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There was a captivating story in the press today that touches on not one, but TWO scenarios that had really bad endings in the sci-fi stories:
First, the prehistoric animals:
“Scientists are talking for the first time about the old idea of resurrecting extinct species as if this staple of science fiction is a realistic possibility, saying that a living mammoth could perhaps be regenerated for as little as $10 million.”
Then, attempting to regenerate a Neanderthal human in a chimpanzee!?:
“Church said there might be an alternative approach: modifying not a human genome but that of a chimpanzee, which is 98 percent similar to that of people. The chimp’s genome would be progressively modified until close enough to that of Neanderthals, and the embryo brought to term in a chimpanzee.”
Jurassic Park meets Planet of the Apes, coming to a lab near you.
I like to think that this is all hypothetical, and that ethical minds (particularly in the case of the chimp-Neanderthal) would prevail.
ethics won’t matter
Even beings who are 100% genetically identical to us are routinely imprisoned and tortured. It’s hard to imagine they will care about the ethics involved in experimenting on our close relatives and ancestors.
I have enough of a problem with Orangutangs, Chimpanzees, and Gorillas in zoos and not repected as we would primitive tribespeople, let alone bringing back Homo Erectus or a neanderthal. Not that they absolutely shouldn’t, but …how would we treat it, and what would we hope to learn?
They also have a lot to learn about epigenomes, which are basically racial memories and can determine which genes are activated, who knows what the epigenomes do when they’re in stasis for a few millenia.
However, I would love to see the Thylacine, Dodo, and Mammoths resurrected as long as they weren’t released back into the wild, as they don’t have a culture or parents to learn survival from, and would likely play havoc on existing species.
Ironic we’d bring back an ice age species at the same time the Northwest Passage opens due to global warming.
What would Pemco do for a commercial then?
Dave
wrong company
It was Geico.