Don't we had a lot of movies explaining how bad this could go? Don't we had enough self inflicted catastrophes to keep us entertained that we need another disruptive one?
You mean Jurassic Park, that famous parable of the need for better fences?
De-Extinction? Surely You’re Joking
21–30 of 91 posts
Re: De-Extinction? Surely You’re Joking
#22> Critics say that Colossal’s money would be better spent in protecting existing species Ah, ye old whataboutism canard... it seems to be forgetting that this technology would have an immense value by itself! > True de-extinction is nowhere near possible. I'm not sure I can parse the convoluted English here. Are we saying it's impossible? I see no evidence in the article that it is correct. Are we saying it's really…
Yes, and the technologies involved in attempting de-extinction are also useful in preserving existing species.
A species that has dwindled to about ten living individuals has a shallow gene pool.
Bringing in genes from recently deceased or preserved specimens could help deepen that pool.
It has happened that only one female of a species was known to be alive. The ability to put together a viable egg for her to bring to term would be the difference between extinction and survival.
We're also awfully mammal-centric. Frogs have already been de-extincted. The gastric-brooding frog was resurrected in 2013.
Compared to mammals it is relatively easy to transfer DNA around between the eggs of related oviparous species and there's no real reason we can't make a large-scale DNA bank for them, protecting the endangered birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians of the world.
These technologies are all part of one tech tree.
Re: De-Extinction? Surely You’re Joking
#23I don’t understand why people are obsessed with extinction as some great evil - it’s as evil as the concept of death itself; killing something is evil (or is it not? Outside humans even this isn’t considered unnatural), but something dying naturally is not. Clearly many animals have gone extinct because of humans (many memorable ones before humanity developed a sufficiently profound collective consciousness that coul…
> Species die, that’s the natural order of things for species in general…
When we say “natural” we’re already being anthropocentric by dividing reality between things that happen because of humans and everything else. You can’t hand wave away what’s occurred because of our behavior by point to the “natural order of things” when it explicitly isn’t.
As to why people are obsessed. It’s just a value judgement? You might as well asked why certain groups are obsessed with getting in orderly queues and other groups deal with lines as competition to get to the front.
If you value not killing off other species then undoing an extinction would most definitely absolve you of that sin. I can see how if you personally don’t care about extinctions you wouldn’t care about undoing them, but you need to be able to put yourself in other people’s shoes to be able to understand the answer to your question.
Re: De-Extinction? Surely You’re Joking
#24I don't see the point of de-extinction other than naturist nostalgia. The problem around de-extinction is that you can't just shoehorn a new species into a habitat that already filled the void left by a past extinction. If some marsupial in Australia got extinct because it was replaced by feral cats, then that habitat won't welcome that marsupial anymore. And there's nothing we can do about it. Even if we somehow peo…
> The habitat wasn't destroyed nor hurt in anyway. It just changed. That's an interesting way to describe the massive effect humans are having on pretty much every habitat on the planet ... "It just changed."
Which isn't wrong. As humans are the product of evolution, humans changing habitats is just natural change.
Re: De-Extinction? Surely You’re Joking
#25I don’t understand why people are obsessed with extinction as some great evil - it’s as evil as the concept of death itself; killing something is evil (or is it not? Outside humans even this isn’t considered unnatural), but something dying naturally is not. Clearly many animals have gone extinct because of humans (many memorable ones before humanity developed a sufficiently profound collective consciousness that coul…
> I don’t understand why people are obsessed with extinction as some great evil It's because we care about our children and their children. Each extinction eliminates a species that our ancestors lived among or depended upon. Eventually, an extinction may fundamentally break a food chain that keeps our descendants alive.
Each extinction eliminates a species yes, but long term it opens up a niche for a new species to evolve into. As a biologist I don’t see any fundamental problem with this ebb and flow. We as a species haven’t exactly put down our foot on actual individual suffering so it just seems hypocritical to ascertain extra value to extinction, which outside of some vague concepts we have made up have no real ecological relevance anyway.
Re: De-Extinction? Surely You’re Joking
#26I don't see the point of de-extinction other than naturist nostalgia. The problem around de-extinction is that you can't just shoehorn a new species into a habitat that already filled the void left by a past extinction. If some marsupial in Australia got extinct because it was replaced by feral cats, then that habitat won't welcome that marsupial anymore. And there's nothing we can do about it. Even if we somehow peo…
> The habitat wasn't destroyed nor hurt in anyway. It just changed. That's an interesting way to describe the massive effect humans are having on pretty much every habitat on the planet ... "It just changed."
You can say things in a value neutral way and have them still be true.
Re: De-Extinction? Surely You’re Joking
#27I don't see the point of de-extinction other than naturist nostalgia. The problem around de-extinction is that you can't just shoehorn a new species into a habitat that already filled the void left by a past extinction. If some marsupial in Australia got extinct because it was replaced by feral cats, then that habitat won't welcome that marsupial anymore. And there's nothing we can do about it. Even if we somehow peo…
I see two points: 1. scientific curiosity, and 2. people might enjoy seeing these animals.
Also, humans are terraforming this planet anyway so I don’t see a reason not to do it in a way to make room for previously extinct species.
Some other discussion could be if those animals would be happy living. Maybe we will have to ask whether we de-extinct Homo Erectus. Apparently, we're not even asking this for animals we eat…
Re: De-Extinction? Surely You’re Joking
#28I don't see the point of de-extinction other than naturist nostalgia. The problem around de-extinction is that you can't just shoehorn a new species into a habitat that already filled the void left by a past extinction. If some marsupial in Australia got extinct because it was replaced by feral cats, then that habitat won't welcome that marsupial anymore. And there's nothing we can do about it. Even if we somehow peo…
> The habitat wasn't destroyed nor hurt in anyway. It just changed. That's an interesting way to describe the massive effect humans are having on pretty much every habitat on the planet ... "It just changed."
I think my dog prefers her swimming pool and heart worm medication so she can live more than a few years. Humans have a negative effect on some ecosystems but it seems inevitable that viruses,fungi,etc will eventually take over without our intervention.
Re: De-Extinction? Surely You’re Joking
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
I personally don't want to live in a bland, dead world. To me its like climate change. The climate change, just like species go extinct. But humans are exasperating both processes in a ways that will ultimately make living on earth worse for future generations.
It won't be a dead world - but I sure hope everyone likes rats, cockroaches, and jellyfish - because these are the species that seem to be well adapted to living in environments where other animals have been driven out.
Don't forget humans in that list
Re: De-Extinction? Surely You’re Joking
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The habitat wasn't destroyed nor hurt in anyway. It just changed. That's an interesting way to describe the massive effect humans are having on pretty much every habitat on the planet ... "It just changed."
Which isn't wrong. As humans are the product of evolution, humans changing habitats is just natural change.
This is technically correct, but I think this misses the point. Unhabitable future Earth with molten icebergs and polluted gray sky may, technically, be a "natural change" and a consequence of "natural" human actions.
But we, humans, want to avoid this future. The same goes for causing extinction of most wild animal species.
Edit: to expand on GP's point: imagine your house burned down, and somebody said "> Your property wasn't destroyed nor hurt in anyway. It just changed". Yeah, all the atoms are still there, but it changed in a way we find undesirable.