Kung Fu Ferret
The Usurper
Should scientists attempt to clone animals that went extinct relatively recently in Earth's history, yet still have a decent amount of DNA intact in certain specimens?
To be fair, most of the animals that scientists can try bringing back to life were ultimately killed off, at least to an extent, by humans. This means that it would be nearly, if not completely, impossible, to clone dinosaurs.
A team of Japanese scientists are trying to clone the iconic woolly mammoths, since their remains have been found in such conditions in the Siberian permafrost.
The Pyrenean ibex (which went extinct back in 2000) was temporarily brought back from extinction thanks to cloning. However, the cloned individual had health problems, only surviving for seven minutes.
I think it sounds like a good idea to clone certain extinct species to bring them back, to an extent. However, if said species died out due to a severe case of climate change and/or habitat loss, then it should probably be left extinct.
I support cloning the species of Pleistocene megafauna that have been found preserved in the vast tundra, such as woolly rhinos, giant bison, mammoths and Eurasian cave lions (assuming we have adequate space set aside in their former habitat for repopulation of said species).
The only argument against de-extinction that I can think of is that some species that were killed off by humans wouldn't be able to survive in the modern world due to the large amount human activity in recent years.
To be fair, most of the animals that scientists can try bringing back to life were ultimately killed off, at least to an extent, by humans. This means that it would be nearly, if not completely, impossible, to clone dinosaurs.
A team of Japanese scientists are trying to clone the iconic woolly mammoths, since their remains have been found in such conditions in the Siberian permafrost.
The Pyrenean ibex (which went extinct back in 2000) was temporarily brought back from extinction thanks to cloning. However, the cloned individual had health problems, only surviving for seven minutes.
I think it sounds like a good idea to clone certain extinct species to bring them back, to an extent. However, if said species died out due to a severe case of climate change and/or habitat loss, then it should probably be left extinct.
I support cloning the species of Pleistocene megafauna that have been found preserved in the vast tundra, such as woolly rhinos, giant bison, mammoths and Eurasian cave lions (assuming we have adequate space set aside in their former habitat for repopulation of said species).
The only argument against de-extinction that I can think of is that some species that were killed off by humans wouldn't be able to survive in the modern world due to the large amount human activity in recent years.