Regenerating a Mammoth for $10 Million
A new report suggests that a living mammoth could perhaps be regenerated from DNA extracted from clumps of the animal’s hair.
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Are there ethical issues? Probably for some. But it’s difficult to see any downside. I wish Michael Crichton (author of Jurassic Park) had lived long enough to give his reaction to the news. A few years ago, it was science fiction, the idea of bringing back an extinct species.
The news that it would technically be possible to bring back a Neanderthal is another matter altogether. It is, after all, a human. Human cloning. A lot of negative images surround this concept. Certainly, the Catholic Church opposes it up, down, and sideways, every day of the week and twice on Sunday, etc, etc. You get the picture.
I’m not certain of it myself. It’s an intriguing possibility. We could learn a lot, certainly. Ethical considerations aside, it’s an exciting idea. What I am absolutely opposed to is the attitude of the Catholic Church. The sheer arrogance of Richard Doerflinger saying, “Catholic teaching opposes all human cloning, and all production of human beings in the laboratory, so I do not see how any of this could be ethically acceptable in humans.”
So what? Catholics are not the only people on earth. We’ll take your opinion into consideration but this isn’t the Middle Ages anymore. We had a thing called the Enlightenment and you don’t get the last word anymore. I think the Catholic Church, no matter what happens with the Neanderthals, is, like the Republican base, is on the wrong side of history. They don’t understand that the world has moved on, and it moved on without them.
It could be argued that history moved on without the mammoths as well. They had their chance, after all, and were found wanting. They could not adapt and so perished. Humans inherited the earth because we could adapt (and hopefully still can). The same argument has been used against resurgent Paganism (including by Hitler). But were the mammoths not also in part victims of being hunted to extinction? That is one of the theories put forward, after all. But opposition by the Catholic Church should not be the prime consideration.
The Church can engage in revisionist rhetoric now, claiming all along to have been the force BEHIND scientific progress, but they will convince only the gullible. The ghosts of Descartes, Galileo, and others, say otherwise. Let’s leave the last word of that particular debate to Descartes, who, after all, began the modern era. Having already fled France to avoid Church persecution, he now made ready to flee the Netherlands for the same reason:
“As for the peace I had previously sought here, I foresee that from now on I may not get as much of that as I would like. A troop of theologians, followers of scholastic philosophy, seems to have formed a league in an attempt to crush me by their slanders.”
Hrafnkell Haraldsson is the author of A Heathen’s Day, which since 2005 has addressed the life and thoughts of a modern day Heathen. He is also the founder of the Mos Maiorum Foundation (www.mosmaiorum.org) which is dedicated to the study and support of Paganism as ethnic religion and writes for PoliticusUSA (www.politicususa.com) 
Wow! Really really fascinating!
Maybe I’m thinking of this in the wrong way (probably), but the part that I do find unethical about it is the fact that we have already destroyed the planet to the point that even polar bears (nowhere near as large nor demanding of resources as the mammoth) are at risk of extinction. What right does that give us to bring back another re-doomed species just to fail? Would it be brought back as a single example or a herd in attempt to regenerate the species into existence? If single, we “store” it in a zoo for human “entertainment” where it would once again fail or mate with elephants to create a possible new species? If a herd – where and how will we insure their survival so that we aren’t committing a sort of premeditated murder?
The realities of something like this are really compelling. Thanks for giving me something really interesting to think about today!
I don’t know. We have no idea if a clone will be like their evolved predecessors. Cloned “farm” animals get sick more often and faster than non-cloned animals; I’d imagine we’d have similar problems with other clones. Nature did move on past the mammoths and we moved on past Neanderthals. I say let’s work on preserving what we have and focus on ending destructive practices going on right now that are destroying more species before their time.
Cloned humans…meh, why? In my opinion a clone is human and therefore entitled to civil rights. I would oppose testing on cloned humans just like oppose testing on humans and animals right now.
Twice yesterday I tried to get back to this post to write a comment in response and twice I was foiled. Well, I’m going to git ‘er done today.
I tend to think of the mammoth as an opportunity to study a long dead animal. I’m fascinated by the idea of actually being able to see a mammoth. I don’t know what it’s chances of survival might be (or ours for that matter) but I don’t see it as entertainment so much as a way to advance our knowledge of where we came from.
You both make excellent points about the idea of cloning a Neanderthal. Here, too, there is much that could be learned scientifically, but unlike the mammoth, the Neanderthal would be a person, and it’s not right to keep a person locked up so you can study them, especially when that person’s only crime is being unique, which clearly the Neanderthal would be. And where, really, in the world, outside of Geico commercials, could a Neanderthal make a living? Are we going to establish a Neanderthal reserve for them to live in? As you say, Gran, he’d have to have civil rights (well, not under the Bush Administration obviously! – none of us have rights then).
My main argument in both cases is that the wishes of the Catholic Church (or of any Christian group) should not be the deciding factor.
LOL@the Geico comment!
I let the Church (Catholic or protestant) impact my own thinking so little that I don’t even consider them in the thought process. Their time is past in regard to dictating the “morals” of the entire world and eventually they will learn that. I doubt it will be soon, the Church doesn’t operate that way (it took them 100 years to address driving for Christians cuz that “horseless buggy” might just catch on). Even Catholics I know put little stock in what the Church says anymore. They just don’t have the authority they once had.
I can’t even wrap my brain around the idea of cloning a Neanderthal so it was definitely Gran that addressed that one. The idea does become creepy in a weird way for me so I didn’t even attempt that one.
The mammoth thing had me going almost all day though. Pretty interesting! However when I think of it in today’s context it’s scary. I see how we treat other animals and don’t know that I consider us a worthy group to even consider the possibility. And scientifically – well that’s another story all together.
Pom,
You’re welcome!
I’d certainly hope we did better with the mammoth than with the wolves in Yellowstone. I see little point in reintroducing a creature into the wild just to kill him once he’s successfully established himself there. Ditto on the effort in England to reintroduce beavers into the wild. There are lessons to be learned here.
Yeah, it’s funny to me how the Catholic Church thinks the World should wait with bated breath for it’s opinions. *rolls eyes* And then we should all gasp with amazement when they make a pronouncement. Then they have the gall to act like their thoughts should rank in the top 3. And they think we’re prideful!
At my work, we carry a book called, “How the Catholic Church Saved (shaped?) Western Civilization.” I was like…what? If anything formed Western thought it is the pagan ideas that the Catholic Church adopted and used in it’s early days and then ditched for a more imperialistic monarchy approach.