Scientists don’t even use the word “resurrect” in order not offend the sensibilities of organized religion. They use words like ‘revive’ or ‘clone’ but resurrection is the most appropriate word. It will be cruel to resurrect extinct animals if you cannot resurrect the environment where they lived and thrived. They died out because their world had literally ended and God did not see it fit (out of His mercy) to let them continue to live. If you resurrect extinct animals and keep them in cages or artificial sanctuaries: that will be the height of folly. It will be stupidly cruel. Scientists should not keep doing things that are seemingly impossible simply for the reason that they could. Imagine had humans been more humane and decided (although they could) not to build the atomic/hydrogen bombs more than 10,000 of which not only threatens the very existence of life on our planet; it subjugate others to endless fears. Humans are part of nature and are therefore subjects to the laws of nature but nah; humans are gods…fools.
By Keith Kloor | March 14, 2013 1:26 pm
Have you heard about the big event National Geographic is hosting with TEDx this week, the one about restoring species? No, not endangered species–but ones that are already extinct, like the woolly mammoth.
I have mixed feelings about the idea. In the abstract, I think it’s pretty cool. The prospect of regaining lost pieces of our evolutionary heritage is exciting, as I wrote in a 2006 Audubon magazine review of a book that argued for “reversing prehistoric extinctions when we have the chance.”
Ecologists and conservationists seem divided, though. A group of them expressed their enthusiasm in a 2005 commentary in Nature; others, such as the prominent conservation biologist Stuart Pimm, argue forcefully against the “de-extinction” proposal. In a piece this week at the National Geographicsite, he discusses a host of likely problems that cannot be ignored.
In a world of finite resources and attention, I’m inclined to side with Pimm, who writes:
Fantasies of reclaiming extinct species are always seductive. It is a fantasy that real scientists—those wearing white lab coats—are using fancy machines with knobs and digital readouts to save the planet from humanity’s excesses. In this fantasy, there is none of the messy interaction with people, politics, and economics that characterizes my world. There is nothing involving the real-world realities of habitat destruction, of the inherent conflict between growing human populations and wildlife survival. Why worry about endangered species? We can simply keep their DNA and put them back in the wild later.
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