$10 Million for a Pet Mammoth
November 20th, 2008 by Jon Taplin
I was aware that the animal cloning business was willing to bring back a perfect replica of your dear departed Fido for a pretty price. But now comes word they want to bring back a Wooly Mammoth to once again populate your local zoo.
Scientists are talking for the first time about the old idea of resurrecting extinct species as if this staple of science fiction is a realistic possibility, saying that a living mammoth could perhaps be regenerated for as little as $10 million.
Turns out that Elephant and Mammoth DNA are pretty close.
Is this a good idea?
would pay to see a wolly mammoth!
would pay to see a wolly mammoth!
Elephants are smart. Elephants are ‘herd’ animals. What will the mammoth eat? Will the mammoth be lonely? I think there are lots of unanswered (and probably as many unasked) questions here…questions that need to be addressed before jumping to the question “Even if we can do it, should we do it?”
Elephants are smart. Elephants are ‘herd’ animals. What will the mammoth eat? Will the mammoth be lonely? I think there are lots of unanswered (and probably as many unasked) questions here…questions that need to be addressed before jumping to the question “Even if we can do it, should we do it?”
I would pay to see a Wooly Bully.
I would pay to see a Wooly Bully.
I say we feed Jeff Goldblum to it.
I say we feed Jeff Goldblum to it.
I say we feed Jeff Goldblum to it.
Ummmm… yes. Still:
Science: What can we learn from a recreation that we haven’t learned from the remains of the originals? Will the DNA approach replicate a true mammoth or just an elephant that looks like Sean Connery and smells like Freddy the Freeloader?
Mercantile: What would a retro-mammoth-hair coat sell for and do you think Bono will take the deal for the commercials? How much will Discovery Channel pony up for the TV rights? How much will New York ivory sculptors pay for smuggled tusks?
Societal: How many zoos will want a pair? Is it ok if they are both females?
Logistic: Does a mammoth need a shampoo or a shampoo and a conditioner?
Political: If we make a mammoth for the sake of symbolism, will the Democrats demand an extinct ancient ass under the fairness doctrine, and if so, can we recover the DNA of LBJ?
Ummmm… yes. Still:
Science: What can we learn from a recreation that we haven’t learned from the remains of the originals? Will the DNA approach replicate a true mammoth or just an elephant that looks like Sean Connery and smells like Freddy the Freeloader?
Mercantile: What would a retro-mammoth-hair coat sell for and do you think Bono will take the deal for the commercials? How much will Discovery Channel pony up for the TV rights? How much will New York ivory sculptors pay for smuggled tusks?
Societal: How many zoos will want a pair? Is it ok if they are both females?
Logistic: Does a mammoth need a shampoo or a shampoo and a conditioner?
Political: If we make a mammoth for the sake of symbolism, will the Democrats demand an extinct ancient ass under the fairness doctrine, and if so, can we recover the DNA of LBJ?
Ummmm… yes. Still:
Science: What can we learn from a recreation that we haven’t learned from the remains of the originals? Will the DNA approach replicate a true mammoth or just an elephant that looks like Sean Connery and smells like Freddy the Freeloader?
Mercantile: What would a retro-mammoth-hair coat sell for and do you think Bono will take the deal for the commercials? How much will Discovery Channel pony up for the TV rights? How much will New York ivory sculptors pay for smuggled tusks?
Societal: How many zoos will want a pair? Is it ok if they are both females?
Logistic: Does a mammoth need a shampoo or a shampoo and a conditioner?
Political: If we make a mammoth for the sake of symbolism, will the Democrats demand an extinct ancient ass under the fairness doctrine, and if so, can we recover the DNA of LBJ?
personally, I think it will be fantastic.
personally, I think it will be fantastic.
Mammoth today, R. Nixon tomorrow. What a great time to be alive.
Mammoth today, R. Nixon tomorrow. What a great time to be alive.
It’s not a question of a good vs. bad idea.
If (or rather when) it can be done – it will be done.
Naturally, once such a feat is accomplished it opens many doors for scientists to intervene in evolution.
This also will happen.
The questions then will be technical – dealing with imperfections and problems that arise out of the cloning process and having the artificial evolutionary process regulated by goverment.
But all these questions are very far in the future and purely academic, as the technical specifics don’t even exist yet.
It’s not a question of a good vs. bad idea.
If (or rather when) it can be done – it will be done.
Naturally, once such a feat is accomplished it opens many doors for scientists to intervene in evolution.
This also will happen.
The questions then will be technical – dealing with imperfections and problems that arise out of the cloning process and having the artificial evolutionary process regulated by goverment.
But all these questions are very far in the future and purely academic, as the technical specifics don’t even exist yet.
Perhaps it should be, at least at some level, a question of whether it is a good or a bad idea. Problem is, I’m not sure those who would be debating it are the right people to do so…the discussions always seem to devolve into a pure science versus pure religion ugly stalemate rather than evolving into a serious consideration of both the technical and ethical implications of the act.
Perhaps it should be, at least at some level, a question of whether it is a good or a bad idea. Problem is, I’m not sure those who would be debating it are the right people to do so…the discussions always seem to devolve into a pure science versus pure religion ugly stalemate rather than evolving into a serious consideration of both the technical and ethical implications of the act.
Perhaps it should be, at least at some level, a question of whether it is a good or a bad idea. Problem is, I’m not sure those who would be debating it are the right people to do so…the discussions always seem to devolve into a pure science versus pure religion ugly stalemate rather than evolving into a serious consideration of both the technical and ethical implications of the act.
Now if they could only engineer a human being that didn’t develop hemorrhoids (sorry, poor taste, I know)
Seems a much better use of funds to me.
Now if they could only engineer a human being that didn’t develop hemorrhoids (sorry, poor taste, I know)
Seems a much better use of funds to me.
Aren’t there whole departments at Universities devoted to Science and Engineering Ethics? What are they discussing on the issue of cloning – not just extinct species, but living ones as well?
Another question that comes to mind is how important is it to the US to continue with projects such as this? Most cloning projects have taking place outside of the US. If we are to simply declare this project unethical, perhaps based on religious or political grounds, are we going to hinder a potentially useful avenue of science?
My thoughts? Cloning may not make much sense at the moment, but it does provide steps towards understanding various processes that (hopefully) will have amazing applications in medicine, agriculture and environmental sciences.
For example, if you lose a limb in an accident, wouldn’t it be great if you can have another limb grown to replace it? Cloning studies help us understand those processes. Of course, it would be unethical in this case to clone a whole copy just for a limb, but we need some step-wise ways of learning these things.
Aren’t there whole departments at Universities devoted to Science and Engineering Ethics? What are they discussing on the issue of cloning – not just extinct species, but living ones as well?
Another question that comes to mind is how important is it to the US to continue with projects such as this? Most cloning projects have taking place outside of the US. If we are to simply declare this project unethical, perhaps based on religious or political grounds, are we going to hinder a potentially useful avenue of science?
My thoughts? Cloning may not make much sense at the moment, but it does provide steps towards understanding various processes that (hopefully) will have amazing applications in medicine, agriculture and environmental sciences.
For example, if you lose a limb in an accident, wouldn’t it be great if you can have another limb grown to replace it? Cloning studies help us understand those processes. Of course, it would be unethical in this case to clone a whole copy just for a limb, but we need some step-wise ways of learning these things.
If I ever lose an arm, I want a woolly mammoth tusk in it’s place.
If I ever lose an arm, I want a woolly mammoth tusk in it’s place.
If I ever lose an arm, I want a woolly mammoth tusk in it’s place.
Sign me up for the super robo-arm. I’d like one with three hands so I can work on two knitting projects simultaneously. Or maybe they could just clone me and and octopus.
Sign me up for the super robo-arm. I’d like one with three hands so I can work on two knitting projects simultaneously. Or maybe they could just clone me and and octopus.
Lindsay B. would be proud.
TUSK!
On the serious side, I think the ethical implications need to be explored from a scientific perspective as well as a religious one. I also think that the technological implications (of which many are good and promising) need to be explored from both a religious as well as a scientific perspective. There must be some theologians out there who are giving the topic and the possible benefits to humanity (you know, God’s children) more serious consideration. Just as one would think that there are a few (maybe more than a few) scientists pondering the ethical implications. Maybe we just need to find the right blogs.
Or science has just become a game of self-seeking funding. Again, what will we learn that we don’t already know? It’s the same question the people trying to protect the Titanic from grave-robbing asked.
“Again, what will we learn that we don’t already know?”
How about finding the answers to any of these questions?
Well, LB’s use of the word “tusk” has other meaning than an arm…
Yep. And he is most proud of that album because rather than taking the safe path and doing another Rumors, he took out after fresh ground. Or so he said on A&E.
And put a high school marching band on the charts.
But as genetic engineering goes, it might be more profitable than the Sean Connery look alike.
Uh, that was Jon’s USC band!
LB is, what we call in this house a TT. Too much talent for one body (Alison Kraus is another one). We were watching him with some new country band (Little Big Town maybe) on Crossroads and we were just doing the fishmouth during one of his solos. Now I need to go back and see if he was playing one of Rick’s guitars…or maybe one of you can tell me.
Oops. They looked like a high school band to me. Now if they can just get a decent football team.
Yes, Amber, LB plays a Rick Turner last time I watched. It’s a very neat axe too because it can play like a nylon and sound like a buzz saw as needed. Lindsay is a god in my parts not just for FMac but for being a student and master of folk. Some noticed and some didn’t that he was the bass player of choice in the folk special that featured the Kingston Trio et al.
It is only a good idea if we can re-create a full grown Ronald Reagan to ride the mammoth side-saddle around the zoo. OR if we can populate the wilderness with them and hunt them from helicopters. By that I mean it is a stupid, stupid idea.
And who cares about religious implications (I do not think the mammoth even believed in a prime mover).
No wait…it IS a good idea to create life only to consume it again. This is America! Maybe we should install wind turbines on the backs of the mammoths and send them to the four corners of the Earth. Is there any way to generate “Wooly Power” to inject back into our grid? Hey Rick…whaddya think about that man? Maybe we can get the woolies to play some folk music? Shit man…that would be awesome. Hey len..what do your neighbors in “Bama think about that? They are the fucking salt of the earth man…they have all the answers. They are Everyman. No wait..what kind of car do ya’ll drive? I myself…I like Quiet Riot. Rock music just has not been the same since “Metal Health.” Espeically in hi-fi. I would never listen to it on an ipod. I wonder how much it cost to make that record? I wonder if any flat-picker can recreate “Come On Feel the Noise?” Now that would be effin cool man!
What would Dylan Do?
LB gives a whole new meaning to the term “axe men”…now that would be a show worth watching.
At the risk of being called a ‘rant kill’ I would like to point out that I think that religious types need to consider scientific implications and scientific types need to consider ETHICAL implications. I don’t think there are any religious implications.
“Hey len..what do your neighbors in “Bama think about that?”
We’re already working on new bar-b-que sauces.
And how! Ethics is right…
This poor mammoth is enjoying the eternal afterlife with his 12 hirsute virgo pachoderms when his snuff-a-luff-a-soul is whisked through the vortex of the heavens and rooted into the re-created body of his the physical manifestation he long ago forgot. Think of all the prime tang he will be missing man! He is gonna be pissed! Like the monster in Frankenstein (Shelley you Phillistines)!
This is dangerous ground we are treading on here…..
I was thinking more along the lines of is it OK to bring them back only to ‘consume’ them again…either as entertainment or with sauce.
I’m ordering velociraptor steak next time out.
Remember when “they” said that “Jurassic Park” was impossible science fiction? Now we have to wonder. A bit of blood in the mosquito preserved in copal or amber, and…
AJ- I agree we are in uncharted territory here. I wish Hunter Thompson was around.
Cloning is the way to go..how else can we become future space aliens???
It is still a long way off – simply having the sequence of the extinct species DNA does not mean we can turn it into functional chromosomes or do some type of nuclear transfer that is done in current mammalian cloning experiments. However, it may be possible to CHANGE the sequence of the African elephant into the WM. Although that is a very daunting task.
It does raise ethical questions indeed – you might find arguments on both sides on THIS issue, but what if we were talking about turning a chimpanzee into a Neanderthal? The sequence of Neanderthal is also known. That’s pretty creepy.
ooops. shoulda read the article first.
anyway, I say no, not a good idea.
one more thing – the comment about scientists intervening in evolution. Aren’t we all guilty of that already? Ok, maybe not directly by physically manipulating our genomic sequences – though pretty damn close (Wiki ‘epigenetics). Everything from wearing eyeglasses to cancer treatment can be considered ‘intervening’ in the natural process of evolution somehow.
btw – hi! first posts…
Hi wage slave,
We’ve been intervening in evolution for thousands of years. We wouldn’t have agriculture if we hadn’t intervened. Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel goes into this topic in great detail (actually, the book is surprisingly more about agriculture and plant/animal distribution than anything else – yet still fascinating).
The reason Darwin used the term Natural Selection was due to the analogy of selection which was already being used for plant and animal breeding.
This issue doesn’t necessarily have to do with evolution. The conditions at which this animal survived may no longer exists, so recreating the appropriate environment may be a real challenge.
And the elephant in the room (who could resist) is the impact of the Jurassic Park films in terms of framing the whole debate.
It wasn’t as good of science as Chrichton would have you believe, but the mass of people are going to look at this and mentally start waving placards saying “Ban the Velociraptors”.
It’s hard to have a meaningful debate when the conversation is about outcomes largely judged as “bad” in the public consciousness.
Ken,
You’re right. It’s really hard not to think of JP, especially the movie, when framing the question. The book was much less ‘preachy’ than the movie, but still its accessibility complicates the whole discussion…especially when people ‘get’ their science information from Michael Chrichton and Tom Clancy. Makes separating fact from fiction, and thus a resonable consideration of the real issues, ‘too much work’ for most folks (especially the MSM).
Any movie where a young child says “Oh Unix. That’s easy.” is suspect.
One approach is limiting risks. IOW, unless someone can make the case for a real risk, how they spend the $10 million is not society’s business. Thus it becomes like the case of turning on the supercollider: someone had to assess the risk of creating very small short lived black holes. With the atom bomb, it was igniting the atmosphere. A test pilot of a new aircraft on the other hand knows and is paid to take the risks. While quantified, it is considered acceptable (the ‘we are not in the business of making shoes’ argument).
In the case of JP, the scientist makes the case that the animals being bred were dangerous hunters in their own day, that no information was available regarding introducing such into an environment not evolved to contain them, and that no artificial security system given chaotic potentials would be without risks. Unknowns could cause them to fail no matter how well designed. In the movie, a greedy arrogant employee (considered the worst risk in all security systems, BTW) and the underestimated intelligence of the raptors were two factors. In the book, the unknown migratory patterns were also tossed in with the idea that ‘nature finds a way’ and the raptors could change sexes and breed (thus the joke about having two female mammoths delivered; eg, is a breeding stock necessary). The movie ending also pointed out that by breeding sufficient variety, natural predators were available (the T-Rex) although it doesn’t make the predators less dangerous. In the book, the air force is hunting them from the air with missiles although the escapees to the mainland, their fast breeding and their migratory habits spelled future disaster. The voracious genie-with-teeth was out of the bottle.
So once again:
1. What can be known with a live animal that can’t be known otherwise? Quantify the gain.
2. What are the risks and can they be quantified and mitigated? Assess the controls over the known and unknown but knowable risks.
3. Is what can be discovered worth the risks? Assess the value in the face of unknown unknowns (the unk unks).
4. Make the case.
Notice I didn’t ask is it cost effective or is it worth knowing, or does it somehow compromise a religious or ethical constraint.
But. But….
how can “we” intervene in evolution since “we” are part of it. Part of nature. It is such a backward way of thinking. More than backward. It is egotistical. Really. We do as we do. Not outside of the construct of nature, but within it. Don’t let your cognitive abilities get your panties in a bunch.
You fucking animals.
But, but…just because we’re acting within nature, does that mean we cannot ‘intervene’? Perhaps ‘interfere’ is a better word. I mean if polar bears go extinct real soon, was that ‘just nature’ or did we have something to do with it? I’m not arguing the egotistical part, I’m arguing the ‘backward’ part.
Panties? What panties?
Nope. No intervening. No interfering. You either are. Or you are not. It is intellectually dishonest (hence backwards) to not take a stand on this issue. Ethics are cloudy in this respect…
It is fun to watch the argument that is based solely on the dialectic in which nature is the deity or humanity is the deity. Make up your minds. The idea that humanity is the deity on earth is what has propagated our attitude, in Western culture up until now, where god has created man in his own likeness…ergo he/she is separate from the place that they live. Their environment. Their context. They are the representation of god on earth and as such remain separate. It is essentially a Judeo-Christian idea, and has resulted in our attitude of disrespect towards our landscape since the (mostly) post industrial age. And it has created a boatload of guilt (the polar bears and the dodo?). Recently (although not really) there has been a movement where nature has been deified and has made humanity a separate entity by default. Equally as absurd in my mind. This opposition has been battling it out for a while in our culture in respect to these specific ideas…cloning and the like.
I do not really feel like going on any more on this subject because it makes my brain hurt. I really wanna be done with it. It is all silliness. But people are stuck. Whatever.
Do you think that the human collective conscious is intelligent enough to propagate its own species? If you do not then you have a fatalist worldview and what is the point. If you do…then the question of ethics should not be framed in these Judeo Christian ideals of the supernatural human acting upon the earth, realize we are part of it, and the result will only be based upon our own ability to make the right decisions (kinda like that damn mammoth?) …..or not. Maybe an asteroid will hit Alabama and put us out of our misery.
The rest is fucking stupid.
meh…I need a drink.
Some wish direction from a divinity. Some merely counsel. But you are right, AJ, that we make our own decisions and by these our future. Waiting for intervention is worse than believing none is possible.
“Maybe an asteroid will hit Alabama and put us out of our misery.”
Maybe, but I think misery is made of waiting and wanting without planning and acting, meanwhile we’ll keep watching the skies.