• Hi all. We have had reports of member's signatures being edited to include malicious content. You can rest assured this wasn't done by staff and we can find no indication that the forums themselves have been compromised.

    However, remember to keep your passwords secure. If you use similar logins on multiple sites, people and even bots may be able to access your account.

    We always recommend using unique passwords and enable two-factor authentication if possible. Make sure you are secure.
  • Be sure to join the discussion on our discord at: Discord.gg/serebii
  • If you're still waiting for the e-mail, be sure to check your junk/spam e-mail folders

Cloning Extinct animals

Auraninja

Eh, ragazzo!
re-introducing extinct species is a terrible idea.

No matter how smart you think you are, there is no way for you to predict what will happen, there are simply too many variables, too many different scenarios, too many possibilities that could change the outcome.

If they want to clone individuals for study, then that's fine.
I will not argue with your statements except I don't think you can reintroduce a cloned extinct species. There are severe limitations to cloning, as well to environmental pressures that exist in the world we now live in, so individuals to study may be as close as we get anyway.
 

AzukanAsimbu

Petal Paladin
if they can do it, it sounds great to me, mmmm mammoth burger....
 

evolutionrex

The Awesome Atheist
Keeping them in a closed and isolated environment is fine theoretically, but there's still no telling what the long term effects will be.
Just look at what happened to Australias ranbbits

A guy got a bunch of rabbits, and put them on his farm so that he could have something to hunt.

The rabbits got out, and now rabbits are a major pest in Australia.

A wooly mammoth is a bit larger than a rabbit, and probably easier to keep track of, and I doubt they'll repeat the mistake of just letting them out, but you still have to be careful when carrying these things out.

re-introducing extinct species is a terrible idea.

No matter how smart you think you are, there is no way for you to predict what will happen, there are simply too many variables, too many different scenarios, too many possibilities that could change the outcome.

If they want to clone individuals for study, then that's fine.
I'm pretty sure we won't have a mammoth on the loose. It's as likely as any other animal escaping from the zoo, so if you go by that logic then all zoos should be closed. When recreated a mammoth, they will most likely face mutants that are no good and would probably die within a day or too. That's worst thing that would happen. After they're first few tries they'll discover what went wrong and eventually create a real life mammoth without any major birth defect. I don't know what you mean by too many variable ans scenarios. It's either they make a mammoth or they make a genetic mutation. I don't know what you mean by "too many possibilities that could change the outcome" either. That's how people experiment. They won't get it right the first time but it certainly won't end up as mutants on the loose if that's what your thinking.
 
Bad idea.

Unless the animal had been Human-Extincted, I don't like it. I'm speaking figuratively, but if we had even one raptor running loose, the population would actually decline by alot. Mammoths would be a problem, we don't know exactly how vicious they were.

Pandas and Dodos I can understand though.
 

alakazam^

Well-Known Member
zombies would be a lot more interesting.
 

evolutionrex

The Awesome Atheist
you guys take Jurassic Park way to seriously. extinct animals going on the loose is very unlikely. It's not like once the animal is cloned it will be full grown and go on a rampage. It will be grown in a laboratory and they'll study it's behavior along with the theories that scientist currently have about the mammoth. Why would you disagree with cloning extinct animals solely on the fear they might escape? The chances are slim of it escaping and the animal would never live long enough to be a danger anyway. I though people would argue about it being ethical or unethical, not about possibility of recreated Jurassic Park.
 

Auraninja

Eh, ragazzo!
I would like to pose a question to this debate.

If we did clone a specimen to study, wouldn't its behaviors be different in an artificial setting? Fore example, the mammoth might be bewildered by the closed space and the number of humans and machines in the room, whereas a mammoth 10,000 years ago would find itself in harmony with the cold, nomadic environment.
 
The atmosphere, for example, is far, far less thick than it was back then. The air during the Mesozoic, for example, had a pressure at sealevel of about 370 atmospheres. We currently have a pressure of one atmosphere at sealevel; that's a pretty big difference. Think of the air back then as being practically like water. This was a bit of what helped some truly enormous creatures to live or even fly. Try that today, they'd break under their own weight. This is why you don't have whales walking around on land.

What? Tell me that was a typo.

The pressure was 3,7-5 atmosphere back then. And nothing like water. It was already lowering during the cretaceous era when the biggest pterosaur (Quetzalcoatlus) and the four biggest carnivore dinosaurs ( Spinosaurus, Carcharodontosaurus, Giganotosaurus and Tyrannosaurus) existed.

The reason why they became so big has nothing to do with the atmosphere. The atmosphere (namely the high concentration of oxygen) was the reason of the enormous size of a lot of arthropods during the carboniferous era though.
 

Ipwnyou

Well-Known Member
I would like to pose a question to this debate.

If we did clone a specimen to study, wouldn't its behaviors be different in an artificial setting? Fore example, the mammoth might be bewildered by the closed space and the number of humans and machines in the room, whereas a mammoth 10,000 years ago would find itself in harmony with the cold, nomadic environment.

A cat raised in captivity still has its instincts intact, and still does certain things in the same way it's feral ancestors would have.
It still attacks mice, it still cleans itself, it still buries its poop. Certain instinctive fears might still be there.

But, it's general ability to survive in the wilderness would be gone, it would be accustomed to depending on humans as a food source, and it won't be afraid of humans.

A mammoth raised in captivity would probably be similair, albeit with a few major differences, considering that it's not a domesticated species.
If it's raised with humans, it probably won't be very fearful.
 

M4zz

Banned
I heard of a movie where scientist spread a virus because of a woolly mammoth
even though it was just a movie I still wouldn't do it

That's the problem though. Us SPPf'ers may see it as inane or immoral, but somewhere, a scientist will do it for the hell of it. History repeats itself.
 

evolutionrex

The Awesome Atheist
I heard of a movie where scientist spread a virus because of a woolly mammoth
even though it was just a movie I still wouldn't do it
Unless the disease is in the DNA, it's impossible. They're not literally unfreezing a mammoth like they do on cartoons. They're going to get the DNA (which won't be easy to do) then they're going to clone a a new animal. You can't get any spreadable viruses that way.
 

M4zz

Banned
I would like to pose a question to this debate.

If we did clone a specimen to study, wouldn't its behaviors be different in an artificial setting? Fore example, the mammoth might be bewildered by the closed space and the number of humans and machines in the room, whereas a mammoth 10,000 years ago would find itself in harmony with the cold, nomadic environment.

One can safely bet, that like all cloning processes, the sample would begin as an embryo, and be raised in captivity or under constant research. Once scientists are able to fully understand their behavior, they can safely integrate it like they did a few years back with a lion. It shouldn't affect the Mammoth, unless there happens to be a very high-frequency device going off. When raised in an environment, you adapt to it.
 

GetOutOfBox

Original Series Fan
Current cloning technology is only at the point where a live female member of the race to be cloned has to be available for the artificially created embryo to be implanted in. Their is currently no technology to simply artificially fertilize an embryo outside of a complex organism such as a mammoth and "grow" it in a (metaphorical) test tube.

There also comes into question the futility of even attempting to clone an animal long extinct, as in order to avoid cascade degradation of a genetic pool for a race you must have a variety of specimens to clone from. Perfectly preserved mammoth DNA is not that common, there's likely only a few samples even possibly viable for cloning available.
This is one of the reasons an Adam and Eve style creationism is not possible, as a species originating (in the case of cloning, they are essentially starting anew as a species) from only 2 individuals would eventually be unable to reproduce healthy (non-deformed) offspring.


Putting technological limitations aside, if an environment similar or identical to the creatures native environment could be created (appropriate to it's size), I don't think there's much moral concern of cloning extinct animals. Most of the credible concerns about cloning extinct creatures are scientific concerns rather than moral concerns. Some risks to cloning an extinct organism, especially something small and difficult to contain, is that it could somehow escape it's confinement into the wild, and disrupt the ecozones there. Simply introducing a small species of fish from one lake to another can have great consequences.
 
Last edited:

Richarizard

conspicuous absence
So what you're saying is a short lived life - with a few tests that you are oblivious too as you are in fact, an animal - is better than no life at all?
Would you choose no existence, over a short lived life?

And do you think all animal testing is harmful to animals? Maybe in the production of Make-up, yes.

Take Dolly the sheep. Though she died of lung disease - she had a fairly comfortable life. I would hazard a guess that the media filming/picturing her was more discomforting than any tests run on her by scientists. Are you saying that she would of been better off never being born, not having any life at all? I think that's a bit more heartless than any test that could be carried out.

And yes, I fully understand what you're saying about a changing environment but - if these people are smart enough to CLONE AN EXTINCT ANIMAL, then i'm pretty sure they've thought that through - with possibly a mock habitat for it where it will feel comfortable
 
Last edited:

Cool_Trainer_Tyrone

Only Train The Best
Bad idea.

Unless the animal had been Human-Extincted, I don't like it. I'm speaking figuratively, but if we had even one raptor running loose, the population would actually decline by alot. Mammoths would be a problem, we don't know exactly how vicious they were.

Pandas and Dodos I can understand though.
Lets be hypothetical about ONE Velociraptor getting loose,I very much doubt the population would drop dramatically,as it would be easy located and destroyed.

As for the people who think an animal wouldn't survive due to climate change,Who says that they couldn't make and artificial climate for the animal or even clone plants etc from the time of the animal?
 
Last edited:

M4zz

Banned
It wouldn't be necessary. Upon embryonic stage, the species would adapt to an even slightly lower air pressure and whatnot than it would outside. Once integrated, it eats what it desires or can. Life will find a way.
 

Kyukon FTW

Dark Type Trainer
I think they would be able to bring them back to life due to the fact they can clone cows but how would they get a peice of DNA to clone from.
 

GetOutOfBox

Original Series Fan
Or provide for the lake, remove harmful elements, and feed other predators.

Exactly, Cloning, at least in my opinion, if practiced in a scientifically safe way, can even be beneficial. Either way though, at the moment we won't be seeing Wooly Mammoths are Dinosaurs, since we do not have the technology to clone an animal without a live female member of it's species; we can't clone an animal purely inside a "Test Tube" as the movie "Splice" would have us believe.
 
Top