Moral? (Score:4, Funny)
No, you don't want Dodo-burger. The dutch sailors who first encountered the birds tried eating them, but concluded the birds were barely-edible and taste terrible.
Nothing a few hours of boiling and a shitload of garlic can't fix.
Re:Moral? (Score:5, Funny)
(1) Put dodo bits and a rock in a pot of boiling water.
(2) When rock is tender (easily push a fork through it) - dodo is done
(3) Season as desired.
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...
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.
Whoa, slow down. if we get the bears to pick oranges, what are the illegals going to do?
Re:Moral? (Score:4, Funny)
...
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.
Whoa, slow down. if we get the bears to pick oranges, what are the illegals going to do?
Well, we'll genetically engineer them to eat people, filling the niche left by the orange picking grizzlies and thus restoring the balance of nature.
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Mow my lawn and tend to my petunias.
If we're talking about my Mother-in-law... (Score:4, Funny)
If we're talking about my Mother-in-law, I think we all agree the answer is 'no.'
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If we're talking about my Mother-in-law, I think we all agree the answer is 'no.'
Yes, I know you're joking, but your mother-in-law is (was?) not a species. She was an individual belonging to a species.
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If we're talking about my Mother-in-law, I think we all agree the answer is 'no.'
Yes, I know you're joking, but your mother-in-law is (was?) not a species. She was an individual belonging to a species.
Have you met his mother in law? If she's like mine, she's a different species, too. So was my ex-wife. Definitely a psycho hose-beast.
And no thank you, let them stay safely extinct, please.
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If we're talking about my Mother-in-law, I think we all agree the answer is 'no.'
OH MAN! MOTHER-IN-LAW JOKES! CLEVER!
Yeah, yeah... everybody's a critic.
Where's your clever jokes Mr. Anonymous Coward?
Wait - here's one now:
"One Anonymous Coward didn't go into a bar. ...He was too scared!!!"
(Whaaaa, whaaa, whaaa...)
That's easy (Score:2)
T-Rex burger anyone?
Re:That's easy (Score:5, Insightful)
My personal theory is that we killed all mammoths because they were delicious. Can't wait to taste one!
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"My personal theory is that we killed all mammoths because they were delicious. Can't wait to taste one!"
Actually, if memory serves, according to the paleontologists that is pretty damned close to the truth.
Re:That's easy (Score:5, Interesting)
"My personal theory is that we killed all mammoths because they were delicious. Can't wait to taste one!"
Actually, if memory serves, according to the paleontologists that is pretty damned close to the truth.
From what I understand, some Inuits ('Eskimos') have found mammoths frozen in glaciers, eaten them, and found them delicious. Only have anecdoctal evidence, though... They were pretty damned good sized, and one of them would feed a tribe for a couple weeks or so, so it was definitely worth Cro-Magnon's effots to hunt them.
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"My personal theory is that we killed all mammoths because they were delicious. Can't wait to taste one!"
Actually, if memory serves, according to the paleontologists that is pretty damned close to the truth.
From what I understand, some Inuits ('Eskimos') have found mammoths frozen in glaciers, eaten them, and found them delicious. Only have anecdoctal evidence, though... They were pretty damned good sized, and one of them would feed a tribe for a couple weeks or so, so it was definitely worth Cro-Magnon's effots to hunt them.
Check out straightdope.com. I can't recall specifically about Inuits, since a lot of mammoths are in Siberia, but not only local inhabitants have sampled mammoth. Some mammoths were discovered when people's dogs were found eating the odd trunk or limb sticking out of the landscape. And, if you're really obsessed with the idea, occasionally even non-native people have dined on mammoth. Just bring your checkbook.
Not surprising, really. We have plenty of archaeological sites showing people hunt mammoths. Even
Re:That's easy (Score:5, Interesting)
While I appreciate the jest, I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't have mattered if the mammoth tasted like boiled gymshorts. They were FUCKING HUGE, and edible. Think about your least favorite food.... Now imagine that was basically the only food around, but in portions that weighed THREE FUCKING TONS. It's basically the only thing to eat, and if you don't like it, you can go without, get sickly, and die.
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This might very well be true, but does not stop me from dreaming (and salivating at the prospect).
Re:That's easy (Score:5, Insightful)
"My personal theory is that we killed all mammoths because they were delicious. Can't wait to taste one!"
Which might actually be a decent reason to bring them back.
More seriously: we have had bad enough experience with invasive species. Re-creating them, and re-introducing them, are two very different things.
I don't see a lot of harm in the former, as long as precautions AND good isolation techniques are put in place. But I don't think, at our current level of technology, that the latter is even close to a good idea.
Crichton's books were not anti-science; they were intended as warnings. We need to know a lot more before we attempt such things.
Re:That's easy (Score:4, Informative)
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Re-introduction of a species could destroy a habitat and/or kill off existing species. Are you seriously suggesting that being cautious about such an act is anti-science? And are you really comparing that to 30mph+ popping a few craniums?
Re:That's easy (Score:5, Informative)
There was nothing anti-science about Jurassic Park. Taking a scientific discovery and making a fucking theme park out of it for profit without any idea of the repercussions was the problem in the book, not the genetic engineering on its own.
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At least, that's the case of the Dodo:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo#Extinction [wikipedia.org]
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Plebs! Grass-fed free range Apatosaurus in the style of Kobe beef is where it's at (although, I shudder at the thought of how many gallons of beer you'd have to serve to that kind of beast... ^^; ).
Also, count me in for some roasted dodo!
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Dinachicken [wikipedia.org]!
Mr. Hammond, the phones are working. (Score:4, Funny)
Re: obligatory jurasic park references (Score:3, Interesting)
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If you didn't know, it actually is [wikipedia.org].
Heh... That's funny, Hollywood actually going out of it's way to put cutting edge computer tech in a movie only to get slammed for being unrealistic.
Here it is in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaRHU1XxMJQ [youtube.com]
There is even a Linux port:
http://fsv.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
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>It is still mock-worthy that the child would see a monitor with FSN running
Why recognizing Unix is not that hard, if you see a system with a /etc and a /usr is almost certainly a close derivative of Unix. The interface you see it through won't throw you off.
>and know how to operate the park's complex proprietary security systems.
Is it ? If the interface is well written, and the program easy to locate - why would it be ? Most people who are good at computers can figure out a new program in a few minu
If we exterminated them... (Score:5, Insightful)
If we exterminated a species, we have a moral duty to bring it back and eventually, reintroduce it to it's former natural habitat.
Re:If we exterminated them... (Score:5, Funny)
And then make it extinct again when we decide it was a bad idea...
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Or the people who drove it to extinction should be considered unfit because they clearly didn't' have the brain capacity to think that it is not wise to exhaust a source (i.e. handle not in a sustainable way). Unfortunately we can't punish them because they're already dead.
Bert
Survival of the fitest, my ass.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:If we exterminated them... (Score:5, Interesting)
Pretty sure all extinctions we caused were while tool-using, and now we've just got better tools. We're already past the natural stage of survival and propagation, and fully into the dominate and transform. This would just be the responsibility and restoration aspect. We've been playing god for a while now, might as well go full out and try the life-bringer part.
Though if we ever cross that goal post we'll need to come up with a good antonym for extinction.
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Re:If we exterminated them... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Tell that to the North Atlantic Cod
Or the Southern Atlantic Jack Mackerel
Or the Atlanto-Scandian Herring
Or the California Sardine
Or the Pacific Yellowtail Flounder
Or about 20 other species of fish who have been driven to the brink of extinction by overfishing
It's one thing to drive a species to extinction by accident, it's entirely another thing to do it on purpose, out of naked greed.
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no that is out of finding them tasty and good with fried potatoes. greed would be us killing them because we want all of the water they live in to ourselves.
Re:If we exterminated them... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is somewhat true, but you've only got half the picture.
The other half the picture is that if we continue to consume species to the point of extinction then we reduce biodiversity, if we reduce biodiversity continuously then eventually we become the ones at risk, and like other species, as you say, we are not outside nature.
By making the concious decision to not whipe out, and to possibly even reintroduce species, then we maintain healthy biodiversity, and hence protect ourselves in the long run.
Some people think that this would never be a real problem, but the collapse of fish stocks is already a major threat to some food supplies across the globe.
Neither view is wrong, both are valid, the difference is by maintaining or even increasing biodiversity, we protect ourselves from nature choosing us as the future victims of natural selection due to a collapse in biodiversity.
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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.
..and I assume that human's ability to bring them back also part of being inside nature and it's process to determine which species are worthy of survival?
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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.
It's a very short slippery slope from this to eugenics and genocide.
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Human beings are not outside nature and its methods of determining which species are worthy of survival.
By that logic, our ability to bring back extinct species (based principally on how cool they look) is also "not outside nature and its methods of determining which species are worthy of survival."
You can either use the "we're all part of the plan" argument to justify everything humans do as a-OK, or you can accept there is no grand scheme and everything we do can have consequences- positive or negative.
I say bring the mammoths back. We killed them, nothing else has filled their niche, and they're pretty awe
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"If we exterminated a species, we have a moral duty to bring it back and eventually, reintroduce it to it's former natural habitat."
I'm not so sure I would take that TOO literally. There is something to be said for evolution, and evolution does not, in itself, create a moral obligation to protect something against which you might be competing.
But if you mean "unnecessary" extinction, due merely to ignorance or something like corporate profit motive, then I definitely agree with you.
But not ALL extinctions are bad. That's how we got here.
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I don't really see the difference between us driving the mammoth to extinction and the bison to extinction (If we did.)
We killed them for food, their skin and other materials, and as a right of passage. Money was used in the bison trade to obtain things that weren't available there already. I'm pretty sure primitive H. Sapiens Sapiens, and H. Sapiens Neanderthalis, both made things out of mammoths that they traded for things they couldn't make themselves. Like sex......Except for the Neanderthal furries.
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But there's another theory about the mammoth: disease. The last mammoths were in America, and round about the time of their extinction, the fossil record shows a notable rise in deformities, suggesting the possibility that the humans crossing the land-bridge to Siberia brought in a new disease.
How can we know for sure which species were a direct case of hunt-to-extinction...?
Obligatory Carlin? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Sing it from the fucking mountaintop, Brother Carlin.
Stone Age Or Neanderthal (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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I guess it might be feasible to bring some species of Homo back to life if there is DNA of sufficient quality available. However, we can never reconstruct their culture. Cro-Magnon was biologically identical to current man, but it's society would probably be quite different and would be the more interesting part.
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The Neanderthal would probably take a look at our civilization and complain:
Look, after all that we have done for you kids, and this is all that you come up with? We worked really hard to provide you with a good future, and we really think that you could have done much better . . . etc."
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I'd be more interested in knowing if they could interbreed with us. (Which is likely, since 1-4% of DNA in Europeans and some Asians might actully come from Neanderthals.)
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Even if we manage to recreate a Neanderthal, how would we determine how 'stupid' they were? Would he receive a modern upbringing and education, without others making fun of his/her appearance before the tests were conducted?
I'm pretty sure a modern human raised in a cage by Neanderthals would end up testing as pretty stupid.
Or anything inbetween ape and man (Score:2)
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.
It sends a strong message (Score:5, Funny)
We made a species extinct, then brought it back, then made it extinct again!
No flightless bird f*cks with humanity.
Fun with ambiguous headlines (Score:3)
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?
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The apes and the dolphins. Whoever evolves first.
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The dolphins don't live on islands, they live around islands. They will need to be able to get onto an island to build Humanasic Park. They also are very far from evolving hands, which they will need to drive electric SUVs and push the buttons on UNIX systems. If the apes bring us back, they will chase us on horseback and make us wear dirty leather loincloths. I'm not seeing an upside to this.
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No! (Score:3)
Did "Jurassic Park" teach nothing?
Re:No! (Score:4, Funny)
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As long as... (Score:2)
New technique makes it all possible now (Score:5, Informative)
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 [sciencemag.org] 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?
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The problem is that you are left with a digital representation of the sequence you need, and turning that back into DNA is a very difficult and very expensive process.
That part isn't so hard or expensive, actually, and prices are dropping like a rock. A couple of companies offer gene synthesis services, in fact -- some for under $.5 per base pair. Also, the team that created the first artificial virus documented interesting techniques that should make synthesizing sequences of genes faster, cheaper and less error prone.
Two wrongs don't make a right (Score:2)
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.
How many individuals? (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:How many individuals? (Score:4, Informative)
I don't have a source for this, but I seem to remember, in the context of a discussion about Cheetah evolution, the figure of 50 breeding pairs being suggested. It seems cheetahs passed through a period when there were very few of them alive at the same time, a near extinction phase, so that all cheetahs alive today are descended from the same small cluster of breeding pairs. The gestimate there is that 50 is about the minimum that a mammalian species might rebound insead of going extinct, particularly from accumulating lethal recessive genes during the bottleneck phase (I think that's what you really mean where you mention 'genetic deterioration' due to inbreeding). That's a figure the molecular biologists were basing on a complex calculation, particularly limited to mammals on the basis of the evidence they had as of the year 2000 or so, but it sounds like it would apply pretty well to Mastadons or Mammoths, and big predatory marsupials or birds are likely to not be too far from that number either. I'm pretty sure we could get some DNA from 100 different mammoths, less sure if we could narrow that number down by knowing what the mammoth lethal recessives are and screening for them all, or knowing where modern elephant DNA strings could be used to repair damaged samples, or any of the other suggested ways to get a decent sized starting population.
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basically, you need to identify a related species, which can interbreed with your newly-recreated-specie and produce viable offspring. This would introduce sufficient genetic variance to ensure at least short-term viability.
But yes, you should use multiple DNA samples, preferably across a significant area, to get a healthy population.
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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?
Actually, it wouldn't be genetic deterioration. The problem with inbreeding is that the same defective genes are being expressed over and over again as dominant traits. If those traits are before/lethal within the breeding phase, then eventually the population goes extinct.
So actually, you want "deterioration" - mutation. Because then the resulting diversity raises the odds of long-term viability.
FOR SURE! (Score:2)
It appears to be the only way to bring back Earth to the Sapient Club!
It is a very big if. (Score:3)
Should humans be brought back? (Score:2)
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,
I'm pissed about the Baiji (Score:5, Interesting)
Chinese River Dolphin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baiji [wikipedia.org]
#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.
Already done, sort of (Score:2)
Okay, so they got them from Sweden, where they aren't extinct, but still: http://www.ospreys.org.uk/ [ospreys.org.uk]
Reintroducing wolves in Scotland has also been talked about, but it's not clear how well that would work out.
It's about Assigning Blame (Score:2, Funny)
Clearly, George Bush and SUVs are to blame!
Mad? (Score:2)
Are they fracking mad? What a stupid question. Of course they should! DINOSAURS!
Do it for practice (Score:4)