Bringing back extinct species

tybird

From what I have read recently, DNA has a half-life of 5000 years or such...so any DNA older than that is decayed beyond use.

Smellyman

What rights would Neanderthals have if brought back?

I wouldn't want to see the GOP base grow.

otter

know1 wrote:

I'll agree with the opinion that species are extinct for a reason and should not be brought back.

I'll take it a step farther, though. We sometimes go to great lengths to keep species from extinction and I've often wondered about the ramifications of that. Are we preventing some new and stronger species from gradually evolving to fill the niche of the weak one clinging to existence?

I never heard anyone say that extinct species deserved it If they could bring back a dinosaur or wooly mammoth I think that would be ok but under no circumstance a human because that would be disrespectful to human life and that is the worst thing. But I think I read somewhere that for some reason it can't ever be done...it is impossible to splice together a creature from today with the dna of a dinosaur. I don't remember why but the article made it clear.

I have always found it fascinating how often they discover an animal that nobody knew existed plus it apparently happens all the time. That kind of shit makes me question the theory of evolution.

otter

I would like it if there were some of these Neanderthals walking around. It would be easier to get chicks for us dudes. The girls could say "yeah, he's not great...but at least he's not a Neanderthal"

thanks Georgey boy

Hugh Freaking Dillon

otter wrote:

I would like it if there were some of these Neanderthals walking around. It would be easier to get chicks for us dudes. The girls could say "yeah, he's not great...but at least he's not a Neanderthal"

thanks Georgey boy

before I read the last sentence, I was going to say sounds like "the pigmen and women who love them" discussion.

brianlux

I'd like to see all of the "sword and sandals" movies including "Ben Hur", "Spartacus", "The Ten Commandments" (renamed the "X-Commandments"), and "The Robe" remade with casts of thousands of Neanderthals.

:corn:

brianlux

whgarrett wrote:

I just think that it would be interesting. If the subject was treated well. I don't see anything wrong with it. Maybe we could have an entire population of Neanderthals. They could be used as slave labor. Or maybe they could be gladiators. We could watch them battle. I guess we already have UFC, but we could give these guys weapons. Maybe they are extremely peaceful. They could teach us something about life, and possibly gives us incite as to how they were a part of nature and not apart from nature as we like to believe we are.

That would be interesting to know, whg. I don't believe we now much about how they thought. Mostly how they lived.

Did you know that Edward Abbey believed he could sense in himself ancient Neanderthal DNA? Something like- I think he phrased it more philosophically but, something like that.

brianlux

Here's the latest today on George Church and his supposed attempt to create a cloned Neanderthal. A need for science literacy? Or maybe just plain literacy!

http://news.yahoo.com/neanderthal-cloni ... 25z;_ylv=3

Neanderthal cloning chatter highlights scientific illiteracy

BOSTON (Reuters) - After spending the weekend reading blog posts claiming that he was seeking an "extremely adventurous female human" to bear a cloned Neanderthal baby - which was news to him - Harvard geneticist George Church said it may be time for society to give some thought to scientific literacy.

Church became the subject of dozens of posts and tabloid newspaper articles calling him a "mad scientist" after giving an interview to the German magazine Der Spiegel.

In the interview, Church discussed the technical challenges scientists would face if they tried to clone a Neanderthal, though neither he nor the Der Spiegel article, which was presented as a question and answer exchange, said he intended to do so.

"Harvard professor seeks mother for cloned cave baby," read one headline, on the website of London's Daily Mail.

But Church explained on Wednesday that he was simply theorizing.

Still, the readiness of bloggers, journalists and readers to believe he was preparing an attempt to clone a Neanderthal, a species closely related to modern humans that went extinct some 30,000 years ago, led Church to ponder scientific literacy.

"The public should be able to detect cases where things seem implausible," Church said in an interview at his office at Harvard Medical School in Boston. "Everybody's fib detector should have been going off. They should have said, ‘What? Who would believe this?' ... This really indicates that we should have scientific literacy."

Despite the spate of articles comparing him to the character in the book and movie "Jurassic Park" who attempts to open a theme park filled with living dinosaurs, Church said he plans to continue speaking publicly about his research, which focuses on using genes to treat and prevent disease.

Given the number of policy debates driven by science - from how to address climate change, to space exploration, to public health concerns - scientists should not back away from talking to the media, Church said.

"We really should get the public of the entire world to be able to detect the difference between a fact and a complete fantasy that has been created by the Internet," he said.

In the Der Spiegel article, which Church said reported his words accurately, and his recent book "Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves," Church theorized that studying cloned Neanderthals could help scientists better understand how the human mind works. Scientists have already extracted DNA from Neanderthal bones.

But such experiments would pose a host of ethical concerns - including how many Neanderthals would be created and whether they would be treated as mere study subjects or as beings with their own rights, Church said.

"I do want to connect the public to science because there are so many decisions to be made if the way they learn it, if they learn it faster by talking about Neanderthals than they did by getting rote learning in high school, that's great," he said.

dancepartner

fun OP Hugh, thanks!
Jason P is on a roll. I see a limiting of entertainment if the media always got it right as well.
Brian's best point for NAY, is the freak show awaiting Mom & kid. Otter & Hedonist aptly questions whether to leave well enough alone versus undoing some of our doing and someone else made a comment about too much time & money on their hands with nothing else to do but create another potentially overwhelming, at least in the ethical sense, problem like we don't have enough already?

I want t o know why all these brianiacs aren't pondering how to create an end, (or new beginning I guess) to really important stuff like how to keep at bay, the neanderthal look of our hairs sprouting out our ears, nose & brows rather than on top? How 'bout ending the neanderthal slouched look of osteoporosis! How 'bout these brianiacs get onto cloning a bit of their brain memory gene so the rest of us can remember a fraction of what they know! Yikes! I'll stop now. :roll: