Cloning Extinct Species: Hello Jurassic Park?
The book is a classic.
The movie was a blockbuster.
But are we ready for scientists to clone a real-life Jurassic Park?
Significant genomic accomplishments in the past year have increased the possibility of bringing back to life two extinct creatures: woolly mammoths and Neanderthals.
“I laughed when Steven Spielberg said that cloning extinct animals was inevitable,” said an expert on ancient DNA who consulted on Jurassic Park. “But I’m not laughing anymore, at least about mammoths. This is going to happen. It’s just a matter of working out the details.”
The genetic details of the woolly mammoth—yielded from carcasses buried in the Siberian permafrost—have been painstakingly decoded by scientists who have now unlocked 70% of the animal’s genome, including much of the data needed to clone one.
The genome of the Neanderthal—driven to extinction 30,000 years ago—has been completely reconstructed. According to a leading genome researcher at Harvard Medical School, a Neanderthal could be brought to life using current technology for about $30 million.
But questions of ethics and responsibility nag at the nucleus of changing science fiction to non-fiction.
If we cloned our relatives the Neanderthals, asked one expert, “Are you going to put them in Harvard or in a zoo?” And woolly mammoths, notes a paleontologist, were highly social animals. “Cloning would give you a single animal, which would live all alone in a park, a zoo, or a lab—not in its native habitat, which no longer exists. You’re basically creating a curio.”
A science writer asked his readers, “Should we try to resurrect a Neanderthal? And if so, what kind of precautions should we take, and what kind of lives should we help them lead?” Many respondents expressed concern about a cloned Neanderthal’s quality of life. “What kind of life is that?” asked one, to be “raised from birth with the knowledge that they exist solely for the sake of a scientific experiment.”
“They’d have more important lessons to teach us than what we’d have to teach them,” wrote another, worried that our egos “would not see the wisdom in a species who are perhaps uglier, slower, and clumsier than us…They’d be miserable. Leave ‘em be.”
“How about making another Einstein or Bach or Rembrandt?” suggested another. “Wouldn’t that be more challenging and more scientifically useful?”
Tell us what you think: Is cloning an extinct animal responsible?
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Extinct for a reason
Normally, I would be all for moving forward in the advancement of science and technology, but this time I think I’ll have to pass. The woolly mammoth, as a species, failed because it could not adapt to a rapidly changing environment. Now, as the environment is changing once more, the mammoth would have very little chance of survival because its thick outer coat as well as several layers of skin would only cause complications and, eventually, death. I believe science is a wonderful thing, but I also believe that now is not an appropriate time to attempt to bring back a genotype that failed.
Geena | 8 months, 3 weeks ago
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Go for it
First, I’d like to say Curious is a genius. As for the cloning, I say go for it; clone them all. And by the way, who said they would bring back a disease? They just clone the mammoth and Neanderthal – not a disease. Curious…you are brilliant……what insight!
Jeff S | 8 months, 2 weeks ago
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cloning a slave?
A neanderthal would be a sentient human person. As such you would have two choices — let him free to live as normal a life as he could manage with his limited intelligence and freakish appearance, or keep in a lab or “habitat” of some sort — in which case he would be a slave.
I have less of a moral issue with bringing back a woolly mammoth; that action is on par, for better or worse, with any animal experimentation.
Stephen R | 8 months, 2 weeks ago
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rebuttle
Do you really believe that animals lack the capacity to feel “happy”?. I would certainly hope not as it has been proven multiple times that many of this worlds other species is capable of emotions, including happiness. Out of all the emotions “happy” is one of the least complex. That being said I would like to ask if your argument for the cloning of life would be ok to do, is indeed really that said life would be lived in “ artificial habitats being researched”? Perhaps one should ask whether a deceased loved one should be brought back to life for the sole purpose of “researching” them in a lab.
Lives of all things living that have been lost is hard to accept but that is what we must do. Accept it. Just because something can be done doesn’t mean it should. While I too think it would be interesting to see real dinosaurs or meet Einstein what they had to offer to the world has been offered and life has continued. We need to learn from the past as we move to the future, and I believe we are doing that well enough without bringing the past back to life.
Candace bravo | 8 months, 2 weeks ago
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Amazing
This is amazing! I was really afraid of dinosaurs when I was a little kid but this is AMAZING!
Sophia Del Core | 8 months, 2 weeks ago
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heres a good reason
Here’s a good reason not to start clowning, money. The world has enough economic problems as it is without spending 30 million dollars on a mammoth. They should clone Franklyn D. Roosevelt and see if he has ideas for the economy. With all kidding aside, the idea about cloning sharks to understand how they were immune to all diseases is good, but not if we need to spend millions of dollars before we can even get to the root of the experiment.
andrew | 8 months, 1 week ago
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No New Diseases.
Obviously cloning one of these species wouldn’t introduce any new diseases into the world. We’re cloning the species, not the disease, after all. And any diseases that were solely dependent on the species were wiped out with it, and any that weren’t are still around in other species. Disease with regards to us should be the last thing we should worry about.
The species we clone, however, could be very endangered by new diseases that they weren’t exposed to in their natural lifetime.
Jason Carlson | 7 months, 3 weeks ago
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mr
in an increasing world of danger for the out side i mean germs and flue cloning of long gone stories like the wooly mamouth and the neanderthal would be boath a waste of time, effort, and the estimated 30,000,000 dollars to achieve this task.
what encounters could be waiting for us in such a task, we may release into the world dna no suitable to our long time history.
a monster germ if u will combining past with present could be the end of the world
as we know it.. one gene goes worng in the dna make up could set into
motion the likes this world has never seen or imagined, or can accept.
The end result might be a super bug that no medcine on earth can get ride of
and the end result mankind ends itselfe.
caution should be used if this is to be a fact. but i think once gone should stay gone. it serves no purpous to bring back the wooly mammouth and the neanderthal. they have been gone for millions of years and thier time has come and gone.
if nothing else look at the ethics of it, what kind of life could these creatures have thier world is long gone and thier kind make them the one and only would they be truly happy in a world al alone.
what would they become a new greature creation or a science expiernment.
no one has the right to play god. today the neanderthal tomarrow mankind then we live in a world where no one dies.
just let dead dogs lie and stay burried. but instead spend the money on health care or medical treatment on those who need it.
we live in the most powerful country in the world and can spend millions on something to do no good for the average citizen but can’t get the same amount spent freely on decent medical care or helth insurance.
america and scientist come to your senses and use the money for the good of humand kind not for the possiable distruction of humand kind
chris p
christopher passagaluppie | 6 months, 1 week ago
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i'm scared
I love the idea of mammoths being alive, since they’re my favorite animal ever.
But more advancement in science and in the world anywhere scares me, because so far advancement has only caused problems to happen on earth. I mean, yeah, medicine is good and, don’t get me wrong I love my ipod, but I’m just curious as to why humans always have to prod things until they break.
Cloning Mammoths is dangerous, we know nothing about them, and they would mess up what little balance we’ve managed to maintain. Plus 90% of my mind says they would be unhappy if kept locked up.
alyshya lanea cubean | 5 months, 3 weeks ago
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cool
that is so cool is it real
cierrataylor | 4 months ago
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