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> “Even if they succeeded, the obvious question is, what would you do with it?” said Stuart Pimm, a professor at the conservation ecology research unit at the U

> “Even if they succeeded, the obvious question is, what would you do with it?” said Stuart Pimm, a professor at the conservation ecology research unit at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. “If you had a Woolly mammoth, you would put it in a cage. It’s a colossal exercise in ego.” This is my thought about all these efforts. The mammoth people talk like it's about a solution to climate change, but that's obviously working backwards from their goal (revive the mammoth for reasons) to some sort of reasonable-sounding justification. They set out with different motivations in mind. I'd ask the same question here: why try to bring back a species we already killed off? These won't be descendants of the animals we killed, so it's hardly a form of reparations. If it's about preserving the ecosystems we already have, there have to be more efficient ways to do that than rebreeding less stripe zebras. It's hard not to see this as just the same impulse that led to the poodle: because we can and because it will look cool and draw attention and make money. The only difference is there's a slight nostalgic bent to the aesthetic.

soco 2y ago
The poodle doesn't shed as much as other breeds, thus I can have a dog while being also allergic to dogs.
magicalhippo 2y ago
> If it's about preserving the ecosystems we already have If it went extinct then likely its ecosystem is already destroyed, so bringing it back won't do much good in itself, cause where would it thrive?
- ipaddr 2y ago
  Climate changes and populations are not equally spread
throwuxiytayq 2y ago
You can pass off practically any attempt to control reality as an “exercise in ego”. There’s very little harm to be done and very much to learn when it’s done at a small scale. I’d be more cautious with mass mammoth deployments, though. That said, in this particular instance, they should have started with horses and painted some stripes for a roughly equivalent result.
6DM 2y ago
The immediate question that comes to mind for me is where would they live? Usually if they die off it's because they lost their habitat to some destructive force. Their evolutionary advantage or balance is gone. So even if they were the original animal brought back from extinction, what's to keep them from dying out again.
- DrScientist 2y ago
  > to some destructive force. If that destructive force was humans then there is a possibility at least for change ( cf the rebounding of the whale population post hunting ban ) - however in this case I'd agree that in terms of needing a think woolly coat - probably not a good time to bring something like that back.
  - ipaddr 2y ago
    Why parts of the earth are covered in snow and ice and will still be at 2 degrees hotter.
    - DrScientist 2y ago
      Places like the Russian tundra are heating up more than 2 degrees - 2 degrees is an average. For reasons beyond my expertise it appears places like the near artic are seeing the biggest effects - much much bigger than 2 degrees. See https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/un-confirms-hottest-temperature-ever-recorded-in-the-arctic-in-2020-180979259/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/un-confirms-hottes...
      - ipaddr 2y ago
        Even if they heat up 8c you are dealing with an average temp of -40 to -16
        DrScientist 2y ago
        If you are a woolly mammoth - it's not the average temp that matters - it's can you survive the extremes. So a temperature of 100F in Siberia isn't necessarily good - even for a short period.
DrScientist 2y ago
Exactly - it's all about maintaining a diverse gene pool across the whole of the tree of life, rather than focussing on particular things like a hairy elephant ( mammoths are 99% similar to current elephants at the genome level ). There is no point in bringing back a mammoth when the environment it would require to thrive doesn't really exist anymore - particularly with the rapid warming of the Russian tundra. However sometimes you do need high profile mascots in order to get the funds/build broad support for, the more mundane work. It's a balance.
animal_spirits 2y ago
The people who want to revive the woolly mammoth want to release them into the Siberian Steppe to restore grassland to fix carbon into the earth. - https://e360.yale.edu/features/the_case_for_de-extinction_why_we_should_bring_back_the_woolly_mammoth https://e360.yale.edu/features/the_case_for_de-extinction_wh...
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- lolinder 2y ago
  I mentioned that, but I think that's a pitch to get investors into a project that actually started because they read Jurassic Park and got the wrong message. It's a classic solution in search of a problem.
  - tw04 2y ago
    The problem is Siberia releasing carbon, that’s pretty clearly and well defined. I don’t know what other “more efficient” solution we could possibly have. Sometimes nature is the best solution to the problem. It’s no different than reintroducing beavers into areas to reduce wildfires. Nothing we’ve invented so far is a better option. https://coloradosun.com/2024/04/19/fighting-wildland-fire-with-beavers-colorado/ https://coloradosun.com/2024/04/19/fighting-wildland-fire-wi...
    - lolinder 2y ago
      No one looked at siberia's carbon emissions and said "let's revive the mammoth to solve that problem". They started with the mammoth resurrection program and then found a justification for it. That doesn't mean the justification that they found is necessarily invalid, but the reason why solutions in search of a problem are problematic is that the chosen solution is rarely the optimal one because it wasn't designed for the problem—the problem was designed for the solution.
      - schiffern 2y ago
bobthepanda 2y ago
The description reminds me of the criticisms of panda breeding, where more pandas have been removed from the wild than released into it, and zoos have injured or killed pandas trying to get them to breed. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/10/15/world/asia/pandas-zoo-breeding-death-captivity.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/10/15/world/asia/pa...
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> why try to bring back a species we already killed off? To observe and study them, for one. Also, to see if we can (and learn how to and how not). > same impulse that led to the poodle What’s wrong with poodles (or domesticated dogs in general)? (You could have said French bulldog. But you chose a very intelligent, hypoallergenic breed with few health issues compared to other pure breeds.)
- alephnerd 2y ago
  > What’s wrong with poodles Poodles have similar issues to French Bulldogs because they have a genetic bottleneck as well. > To observe and study them, for one. Also, to see if we can (and learn how to and how not). I can understand the reasoning of trying it for the sake of trying (ethical considerations aside), but I'm not sure if an extinct species that is resurrected via some form of cloning would even be a representative sample to observe actual behavior.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > Poodles have similar issues to French Bulldogs because they have a genetic bottleneck as well Source? I thought small and toy breeds make up most of the problematic breeds. Standard poodles’ hip dysplasia, like retrievers’, is mostly a product of early spaying and neutering leading to deformed hips. It’s environmental, in other words, not genetic. > not sure if an extinct species that is resurrected via some form of cloning would even be a representative sample to observe actual behavior It would be a guide into what behavioural factors in modern elephants were evolved versus learned. Obviously not pristinely. But it’s another data point.
    - alephnerd 2y ago
      > Source? https://cgejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40575-015-0026-5 https://cgejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40575... > It would be a guide into what behavioural factors in modern elephants were evolved versus learned. Obviously not pristinely. But it’s another data point. But couldn't you do the same thing with an RCT?
DrBazza 2y ago
In my area, they've released long extinct (for the UK) long-horn cows, and it's improved the local ecosystem [1] Similarly with beavers in the UK as well. Arguably mammoths would likely do the same after some period of time, and I'd hope other mega-fauna we've chased, killed and eaten into extinction. [1] https://www.kentwildlifetrust.org.uk/news/after-year-bison-freely-roaming-canterbury-woodland-monitoring-programme-releases-first-year https://www.kentwildlifetrust.org.uk/news/after-year-bison-f...
- lisper 2y ago
  Similar story when wolves were re-introduced to Yellowstone: https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wildlife/wolf-reintroduction-changes-ecosystem/ https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wildlife/wolf-r...
  - lolinder 2y ago
    I'm 100% on board with concerted efforts to reintroduce species that already exist into habitats that they once roamed. That's a relatively low effort/high reward conservation project. I'm unconvinced that the value we expect to gain from resurrecting an extinct species is worth the overhead of doing so, compared to using those same resources to keep the species that we haven't yet killed off alive and help them thrive.
    - lisper 2y ago
      Sure. But I'm pretty sure we're not done driving species to extinction. The benefits of bringing back the quagga may not outweigh the immediate costs, but developing the ability to revive extinct species in general very well might.
      - aziaziazi 2y ago
        Sure, being able to revive extinct species might benefit […] only if we also become good at not driving them to extinction. This second ability is a must for the first one to be useful, and might even work alone. eg: just let the existing bisons grow new herds.
kylebenzle 2y ago
Why bring up breeding for poodles in context to reviving extinct animals? Poodles have Non-shedding fur and don't bark much two HUGE benefits over something like a wolf or husky. As for the mammoths, we learn by doing. Going to space was an exercise of ego, exploring the new world, taking flight, developing nuclear weapons...
codexb 2y ago
Large, charismatic megafauna have many uses. Their coats, their tusks, their meat can be extremely valuable. It's debatable whether humans are responsible for the deaths of most of the large megafauna that died out over the past million years. There were probably many factors. There don't need to be any other reasons other than, "it's interesting and will make money".
TeMPOraL 2y ago
> because we can and because it will look cool Well, yes. That's science at its best :). See also: my favorite moment from 12 Moneys TV show: https://dy.town/uploads/still/file/137701/p2561846223.jpg https://dy.town/uploads/still/file/137701/p2561846223.jpg
IncreasePosts 2y ago
Hey, what's with this poodle slander? The poodle was created hundreds of years ago as a working water dog.
- lolinder 2y ago
  Yes, I've learned that from several other commenters. It was a badly informed throwaway line—s/poodle/bulldog/.
EasyMark 2y ago
Maybe we have a moral obligation to undo the damage we’ve done?Not necessarily talking about mammoths here, but more recent species that we’ve made extinct. If it can be done in a way that’s not just to make zoo animals, but actually restore them in the environment like we’ve reintroduced some animals into areas they’ve been driven out of.
- robertfw 2y ago
  Might as well put that effort towards halting the ongoing mass extinction of more animals, before worrying about bringing back facsimiles of the ones we've already eliminated
  - jjk166 2y ago
    This is the "lump of labor" fallacy. You can simultaneously prevent ongoing extinctions and work to undo past ones. The resources to do one likely are not transferrable to the other.
    - EasyMark 2y ago
      It's weird that people think we can't do two or even three things at the same time isn't it?
justinator 2y ago
No one else wants to eat it? (I want to eat it)
jjk166 2y ago
If you managed to prevent the extinction of the the African Bush Elephant, what would you do with it? Species do not need to exists for a utilitarian purpose. Bringing back something that once existed can be a perfectly justifiable end in itself. Preventing a species from going extinct is not particularly controversial, even reintroducing species that have not been seen in a land in many generations is widely done and celebrated. The only difference between that and reintroducing a species that went extinct globally is the technical difficulty. It's very reasonable to believe that there could be benefits to restoring ecosystems, and that might motivate some people to provide their effort and resources to the endeavor moreso than the restoration of nature, but it's perfectly fine to have multiple aligned motivations. The world is a dynamic place, the true exercise in ego is to define the world as it happened to be when you were born into it as the status quo that ought to be maintained.
- parl_match 2y ago
  I think there's a stark difference between an animal that evolved to live in a world that no longer exists, versus an animal that was hunted to extinction, for which there exists a plausible environment in which it can thrive.
  - adastra22 2y ago
    Mammoths were hunted to extinction and would otherwise do just fine in many wild parts of the world.
    - derefr 2y ago
      The "mammoth steppe" — the biome that supported mammoths — was a place that was cold (due to a glacial maximum) but bright (due to not being very polar.) Which made for endless fields of nutrient-dense grasses to graze on. Which made for lots of crazy-big grazing animals. There is no modern-era equivalent to the mammoth steppe. Savanna biomes are too hot (thus, elephants — mammoths adapted for the heat); and tundra biomes don't get enough sun (thus only supporting very small herbivorous tundra animals, with even the apex predators of that food chain not being anything like megafauna.)
lynx23 2y ago
Babylon AD comes to mind, which depicted this weird tendency to hold onto past animals.
albertzeyer 2y ago
It might be a way to reverse the biodiversity loss caused by humans. Biodiversity is important for various reasons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiversity#Role_and_benefits_of_biodiversity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiversity#Role_and_benefits...).
- lolinder 2y ago
  Selectively breeding in a small population for specific traits that happen to have been shared by an extinct species seems like an odd way to pursue biodiversity.
  - abracadaniel 2y ago
    Isn’t that just artificially creating new diversity?
    - lolinder 2y ago
      As I understand it, the damage done by inbreeding would outweigh the benefits of selecting for new externally-visible traits not present in the mainline population.
wakahiu 2y ago
The last part, “because it will make money”, is entirely a valid reason to de-extinct animals that once already attracted human interest, but were lost due do it unfortunately. It’s entirely the premise of Jurassic park. People already spend money on safaris, so the premise is not far fetched. One can argue that there’d be perverse incentives that would arise from this model.
GuB-42 2y ago
Woolly mammoths look cool. In all honesty, I think that's the main reason. De-extinguishing species is interesting as a scientific exercise and will probably lead to advances in fields of genetic engineering, medicine, the history of life, etc... We don't have to do it with woolly mammoth, we probably could do it with some other unremarkable specie. But doing it with woolly mammoths will certainly attract a lot more attention and therefore money for the researchers. There is also an advantage of doing it with a large animal we have already killed off. That is that if we lose control of our (re)creation, we can easily kill it off again, assuming it doesn't happen naturally. It is better than to de-extinguish a specie that is small and particularly well suited to human environments, we have already made enough of a mess with existing invasive species that we don't want to bring new ones.
onlyrealcuzzo 2y ago
> I'd ask the same question here: why try to bring back a species we already killed off? Maybe the people working on it think it's interesting.
fnordpiglet 2y ago
Poodles were bread to be cold water hunting dogs. That’s why the traditional cut has large poofs around joints. Over time smaller breeds of poodle were bred for companionship. Neither of these purposes are some sort of frivolous waste. A good reason to bring back extinct animals is furthering our understanding of biological life and animal genetics. There are other justifications such as carbon fixing, improving of the ecology in thawing tundra regions, etc but those are bonuses to the primary reason I listed. Science, basic science, is the foundation upon which all applied science is built. That is its own justification. Not every act must have a practical and monetizable outcome in the immediate present.
- throw894389 2y ago
  > Neither of these purposes are some sort of frivolous waste It is a huge frivolous waste! Dogs produce CO2, they eat tons of meat, they pollute environment and kill wild life! And there are negative side effects to other people. Lack of sleep from constant barking, dog attacks, not being able to walk or cycle outside, stepping into dog shit, parasites spread from dog excrements... Saying there is "no waste", just means dog owners do not have to pay negative expenses associated with their animal upkeep. They outsource all bad stuff to society!
davidanekstein 2y ago
When Jon Stewart was on the Late Show talking about the possibility of a covid lab leak [1], he gave a quip along the lines of “science says ‘why did curiosity kill the cat? let’s kill 10,000 cats and find out.’” and that if science can do it, it will do it, and it’s uncommon for people to ask “should we be doing this?” before it’s too late. I think that ego and scientific urge to understand are sometimes hard to distinguish because they sometimes lead to similar outcomes. [1] https://youtu.be/sSfejgwbDQ8?si=_AJvP_pHn68v5RRh https://youtu.be/sSfejgwbDQ8?si=_AJvP_pHn68v5RRh
cyanydeez 2y ago
Like the space program; while it is an ego excercise the journey created a ton of useful tech. Not that I don't think they can figure out how to fund mundane stuff, politics (as we just saw in america) isn't about facts, figures, and boring reality; it's about energizing people to get off their ass and do something.

soco 2y ago

The poodle doesn't shed as much as other breeds, thus I can have a dog while being also allergic to dogs.

magicalhippo 2y ago

> If it's about preserving the ecosystems we already have If it went extinct then likely its ecosystem is already destroyed, so bringing it back won't do much good in itself, cause where would it thrive?

ipaddr 2y ago
Climate changes and populations are not equally spread

throwuxiytayq 2y ago

You can pass off practically any attempt to control reality as an “exercise in ego”. There’s very little harm to be done and very much to learn when it’s done at a small scale. I’d be more cautious with mass mammoth deployments, though. That said, in this particular instance, they should have started with horses and painted some stripes for a roughly equivalent result.

6DM 2y ago

The immediate question that comes to mind for me is where would they live? Usually if they die off it's because they lost their habitat to some destructive force. Their evolutionary advantage or balance is gone. So even if they were the original animal brought back from extinction, what's to keep them from dying out again.

DrScientist 2y ago
> to some destructive force. If that destructive force was humans then there is a possibility at least for change ( cf the rebounding of the whale population post hunting ban ) - however in this case I'd agree that in terms of needing a think woolly coat - probably not a good time to bring something like that back.
- ipaddr 2y ago
  Why parts of the earth are covered in snow and ice and will still be at 2 degrees hotter.
  - DrScientist 2y ago
    Places like the Russian tundra are heating up more than 2 degrees - 2 degrees is an average. For reasons beyond my expertise it appears places like the near artic are seeing the biggest effects - much much bigger than 2 degrees. See https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/un-confirms-hottest-temperature-ever-recorded-in-the-arctic-in-2020-180979259/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/un-confirms-hottes...
    - ipaddr 2y ago
      Even if they heat up 8c you are dealing with an average temp of -40 to -16
      - DrScientist 2y ago
        If you are a woolly mammoth - it's not the average temp that matters - it's can you survive the extremes. So a temperature of 100F in Siberia isn't necessarily good - even for a short period.

DrScientist 2y ago

Exactly - it's all about maintaining a diverse gene pool across the whole of the tree of life, rather than focussing on particular things like a hairy elephant ( mammoths are 99% similar to current elephants at the genome level ). There is no point in bringing back a mammoth when the environment it would require to thrive doesn't really exist anymore - particularly with the rapid warming of the Russian tundra. However sometimes you do need high profile mascots in order to get the funds/build broad support for, the more mundane work. It's a balance.

animal_spirits 2y ago

The people who want to revive the woolly mammoth want to release them into the Siberian Steppe to restore grassland to fix carbon into the earth. - https://e360.yale.edu/features/the_case_for_de-extinction_why_we_should_bring_back_the_woolly_mammoth https://e360.yale.edu/features/the_case_for_de-extinction_wh...

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
lolinder 2y ago
I mentioned that, but I think that's a pitch to get investors into a project that actually started because they read Jurassic Park and got the wrong message. It's a classic solution in search of a problem.
- tw04 2y ago
  The problem is Siberia releasing carbon, that’s pretty clearly and well defined. I don’t know what other “more efficient” solution we could possibly have. Sometimes nature is the best solution to the problem. It’s no different than reintroducing beavers into areas to reduce wildfires. Nothing we’ve invented so far is a better option. https://coloradosun.com/2024/04/19/fighting-wildland-fire-with-beavers-colorado/ https://coloradosun.com/2024/04/19/fighting-wildland-fire-wi...
  - lolinder 2y ago
    No one looked at siberia's carbon emissions and said "let's revive the mammoth to solve that problem". They started with the mammoth resurrection program and then found a justification for it. That doesn't mean the justification that they found is necessarily invalid, but the reason why solutions in search of a problem are problematic is that the chosen solution is rarely the optimal one because it wasn't designed for the problem—the problem was designed for the solution.
    - schiffern 2y ago

bobthepanda 2y ago

The description reminds me of the criticisms of panda breeding, where more pandas have been removed from the wild than released into it, and zoos have injured or killed pandas trying to get them to breed. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/10/15/world/asia/pandas-zoo-breeding-death-captivity.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/10/15/world/asia/pa...

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> why try to bring back a species we already killed off? To observe and study them, for one. Also, to see if we can (and learn how to and how not). > same impulse that led to the poodle What’s wrong with poodles (or domesticated dogs in general)? (You could have said French bulldog. But you chose a very intelligent, hypoallergenic breed with few health issues compared to other pure breeds.)

alephnerd 2y ago
> What’s wrong with poodles Poodles have similar issues to French Bulldogs because they have a genetic bottleneck as well. > To observe and study them, for one. Also, to see if we can (and learn how to and how not). I can understand the reasoning of trying it for the sake of trying (ethical considerations aside), but I'm not sure if an extinct species that is resurrected via some form of cloning would even be a representative sample to observe actual behavior.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > Poodles have similar issues to French Bulldogs because they have a genetic bottleneck as well Source? I thought small and toy breeds make up most of the problematic breeds. Standard poodles’ hip dysplasia, like retrievers’, is mostly a product of early spaying and neutering leading to deformed hips. It’s environmental, in other words, not genetic. > not sure if an extinct species that is resurrected via some form of cloning would even be a representative sample to observe actual behavior It would be a guide into what behavioural factors in modern elephants were evolved versus learned. Obviously not pristinely. But it’s another data point.
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    > Source? https://cgejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40575-015-0026-5 https://cgejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40575... > It would be a guide into what behavioural factors in modern elephants were evolved versus learned. Obviously not pristinely. But it’s another data point. But couldn't you do the same thing with an RCT?

DrBazza 2y ago

In my area, they've released long extinct (for the UK) long-horn cows, and it's improved the local ecosystem [1] Similarly with beavers in the UK as well. Arguably mammoths would likely do the same after some period of time, and I'd hope other mega-fauna we've chased, killed and eaten into extinction. [1] https://www.kentwildlifetrust.org.uk/news/after-year-bison-freely-roaming-canterbury-woodland-monitoring-programme-releases-first-year https://www.kentwildlifetrust.org.uk/news/after-year-bison-f...

lisper 2y ago
Similar story when wolves were re-introduced to Yellowstone: https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wildlife/wolf-reintroduction-changes-ecosystem/ https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wildlife/wolf-r...
- lolinder 2y ago
  I'm 100% on board with concerted efforts to reintroduce species that already exist into habitats that they once roamed. That's a relatively low effort/high reward conservation project. I'm unconvinced that the value we expect to gain from resurrecting an extinct species is worth the overhead of doing so, compared to using those same resources to keep the species that we haven't yet killed off alive and help them thrive.
  - lisper 2y ago
    Sure. But I'm pretty sure we're not done driving species to extinction. The benefits of bringing back the quagga may not outweigh the immediate costs, but developing the ability to revive extinct species in general very well might.
    - aziaziazi 2y ago
      Sure, being able to revive extinct species might benefit […] only if we also become good at not driving them to extinction. This second ability is a must for the first one to be useful, and might even work alone. eg: just let the existing bisons grow new herds.

kylebenzle 2y ago

Why bring up breeding for poodles in context to reviving extinct animals? Poodles have Non-shedding fur and don't bark much two HUGE benefits over something like a wolf or husky. As for the mammoths, we learn by doing. Going to space was an exercise of ego, exploring the new world, taking flight, developing nuclear weapons...

codexb 2y ago

Large, charismatic megafauna have many uses. Their coats, their tusks, their meat can be extremely valuable. It's debatable whether humans are responsible for the deaths of most of the large megafauna that died out over the past million years. There were probably many factors. There don't need to be any other reasons other than, "it's interesting and will make money".

TeMPOraL 2y ago

> because we can and because it will look cool Well, yes. That's science at its best :). See also: my favorite moment from 12 Moneys TV show: https://dy.town/uploads/still/file/137701/p2561846223.jpg https://dy.town/uploads/still/file/137701/p2561846223.jpg

IncreasePosts 2y ago

Hey, what's with this poodle slander? The poodle was created hundreds of years ago as a working water dog.

lolinder 2y ago
Yes, I've learned that from several other commenters. It was a badly informed throwaway line—s/poodle/bulldog/.

EasyMark 2y ago

Maybe we have a moral obligation to undo the damage we’ve done?Not necessarily talking about mammoths here, but more recent species that we’ve made extinct. If it can be done in a way that’s not just to make zoo animals, but actually restore them in the environment like we’ve reintroduced some animals into areas they’ve been driven out of.

robertfw 2y ago
Might as well put that effort towards halting the ongoing mass extinction of more animals, before worrying about bringing back facsimiles of the ones we've already eliminated
- jjk166 2y ago
  This is the "lump of labor" fallacy. You can simultaneously prevent ongoing extinctions and work to undo past ones. The resources to do one likely are not transferrable to the other.
  - EasyMark 2y ago
    It's weird that people think we can't do two or even three things at the same time isn't it?

justinator 2y ago

No one else wants to eat it? (I want to eat it)

jjk166 2y ago

If you managed to prevent the extinction of the the African Bush Elephant, what would you do with it? Species do not need to exists for a utilitarian purpose. Bringing back something that once existed can be a perfectly justifiable end in itself. Preventing a species from going extinct is not particularly controversial, even reintroducing species that have not been seen in a land in many generations is widely done and celebrated. The only difference between that and reintroducing a species that went extinct globally is the technical difficulty. It's very reasonable to believe that there could be benefits to restoring ecosystems, and that might motivate some people to provide their effort and resources to the endeavor moreso than the restoration of nature, but it's perfectly fine to have multiple aligned motivations. The world is a dynamic place, the true exercise in ego is to define the world as it happened to be when you were born into it as the status quo that ought to be maintained.

parl_match 2y ago
I think there's a stark difference between an animal that evolved to live in a world that no longer exists, versus an animal that was hunted to extinction, for which there exists a plausible environment in which it can thrive.
- adastra22 2y ago
  Mammoths were hunted to extinction and would otherwise do just fine in many wild parts of the world.
  - derefr 2y ago
    The "mammoth steppe" — the biome that supported mammoths — was a place that was cold (due to a glacial maximum) but bright (due to not being very polar.) Which made for endless fields of nutrient-dense grasses to graze on. Which made for lots of crazy-big grazing animals. There is no modern-era equivalent to the mammoth steppe. Savanna biomes are too hot (thus, elephants — mammoths adapted for the heat); and tundra biomes don't get enough sun (thus only supporting very small herbivorous tundra animals, with even the apex predators of that food chain not being anything like megafauna.)

lynx23 2y ago

Babylon AD comes to mind, which depicted this weird tendency to hold onto past animals.

albertzeyer 2y ago

It might be a way to reverse the biodiversity loss caused by humans. Biodiversity is important for various reasons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiversity#Role_and_benefits_of_biodiversity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiversity#Role_and_benefits...).

lolinder 2y ago
Selectively breeding in a small population for specific traits that happen to have been shared by an extinct species seems like an odd way to pursue biodiversity.
- abracadaniel 2y ago
  Isn’t that just artificially creating new diversity?
  - lolinder 2y ago
    As I understand it, the damage done by inbreeding would outweigh the benefits of selecting for new externally-visible traits not present in the mainline population.

wakahiu 2y ago

The last part, “because it will make money”, is entirely a valid reason to de-extinct animals that once already attracted human interest, but were lost due do it unfortunately. It’s entirely the premise of Jurassic park. People already spend money on safaris, so the premise is not far fetched. One can argue that there’d be perverse incentives that would arise from this model.

GuB-42 2y ago

Woolly mammoths look cool. In all honesty, I think that's the main reason. De-extinguishing species is interesting as a scientific exercise and will probably lead to advances in fields of genetic engineering, medicine, the history of life, etc... We don't have to do it with woolly mammoth, we probably could do it with some other unremarkable specie. But doing it with woolly mammoths will certainly attract a lot more attention and therefore money for the researchers. There is also an advantage of doing it with a large animal we have already killed off. That is that if we lose control of our (re)creation, we can easily kill it off again, assuming it doesn't happen naturally. It is better than to de-extinguish a specie that is small and particularly well suited to human environments, we have already made enough of a mess with existing invasive species that we don't want to bring new ones.

onlyrealcuzzo 2y ago

> I'd ask the same question here: why try to bring back a species we already killed off? Maybe the people working on it think it's interesting.

fnordpiglet 2y ago

Poodles were bread to be cold water hunting dogs. That’s why the traditional cut has large poofs around joints. Over time smaller breeds of poodle were bred for companionship. Neither of these purposes are some sort of frivolous waste. A good reason to bring back extinct animals is furthering our understanding of biological life and animal genetics. There are other justifications such as carbon fixing, improving of the ecology in thawing tundra regions, etc but those are bonuses to the primary reason I listed. Science, basic science, is the foundation upon which all applied science is built. That is its own justification. Not every act must have a practical and monetizable outcome in the immediate present.

throw894389 2y ago
> Neither of these purposes are some sort of frivolous waste It is a huge frivolous waste! Dogs produce CO2, they eat tons of meat, they pollute environment and kill wild life! And there are negative side effects to other people. Lack of sleep from constant barking, dog attacks, not being able to walk or cycle outside, stepping into dog shit, parasites spread from dog excrements... Saying there is "no waste", just means dog owners do not have to pay negative expenses associated with their animal upkeep. They outsource all bad stuff to society!

davidanekstein 2y ago

When Jon Stewart was on the Late Show talking about the possibility of a covid lab leak [1], he gave a quip along the lines of “science says ‘why did curiosity kill the cat? let’s kill 10,000 cats and find out.’” and that if science can do it, it will do it, and it’s uncommon for people to ask “should we be doing this?” before it’s too late. I think that ego and scientific urge to understand are sometimes hard to distinguish because they sometimes lead to similar outcomes. [1] https://youtu.be/sSfejgwbDQ8?si=_AJvP_pHn68v5RRh https://youtu.be/sSfejgwbDQ8?si=_AJvP_pHn68v5RRh

cyanydeez 2y ago

Like the space program; while it is an ego excercise the journey created a ton of useful tech. Not that I don't think they can figure out how to fund mundane stuff, politics (as we just saw in america) isn't about facts, figures, and boring reality; it's about energizing people to get off their ass and do something.