81–90 of 91 posts
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?
I think any attempt at "de-extinction" is quite literally a statement of disbelief of evolution. A core tenant (at least from my perspective) of evolution is survival of the fittest. I agree with all the other comments mentioning that the voids that extinct animals left have been filled and their ecosystems have changed, but that is different from their ecosystems being destroyed. Accept change, and move on. Also, hu…
Evolution isn't a doctrine that you're supposed to follow, that's social Darwinism.
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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 prop…
But the opposite does not work that way.
Even the most optimistic outcome with the lowest amount of warming, or even none at all, will be accompanied with a drastic change in habitats around the world.
>Critics say that Colossal’s money would be better spent in protecting existing species, rather than de-extinct animals that have been dead for thousands of years. Maybe that’s true, but it’s extremely unlikely that this $150M would have gone to conservation otherwise! If rich people want to spend their money on de-extinction, and bolster reproductive technologies in the meantime, then we say “let ‘em.” There's a Fre…
In 1800's United States, fire departments in many large cities (Chicago and New York, to name two) were private for-profit industries. If a homeowner did not pay what was effectively protection money, the fire department would refuse to extinguish your property if it caught fire, and would sit around as the dwelling burned, in some cases with people still inside. Fascinating idiom, thanks!
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Because in the end, that's really it. Even if it's due to human intervention and even if that makes us feel sad. At some point, a new habitat will reach a new balance with our introduced species and there's no going back. And yes, there may be less diversity in species all over the world (for the time being) thanks to that. But once the new species learn to reproduce and survive in a new place, then that is the "new"…
> At some point, a new habitat will reach a new balance with our introduced species and there's no going back. > And yes, there may be less diversity in species all over the world (for the time being) thanks to that. But once the new species learn to reproduce and survive in a new place, then that is the "new" state of the habitat. Yeah but won't that be just as true of a re-introduced de-extincted species? Mammoths…
IMHO we are either overestimating our potential at consciously controlling the natural world, or either underestimating the complexity of nature.
While I love technology as a part of being human and something that definitely sets up apart from other primates (even the other tool making hominids), I find it awkward to see organizations attempting to make planetary artificial changes without even being sure if we can survive as a technology-capable species at all without turning the planet into a boiler.
E.g.: We should still make sure that future generations will be able to enjoy technological wonders like computation without having to throw toxic byproducts into the rivers and seas.
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Species going extinct doesn't make the world deader. "Bland" is a better argument. If one bird species spreads across the world and outcompetes 10 regional species, there will be just as many birds as before. There will be less regional variation though.
>Species going extinct doesn't make the world deader. It depends on why the went extinct. If they went extinct because humans destroyed the habitat, rather than being out competed, then it's unlikely as much life or any life can just move in. See the coral reefs or Klamath river
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Well, I find the arrogance in trying to undo Natural Selection quite cute. She'll win. Big time.
Where's the line when it constitutes 'undoing natural selection'? Resurrecting extinct animals? Conservation efforts? Taking antibiotics?
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Well, I find the arrogance in trying to undo Natural Selection quite cute. She'll win. Big time.
Pretty sure humans caused the extinction of many of the target de-extinction animals. We became insanely good hunters, and killed off just a massive amount of megafauna like mammoths, and then we proceeded to do it to a ton of other species. I am not so fatalistic about humanity’s environmental impact to just chalk it up to “well, see, mammoths shouldn’t have been so easy for humans to kill and so tasty…” or the same…
This reads like a typical hatchet job with the usual fallacy of extrapolating from "didn't immediately succeed" to "is impossible".