We all know that the Japanese are working on cloning mammoths within the next decade, but a Harvard scientist has now told Der Spiegel that he might be interested in cloning neanderthals.
I brought something like this up in an evolutionary anthropology course and got scolded at for thinking unethically. I don't think that was necessarily a wrong judgement, cloning extinct hominins seems like it's asking for trouble.
Now that we've proven things like chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, etc are self-aware, cloning a sophisticated hominin opens up a colossal can of worms.
This last past is especially troubling:
Quote:
Once the baby's out, though, you're in good shape — Neanderthal babies are thought to have grown much more quickly than their human counterparts. And Church seems to think that there'll be a Neanderthal craze, as he told Bloomberg Businessweek last year:
"We have lots of Neanderthal parts around the lab. We are creating Neanderthal cells. Let's say someone has a healthy, normal Neanderthal baby. Well, then, everyone will want to have a Neanderthal kid. Were they superstrong or supersmart? Who knows? But there's one way to find out."
Just because scientists can do it doesn't mean they should do it.
In a sense I agree with you. But if the extinction is due to man's hand then if we can bring something back then why not? For example, say when Rhinos become extinct, bring a couple back, keep them in sanctuaries and try and bring the species back.
In a sense I agree with you. But if the extinction is due to man's hand then if we can bring something back then why not? For example, say when Rhinos become extinct, bring a couple back, keep them in sanctuaries and try and bring the species back.
I don't think there is anything that could be a surrogate for a Rhino, but we have them on zoos, so we can breed them.
