So whaddya do with them once you clone them? It's not like an ape or a chimp that's not quite smart enough (that we know of) to realize that they're in captivity. What happens if the Neanderthal is a lot smarter than we thought?
What if they name one Caeser? Gruss Gott wrote: > human nature > Return of the Neanderthals > If we can resurrect them through fossil DNA, should we? > By William Saletan > Posted Monday, Nov. 24, 2008, at 7:57 AM ET > > Here's the next question in the evolution debate: We know roughly how > the sequence of life ran forward in time. What about running it > backward? How would you feel about rewinding human evolution to a > species that's almost like us, but not quite? > > Last week in Nature, scientists reported major progress in sequencing > the genome of woolly mammoths. They reconstructed it from two > fossilized hair samples. One was 20,000 years old; the other was > 65,000 years old. Now, according to Nicholas Wade of the New York > Times, biologists are discussing "how to modify the DNA in an > elephant's egg so that after each round of changes it would > progressively resemble the DNA in a mammoth egg. The final-stage egg > could then be brought to term in an elephant mother." > > Cool, huh? But that's not the half of it. Wade notes: > > The full genome of the Neanderthal, an ancient human species > probably driven to extinction by the first modern humans that entered > Europe some 45,000 years ago, is expected to be recovered shortly. If > the mammoth can be resurrected, the same would be technically possible > for Neanderthals. > > In fact, Wade points out, there are good reasons to re-create a > Neanderthal: "No one knows if Neanderthals could speak. A living one > would answer that question and many others." > > Whoa there, says Richard Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of > Catholic Bishops: "Catholic teaching opposes all human cloning, and > all production of human beings in the laboratory, so I do not see how > any of this could be ethically acceptable in humans." Wade concedes > that "there would be several ethical issues in modifying modern human > DNA to that of another human species." > > Note the qualifiers: modern human DNA. Another human species. As this > uncomfortable reality of the past becomes a future > prospecttransitional creatures between human and nonhumanthe "human > dignity" framework starts to look a bit shaky. George Church, a > leading geneticist, suggests (in Wade's paraphrase) that scientists > could "modify not a human genome but that of the chimpanzee," bringing > it "close enough to that of Neanderthals, [with] the embryo brought to > term in a chimpanzee." No human clones or products involved. At least, > no "modern" humans. This leaves the question of whether we're entitled > to mess around in the lab with "another human species." But it's hard > to see how the bishops and other religious critics of biotechnology > can plunge into this area, having drawn a tight moral line around our > species. > > Every serious scientist knows that we and other animals evolved from > the same ancestors. The real question today is whether to put our DNA > and theirs back together. Until now, that question has been raised in > the form of human-animal hybrids made in labs for research. You can > argue that these are somehow wrong because they're newfangled and > artificial. But what can you say about Neanderthals? They were made by > nature, not industry. In fact, we're the industrial villains who > apparently wiped them out. They're as natural as we are. > > If we do this Church's way, I don't see how conservatives can object. > They didn't object last year when scientists announced the cloning of > rhesus macaque embryos. That, too, was the creation of nonhuman > primate life. Follow the human lineage three branches beyond the > primate order, and the rhesus macaques are still with us. Follow the > human line two more branches, and the chimps are still with us. One > more branch, and you're down to us and the Neanderthals. If it's OK to > clone a macaque and a chimp, it's pretty hard to explain why, at that > last fork in the road, you're forbidden to clone a Neanderthal. > > Is the idea repugnant? Absolutely. But that's not because we'd be > defacing humanity. It's because we'd be looking at it. > William Saletan is Slate's national correspondent and author of > Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War. > > Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2205310/ > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:281677 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
