Should we bring back extinct species?
Posted by staff / April 16, 2013 extinct speciesJurassic Park
Within 15 years, scientists may be able to revive some recently extinct species, like the dodo or the passenger pigeon. It’s not Jurassic Park, but is it a good idea?
“Bringing back a hominid raises the question, ‘Is it a person?’ If we bring back a mammoth or pigeon, there’s a very good existing ethical and legal framework for how to treat research animals. We don’t have very good ethical considerations of creating and keeping a person in a lab,” says Stanford University researcher Jacob Sherkow.
Full story at Futurity.
Photo credit: Ben Salter/Flickr
Surely one must first try and ascertain with some certainty why these species became extinct in the first place, If for example the food source relied upon by the Dodo is now scarce or devoured by other species or it’s habitats are now ravaged by that terrible creature, man, what purpose would it serve to recreate them in a lab or otherwise? It is also worthy of note here that for many zealots this will be a case of man trying to act as god and this alone could start no end of trouble. This is one case where, because we can just will not cut it and I for one think we should be able to say because we SHOULD, before this turns into a whole bunch of other issues.
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