Scientists Resurrecting Woolly Mammoths

[spartan231490]

Why? What purpose does this serve except our own twisted amusement. Let the past die, the world is no longer a place for mammoths. Fuck, we can barely take care of the species that are already on this planet, why are we trying to add more.

Is it really that hard to see the benefit here?

Trying to save endangered animals in the current global setting is a losing game; you're only putting off the inevitable. The Past needs to live so we won't repeat it, don't'cha know?

With this technology perfected, we could theoretically return any animal with a close enough species still in existence. A Grizzly Bear female could potentially give birth to a litter of panda cubs (pandas being a rare case of something too thick to screw, yet to cute and lovable to let die).

Just no. We are not gods, and science is not magic. Some things should be left well enough alone.

 

[spartan231490]

Why? What purpose does this serve except our own twisted amusement. Let the past die, the world is no longer a place for mammoths. Fuck, we can barely take care of the species that are already on this planet, why are we trying to add more.

We're not, we are just trying to see if we can do it. Without knowing the limits of what we can and cannot theoretically/practically do, we cannot invent or innovate anything. This is just a test that does three things: 1. What is the limit on cloning animals that may be a little different from the surrogate animal? 2. Is resurrecting ancient animals the same as one's who had died recently (which the article notes was only done for the first time in 2008, so that process itself is worth looking into)? 3. Sounds cool so funding would be easier to get from public institutions than if they wanted to do the same thing with Ice Age mice.
Nobody wants to create a population of mammoth, what's the point? All we are doing is expanding science for its on sake just so somebody can come later on and say, "I can totally use that process from something useful."

Are you one of those people that argue against space exploration too?

I'm all for space exploration.

I'm all for cloning too, we can push cloning technology forward in ways that don't involve bringing back members of an extinct species. What are we gonna do with this wooley mammoth? Shove it in some zoo in siberia to live out it's days in a damn cage? This is amoral, and serves no purpose besides.

 

[Yomandude]

I can see things getting a bit hairy with this method. But as long as their funds fon't get frozen, and they don't pack their trunks and hide, this will be a mammoth accomplishment.
Still, I'd like more sources. I don't like taking stories of this magnitude on earsay.

YOU STOP THAT. YOU STOP THAT RIGHT NOW.

EDIT: Please, let's not talk about religion here, alright? There's a whole other forum for that.

 

[Mordereth]

Why? What purpose does this serve except our own twisted amusement. Let the past die, the world is no longer a place for mammoths. Fuck, we can barely take care of the species that are already on this planet, why are we trying to add more.

Is it really that hard to see the benefit here?

Trying to save endangered animals in the current global setting is a losing game; you're only putting off the inevitable. The Past needs to live so we won't repeat it, don't'cha know?

With this technology perfected, we could theoretically return any animal with a close enough species still in existence. A Grizzly Bear female could potentially give birth to a litter of panda cubs (pandas being a rare case of something too thick to screw, yet to cute and lovable to let die).

Just no. We are not gods, and science is not magic. Some things should be left well enough alone.

Hero-Gods and Magic were only ever placeholders for Man and Machine. Technology is approaching everything from the singularity to tractor beams; if you want to put a bucket over your head and pretend it's all phony, it's well within your rights to.

I'd just appreciate it if you could articulate an actual opinion on the matter, rather than "no" and "should be left well enough alone." If proto-Humans had left this strange "fire" well enough alone, would we be here using the internet today? I venture not.

 

[omicron1]

I can see things getting a bit hairy with this method. But as long as their funds fon't get frozen, and they don't pack their trunks and hide, this will be a mammoth accomplishment.
Still, I'd like more sources. I don't like taking stories of this magnitude on earsay.

YOU STOP THAT. YOU STOP THAT RIGHT NOW.

If you think my puns are getting old - a bit long in the tooth, one might say - by all means put your foot down. Stomp it out. Make me toe the line. Make sure I never forget. But don't expect me to greet you next time with a "howdah you do"! In fact, you may find my demeanor quite icy.

 

[spartan231490]

Why? What purpose does this serve except our own twisted amusement. Let the past die, the world is no longer a place for mammoths. Fuck, we can barely take care of the species that are already on this planet, why are we trying to add more.

Is it really that hard to see the benefit here?

Trying to save endangered animals in the current global setting is a losing game; you're only putting off the inevitable. The Past needs to live so we won't repeat it, don't'cha know?

With this technology perfected, we could theoretically return any animal with a close enough species still in existence. A Grizzly Bear female could potentially give birth to a litter of panda cubs (pandas being a rare case of something too thick to screw, yet to cute and lovable to let die).

Just no. We are not gods, and science is not magic. Some things should be left well enough alone.

Hero-Gods and Magic were only ever placeholders for Man and Machine. Technology is approaching everything from the singularity to tractor beams; if you want to put a bucket over your head and pretend it's all phony, it's well within your rights to.

I'd just appreciate it if you could articulate an actual opinion on the matter, rather than "no" and "should be left well enough alone." If proto-Humans had left this strange "fire" well enough alone, would we be here using the internet today? I venture not.

I did articulate an opinion, I would just appreciate it if you were capable of understanding it.
let's repeat it, once more, with feeling.

It is amoral to bring a creature into this world as our plaything. This mammoth will serve no other purpose to us at all. Sure, it will be kinda neat to see if we can clone a creature from genetic material that old, but that serves no purpose.

Bringing species back would mean throwing them one of two places: Into a zoo, for our own twisted amusement. Or into an ecologic system no longer equipped to support them, and no longer equipped to deal with their presence.

And there is no other purpose to cloning old dna. Certainly not enough purpose to justify bringing a creature into this world that will never know another one of it's kind, and that will suffer who-knows what kind of medical complications due to being cloned at all, and even more so for being cloned from dna that is thousands of years old.

The most important question a scientist should ask themselves is never and never has been and never will be "can i do it?" The most important question of science is simply "Should I do this?" This is wrong, and will not lead to anything that will offset that.

 

[Mordereth]

Why? What purpose does this serve except our own twisted amusement. Let the past die, the world is no longer a place for mammoths. Fuck, we can barely take care of the species that are already on this planet, why are we trying to add more.

Is it really that hard to see the benefit here?

Trying to save endangered animals in the current global setting is a losing game; you're only putting off the inevitable. The Past needs to live so we won't repeat it, don't'cha know?

With this technology perfected, we could theoretically return any animal with a close enough species still in existence. A Grizzly Bear female could potentially give birth to a litter of panda cubs (pandas being a rare case of something too thick to screw, yet to cute and lovable to let die).

Just no. We are not gods, and science is not magic. Some things should be left well enough alone.

Hero-Gods and Magic were only ever placeholders for Man and Machine. Technology is approaching everything from the singularity to tractor beams; if you want to put a bucket over your head and pretend it's all phony, it's well within your rights to.

I'd just appreciate it if you could articulate an actual opinion on the matter, rather than "no" and "should be left well enough alone." If proto-Humans had left this strange "fire" well enough alone, would we be here using the internet today? I venture not.

I did articulate an opinion, I would just appreciate it if you were capable of understanding it.
let's repeat it, once more, with feeling.

It is amoral to bring a creature into this world as our plaything. This mammoth will serve no other purpose to us at all. Sure, it will be kinda neat to see if we can clone a creature from genetic material that old, but that serves no purpose.

Bringing species back would mean throwing them one of two places: Into a zoo, for our own twisted amusement. Or into an ecologic system no longer equipped to support them, and no longer equipped to deal with their presence.

And there is no other purpose to cloning old dna. Certainly not enough purpose to justify bringing a creature into this world that will never know another one of it's kind, and that will suffer who-knows what kind of medical complications due to being cloned at all, and even more so for being cloned from dna that is thousands of years old.

The most important question a scientist should ask themselves is never and never has been and never will be "can i do it?" The most important question of science is simply "Should I do this?" This is wrong, and will not lead to anything that will offset that.

"It's immoral," "our playthings," you don't seem to be doing a whole lot of thinking here. Have you heard of cultured meat? Or conservation areas and natural parks? Animals of old, especially capable of amassing such large amounts of meat, would be indefinitely valuable. Not only that, but the animals themselves could and would be released back into the wild.

Mammoths could certainly wind up in Zoos, but that doesn't mean they'd never be introduced back into the wild. It'd be difficult, but not entirely implausible.

As for saving animals; lots of people want Zebras to be around when they have kids, and if you're not one of them that's quite alright- but I'd like to point out I was perfectly capable of understanding you were going on about touchy-feely insubstantial-bullshit, I simply elected to give you the benefit of the doubt that you had something other than a knee-jerk reaction to science and all sorts of equally dumb reasons for anything other than you're afraid of the past and think that someone, presumably your God, has destined everything to die that has died and every species that no longer exists to no longer exist- and I believe Darwinism is certainly a defining factor in the genetic make-up of organisms today, but that's aside from the topic at hand.

-

Cloned animals would allow more perfect clones to be created (using a uterus of the same exact species to give birth to the baby, for example) and would, sometime over the next few decades, see re-introduction into the ecosystems they once knew. If they had a genetic weakness that phased them out, this brings us so much closer to being able to doctor that DNA and allow their species another shot.

Cloned animals would not only be playthings for madmen and live horrible lives, nor would the children they may eventually be able to give birth to; yes, animals are harmed every day. Yes, many animals live wretched lives and die early. All of this and more is true of humans in many countries, and if this research takes even indirect steps in possibly improving their lives, why shouldn't it be allowed to go on?

 

[Daaaah Whoosh]

I can see the headlines now:

"Mammoths Are Delicious, Cure World Hunger"

 

[Mr Thin]

Why are you people taking this news so... so rationally?

This is resurrection we're talking about here! Bringing back a species that has been dead for thousands of years, and you guys are talking about it like it's no big thing.

Seriously! Mammoths! MAMMOTHS! ALIVE! NOW! It... just... argh! Stop being so aloof and show some enthusiasm!

 

[ThunderCavalier]

... I hope they somehow can't use this to resurrect dinosaurs.

Because you know that someone, somewhere out there, has just seen Jurassic Park, and missed the point that tampering with law of nature and the circle of life was a bad idea.

 

[duchaked]

this would be so...SO cool

 

[Combustion Kevin]

anyone put up the jurassic park theme yet?

 

[cross_breed]

I really, really want this to work. If we can bring back mammoths, what's next? Sabre-Toothed Cats? Megalodon Sharks? Maybe even, in my wildest dreams, a Tyrannosaurus rex? The sky is the limit! This is freaking awesome! Oh, science, you never cease to amaze!

 

[Badwolf14]

anyone put up the jurassic park theme yet?

lol thats exactly what I was thinking.....didn't they explain a similar method in jurassic park?

 

[fanklok]

There aren't any giants, who's going to keep the mammoths from going extinct again?

 

[maxben]

Why? What purpose does this serve except our own twisted amusement. Let the past die, the world is no longer a place for mammoths. Fuck, we can barely take care of the species that are already on this planet, why are we trying to add more.

We're not, we are just trying to see if we can do it. Without knowing the limits of what we can and cannot theoretically/practically do, we cannot invent or innovate anything. This is just a test that does three things: 1. What is the limit on cloning animals that may be a little different from the surrogate animal? 2. Is resurrecting ancient animals the same as one's who had died recently (which the article notes was only done for the first time in 2008, so that process itself is worth looking into)? 3. Sounds cool so funding would be easier to get from public institutions than if they wanted to do the same thing with Ice Age mice.
Nobody wants to create a population of mammoth, what's the point? All we are doing is expanding science for its on sake just so somebody can come later on and say, "I can totally use that process from something useful."

Are you one of those people that argue against space exploration too?

I'm all for space exploration.

I'm all for cloning too, we can push cloning technology forward in ways that don't involve bringing back members of an extinct species. What are we gonna do with this wooley mammoth? Shove it in some zoo in siberia to live out it's days in a damn cage? This is amoral, and serves no purpose besides.

As for "amoral", that's a different argument. We can talk ethics, but if you believe advancing cloning is generally good, and that to advance cloning we need funding, and that funding comes from doing something the public likes regardless of merit, than I don't see a problem with cloning a wooly mammoth. Kill it and eat the meat if you don't want to try to raise it because it would be hard.
At the end of the day, this research needs to be done and a wooly mammoth will prove good for funding and public interest.

 

[faefrost]

This is a very very bad idea. Wherever you find Mamoths you also get those mean assed giants that just kill you with 1 hit. Even when you have a shield up. And that's just pushing science way to far man.