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The ethics of resurrecting extinct species


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Is it ethical?   

29 members have voted

  1. 1. Is it ethical?

    • Yes
      19
    • No
      10


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(Phys.org) —At some point, scientists may be able to bring back extinct animals, and perhaps early humans, raising questions of ethics and environmental disruption. Twenty years after the release of Jurassic Park, the dream of bringing back the dinosaurs remains science fiction. But scientists predict that within 15 years they will be able to revive some more recently extinct species, such as the dodo or the passenger pigeon, raising the question of whether or not they should – just because they can. In the April 5 issue of Science, Stanford law Professor Hank Greely identifies the ethical landmines of this new concept of de-extinction. "I view this piece as the first framing of the issues," said Greely, director of the Stanford Center for Law and the Biosciences. "I don't think it's the end of the story, rather I think it's the start of a discussion about how we should deal with de-extinction."

http://phys.org/news...ct-species.html

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i dont see it as a ethical question, if we were debating to kill endangered animals it would be ethical but not for past animals to be brought back. i assume they will be kept in conservation areas and then only when they want to release them into the wild will it become an ethical question.

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Welcome to the jungle. Extinction has been on this planet before humans have evolved into this earth. Extinction is just part of the cycle process of evolution. To bring back a certain animal or creature from extinction is just not right. May be we should bring our collective minds together and try to recreate a better environment to prevent any more extinctions. At this current time, this world is set for destruction, with overpopulation, lack of food, pollution, and perhaps war is just around the corner. Will the human race ever get it together?? Will mankind save the world from destruction? Don't hold your breath, it's just not in our logic to do so.

So to answer your question, should we resurrect a species back to life? Why even bother??

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Welcome to the jungle. Extinction has been on this planet before humans have evolved into this earth. Extinction is just part of the cycle process of evolution. To bring back a certain animal or creature from extinction is just not right. May be we should bring our collective minds together and try to recreate a better environment to prevent any more extinctions.

Soooo... not sure about your post, you don´t think it´s ethical to bring back extinct species due to evolution, but it´s ok to modify the environment to prevent extinctions? Well wouldn´t that be tickling with the natural cycle of evolution, even if it´s a cycle that we humans (most likely being the biggest contributor) have accidently changed.

Personalty I say bring them back, we might find better alternatives to medicine, agricultural, environment alternatives to what we have today.

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perfect biological weapon Breed a herd of T-Rex's and air drop them on N. K..... or Iran.... or Seattle

Or

Dino ranch hunting preserve . please have you're life insurance paid up before you step outside .......

........ sorry, I have no idea if it is ethical or not, but I am not really thrilled with the idea of bringing back extinct creatures, not even the harmless ones like the dodos

Edited by mysticwerewolf
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The ethics would depend on why they were being resurrected and/or how well protected they would be this time.

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Why not clone? Seriously?

If we were to clone, it would likely be dealt on a conscientious species-to-species basis. I mean, dinosaurs, even if it were possible to get viable genetic material to "resurrect" them, had their time in the sun and, as Jeff Goldblum put it in Jurassic Park, natural selection saw to it that they died off. And Neanderthals, moral quandries aside, died out naturally due to a changing climate and competition with our ancestors.

However, species like the thylacine, dodo, or Carolina parakeet did not die off due to some natural event - they vanished due to the irresponsible actions of human beings. Some people lambast cloning as "playing God", but then what are we to make of the damage our species has inflicted on global ecosystems over the past 50,000 years? I'd seriously like someone to explain to me how the Stellar's sea cow or the great auk being beaten and butchered into oblivion is "natural".

Yes, for some species, it would be essentially pointless and even cruel to bring them back to life, just so they could die off again so suddenly. For instance, modern New England couldn't hope to sustain massive flocks of resurrected passenger pigeons. Likewise, China's severely fragmented and polluted waterways couldn't hold any reintroduced baiji.

Still, though, why not try? Cloning creatures that died off at the hands of man is simply the newest tool in the conservationist's arsenal. We strive to repair and restore environments which we've sullied, but those ecosystems won't ever be completely functional because we killed off the missing pieces.

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You'd have to clone a few different pairs of the same animal to allow natural breeding/selection to strengthen the DNA. Otherwise the animals would probably just die off again.

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I'm Ok with it. I don't consider it unethical at all.

I would have an issue, though, if a "Jurasic Park" with dinosaurs were created, or, if some exteremly dangerous extinct species were re-created. But it still would not be an issue of ethics, rather safety.

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It's completely ethical. Plus it sounds like fun.

I'm with you on this one vike!

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i think that it would be a great idea, people would be able to go to zoos and see animals for how they really were, we all get shown images of what people said they looked like but no one knows for sure. There is only one way to know for sure and that is to bring them back, nothing dangerous though obviously :)

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I'm still p***ed off about the Passenger Pigeon. I'm a huge fan of the whole Pigeon and Dove family. I raised homing pigeons and roller pigeons almost my whole life. It irritates me no end that our predecessors saw fit to kill every dam last one of them. Every one! What was wrong with those people? I sure would have liked to see the Passenger Pigeon when it was at it's height of glory.

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Not only is it ethical but the species that we as a species are directly responsible for killing off I think it is our moral duty to try and do something to bring them back. There are some species, like the Thylacine, dodo, passenger pigeon, etc. that only died out recently and the guilt for their loss lies directly on us.

Some other species that are questionable, like the Mammoth, and some other large land mammals, we might want to wait till we have a place for them to live before re-creating them.

Art

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If we killed them off, we should try to bring them back. Especially if the habitat has not radically changed that the animals inhabited. And if it has changed we could set aside land as a national park and try to simulate the habitat as best we can.

Besides, I hear the Thylacine made a great pet, it was well documented, though illegal at the time.

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"i think that it would be a great idea, people would be able to go to zoos and see animals for how they really were, we all get shown images of what people said they looked like but no one knows for sure."

And that is exactly why it wouldn't be a good thing. To be brought back and gawked at for your entire life behind bars as a prisoner, never to know freedom. I hate zoos.

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Depends on which species they(scientists)want to bring back. If their goal is to bring back extinct predators, the end result would most probably be very bad for us(man).

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Only issue I have is how Humans are idiots....

If anyone needs to know the best example of this topic, study up on:

How humans killed off Wolves in North America......

Re- Introduced them after realizing our mistake.....

Killing them off again because they are a nuisence.....

Humans suck.

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My comment:

Bring them back! Bring them back! Bring them back!

If I don't see mammoths in my own times I will know the reason.

Edited by cachibatches.
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My comment:

Bring them back! Bring them back! Bring them back!

If I don't see mammoths in my own times I will know the reason.

Because they died out for good environmental reasons and the earth will no longer support them. To bring back a species just to stick it in a zoo is mean and selfish.
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Ethics, rights and all that stuff shouldnt interfier with the quest fpr knowledge IMO... If we feel that we can learn from it, it shøuld be døne!

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Ethics, rights and all that stuff shouldnt interfier with the quest fpr knowledge IMO... If we feel that we can learn from it, it shøuld be døne!

Can't really totaly disagree with that statement hard enough. By that logic Joseph Mengala shooting jews just to try out new treatements for bullet wounds is justifiable. Edited by OverSword
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It is important that we do not bring extinct animals back to life, because it will throw our whole world out of balance should one get loose. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

Extinct animals won't assimilate well into our eco-system, those that may get loose could cause the starvation of other animals even may endanger the climatic balance. We are the dominant species

above the soil on planet earth and the earth is having trouble accomodating our needs and wants and destructive tendancies. It is more likely that cloning has progressed to the stage that we are able

to this although the research is not in the main-stream research community because it is soo taboo. If this is true then it is possible that the T-Rex has already been cloned and kept secret.

If man can dream it, then they will try to achieve it. Laws do not stop everyone.

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I think it would be ethical to bring back animals, but not homonids. A homonid would be too close to a human to be locked in a zoo and pointed at by millions of school kids.

Whether to clone an extinct animal should be a decision made logically. If there is no island habitat for a flock of dodos, then there is zero point to cloning them. Now cloning extinct animals in ones and twos should be fine, and displaying them should be fine too. That they are going to die and go extinct again would simply be a fact, but at least people could see them and know that they had been brought back, even if just for a zoo exhibit. Saying it is unethical to keep one or two extinct animals in a zoo, is the same as keeping any animal in a zoo, or keeping pets or livestock even...

Small numbers = Very good idea

Large numbers = Only if they have protected habitat

Homonids = No

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