Scientists plan to clone Woolly Mammoth
- Thread starter Dream
- Start date
Why not?
It may be an example of woolly thinking, but I can see the value to science.
To see if they can do it successfully.
Examine it, observe its life cycle and behavior, gain insight into creatures that haven't existed for many thousands of years and were thus inaccessible to scientific research. (I assume.)
Putting aside the ethical problem for a moment, I saw a TV show a couple years ago that covered this exact thing. The thing is, even if they managed to get viable cells, the resulting animal would be a hybrid of a mammoth and an elephant. It would take several generations to produce a mostly-pure mammoth.
This sounds like fun, really.
They aren't talking about a hybrid, but a clone, which would be born 100% mammoth. The elephant would only provide the womb for the clone to incubate in, not any genetic material.
Mammoth wool sweaters?
Yes, pun intended.
You'd make a terrible scientist.
Is it bad that this was my first thought? I wonder how mammoth tastes.
Totally waiting to see ads for Big Larry's Extinct Edibles Emporium now.
You'd make a terrible scientist.
Well I think if it goes ahead there should be oversight by an ethics committee. RobertM was confusing 'logic' with 'profit'. The two are rarely working together and the second ultimately subjugates the first in almost every rare occurrence.
You'd make a terrible scientist.
Well I think if it goes ahead there should be oversight by an ethics committee. RobertM was confusing 'logic' with 'profit'. The two are rarely working together and the second ultimately subjugates the first in almost every rare occurrence.
I didn't confuse anything.
Your position was essentially that nature does things for a reason, and we shouldn't tamper with its designs by--for instance--bringing back an extinct species. There is really no logical basis for that position. Nature doesn't do anything for any "reason." It is not a reasoning entity--or even an entity of any kind. Nature is made up entirely of interacting processes. Given that science is all about mapping and exploring those processes, why shouldn't we attempt something like this?
I would agree that there are certain ethical concerns that will need to be addressed at some point, but the notion that we shouldn't do something simply because it's "unnatural" (as in "not from nature") is silly and unscientific.
You said:
And then:
Reading between the lines, you indicated that there are things we "shouldn't" do, and one such thing is the resurrection of extinct species. What other reasoning could you use besides, "nature decided to wipe them out, therefore bringing them back is a bad idea"?
ares more directly made that argument. If your real concern is that we'll wind up with a Jurassic Park situation, I doubt that's something we'll have to worry about anytime soon, unless someone actually does hatch a hare-brained scheme to make a theme park full of massive predators.
