I’d like to bring the passenger pigeon back, too. 🙂
Long article that I only had time to skim. My thought is, yes, go ahead and try it with Passenger Pigeons. It would be nice to have them back, I guess.
But it would probably be a short reprieve – they died out for a reason. They will probably die out again. Okay then, resurrect them again, if you want.
Same thing for mammoths. Bring some back, if you can, if only out of curiosity. But try not to bring back more than a small herd until we have a good idea of how it is working out for all concerned.
And please remember to Curb Your Mammoth!
The passenger pigeon died out because we were slaughtering them commercially, eating them by the tens of millions. I don’t think that’s likely to happen again.
If the passenger pigeon were being eaten commercially, it would be one thing, many of them
were slaughtered for amusement.
“The passenger pigeon died out because we were slaughtering them commercially, eating them by the tens of millions.” It wasn’t just that; they were very gregarious birds, who apparently couldn’t breed unless they had enormous flocks together. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_Pigeon#Extinction
It sounds like it would be real hard to recreate enough of them, even if deforestation turns out not to have destroyed too much of their habitat.
Plus, such a massive intrusion of this new species would presumably wipe out others. It’s hard to find a species that (a) has a niche in the current environment, and (b) won’t be displacing something else in that niche.
But it would probably be a short reprieve – they died out for a reason.
I think this is the primary argument against the claim that things could go very wrong. If these species were that dangerous to ecosystems, then they wouldn’t have gone extinct in the first place. Now, recreating predators big enough to prey on humans might be a different story. Carnivorous dinosaurs or saber-toothed tigers might eat a few people or livestock and cause problems.
A lot of science fiction is an “incredible simulation of real science” without actually fleshing out the science.
Michael Crichton had something interesting going with this Dr. Malcolm character and “Chaos Theory” which looked like it could go someplace, but turned out to be more LeVar Burton explaining in one of those Making of Star Trek shows how the script writers would put the place-holder “Tech” where they wanted someone to make up something for Engineer Geordi LaForge to say.
But maybe Crichton was on to something even though he couldn’t write Dr. Malcolm’s scientific papers in the way that Tolkien actually invented the Elvin languages.
Maybe the dinosaurs didn’t go extinct because they were large and sluggish and half blind and mal-adapted. Maybe something happened, some “tipping point”, that otherwise well-adapted creatures that had dominated the land for over a 100 million years, that these creatures disappeared.
Maybe if we brought dinosaurs back, only they aren’t really dinosaurs because they have frog DNA that makes their genome super mutative-adaptive, things will hit another tipping point where we become extinct.
Yeah, yeah, it is an old trope of the “mad scientists messing with nature in a way they should have left it alone, put in modern clothing with the Wayne Knight computer dude with ‘tude and cute kids who-are-smarter-than-the-adults-who-put-them-in-danger and all that. But it still makes you think, if only a little bit.
Maybe if we brought dinosaurs back, only they aren’t really dinosaurs because they have frog DNA that makes their genome super mutative-adaptive, things will hit another tipping point where we become extinct.
Humanity is already beyond super mutative-adaptive. I’m not at all worried about large animals in this regard. I’m worried about the small such as developing a super flu that kills most of humanity before it has a chance to adapt. But engineered diseases and such are irrelevant to bringing back a mammoth or a velociraptor.
Better bring back the American Chestnut first if you are going to bring back the PP.
I think the loss of the AC was as much to blame for the demise of the PP as was over-hunting.
“Better bring back the American Chestnut first……”
I’m all for that. Lovely wood to make furniture out of.
One of the dangers is that we don’t know what kind of diseases these things will bring back with them. The Mammoth dander alone could cause havoc on our immune systems. The sensible approach would be to splice some genes in from hypoallergenic animals. You know everyone will want their own Mammodoodle. So cuddly!
What sort of diseases do you mean? Any communicable diseases would also have to be deliberately recreated in a lab.
Sometimes jokes don’t have punch lines, although allergies are no laughing matter.
:-[ (embarrassed)
The Mammoth (The North American Columbian Mammoth) was only somewhat similar to the modern African Elephant. The Mammoth was larger (about twice the size) and stronger, and had better weapons (tusks). It was also, based on fossil clues (such as the interlocked tusks of two combatants) far more violent (and the African elephant is dangerously violent at times).
For comparison, I’ll mention that the Carthaginian elephants with which Hanibal came close to destroying the Roman Empire in the second Punic war were not African elephants, but the smaller North African elephants (now extinct). How many did he have when he set out to cross the Alps and crush the Roman Empire? 37 or 38 (sources vary).
So, to sum it up, with the Mammoth, you’d have massive creatures far larger, stronger, and meaner than African bull elephants (themselves not used in warfare due to being too large and violent to manage – which is why Indian elephants are the ones used for labor, or trained for use in movies) , while also lacking any of the instinctive fear of humans that centuries of contact with modern armed humans have given modern animals.
And that’s just a few of the known risks – it’s the unknown ones that usually end up biting one in the hindquarters. We’re dealing with a largely unknown species here.
As Rand said, what could possibly go wrong?
It’s not like they would be hard to find and shoot if necessary. They aren’t going to be able to hide to any degree.
That’s what they said about the squatch.
Big animals are easier to control, it’s the really little ones that are expensive to manage.
Big animals are easier to control, it’s the really little ones that are expensive to manage.
True in some cases, but not in others. For example, by far the most damaging, expensive, and hard to control animal vermin in existence is often quite a bit larger than the average human.
They’re called politicians.
That’s a problem because they can blend in with the human population. If they didn’t have that going for them, it’d be no bag limit.
I say hooray – demonstrate the ability to re-create extinct species. That way, we can silence all the eco-fascists when they scream and wail about hwo we are killing off species.
Paul: Dinosaurs didn’t go extinct. There is a very good chance that if you look outside your window you will see some in your yard or on the telephone and power lines.
Also, dinosaurs are not thought to have been particularly sluggish. Metabolisms varied but the big raptors are in the same Clade as birds.
As to their extinction… I often tell friends that if birds had a religion it would be the Church Of the Second Asteroid. They are just sitting there waiting for Earth to get whacked again and take us out so they can resume their long reign.
The link is missing the ‘l’ in “html”.
I’d like to bring the passenger pigeon back, too. 🙂
Long article that I only had time to skim. My thought is, yes, go ahead and try it with Passenger Pigeons. It would be nice to have them back, I guess.
But it would probably be a short reprieve – they died out for a reason. They will probably die out again. Okay then, resurrect them again, if you want.
Same thing for mammoths. Bring some back, if you can, if only out of curiosity. But try not to bring back more than a small herd until we have a good idea of how it is working out for all concerned.
And please remember to Curb Your Mammoth!
The passenger pigeon died out because we were slaughtering them commercially, eating them by the tens of millions. I don’t think that’s likely to happen again.
If the passenger pigeon were being eaten commercially, it would be one thing, many of them
were slaughtered for amusement.
“The passenger pigeon died out because we were slaughtering them commercially, eating them by the tens of millions.” It wasn’t just that; they were very gregarious birds, who apparently couldn’t breed unless they had enormous flocks together. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_Pigeon#Extinction
It sounds like it would be real hard to recreate enough of them, even if deforestation turns out not to have destroyed too much of their habitat.
Plus, such a massive intrusion of this new species would presumably wipe out others. It’s hard to find a species that (a) has a niche in the current environment, and (b) won’t be displacing something else in that niche.
But it would probably be a short reprieve – they died out for a reason.
I think this is the primary argument against the claim that things could go very wrong. If these species were that dangerous to ecosystems, then they wouldn’t have gone extinct in the first place. Now, recreating predators big enough to prey on humans might be a different story. Carnivorous dinosaurs or saber-toothed tigers might eat a few people or livestock and cause problems.
A lot of science fiction is an “incredible simulation of real science” without actually fleshing out the science.
Michael Crichton had something interesting going with this Dr. Malcolm character and “Chaos Theory” which looked like it could go someplace, but turned out to be more LeVar Burton explaining in one of those Making of Star Trek shows how the script writers would put the place-holder “Tech” where they wanted someone to make up something for Engineer Geordi LaForge to say.
But maybe Crichton was on to something even though he couldn’t write Dr. Malcolm’s scientific papers in the way that Tolkien actually invented the Elvin languages.
Maybe the dinosaurs didn’t go extinct because they were large and sluggish and half blind and mal-adapted. Maybe something happened, some “tipping point”, that otherwise well-adapted creatures that had dominated the land for over a 100 million years, that these creatures disappeared.
Maybe if we brought dinosaurs back, only they aren’t really dinosaurs because they have frog DNA that makes their genome super mutative-adaptive, things will hit another tipping point where we become extinct.
Yeah, yeah, it is an old trope of the “mad scientists messing with nature in a way they should have left it alone, put in modern clothing with the Wayne Knight computer dude with ‘tude and cute kids who-are-smarter-than-the-adults-who-put-them-in-danger and all that. But it still makes you think, if only a little bit.
Maybe if we brought dinosaurs back, only they aren’t really dinosaurs because they have frog DNA that makes their genome super mutative-adaptive, things will hit another tipping point where we become extinct.
Humanity is already beyond super mutative-adaptive. I’m not at all worried about large animals in this regard. I’m worried about the small such as developing a super flu that kills most of humanity before it has a chance to adapt. But engineered diseases and such are irrelevant to bringing back a mammoth or a velociraptor.
Better bring back the American Chestnut first if you are going to bring back the PP.
I think the loss of the AC was as much to blame for the demise of the PP as was over-hunting.
“Better bring back the American Chestnut first……”
I’m all for that. Lovely wood to make furniture out of.
One of the dangers is that we don’t know what kind of diseases these things will bring back with them. The Mammoth dander alone could cause havoc on our immune systems. The sensible approach would be to splice some genes in from hypoallergenic animals. You know everyone will want their own Mammodoodle. So cuddly!
What sort of diseases do you mean? Any communicable diseases would also have to be deliberately recreated in a lab.
Sometimes jokes don’t have punch lines, although allergies are no laughing matter.
:-[ (embarrassed)
The Mammoth (The North American Columbian Mammoth) was only somewhat similar to the modern African Elephant. The Mammoth was larger (about twice the size) and stronger, and had better weapons (tusks). It was also, based on fossil clues (such as the interlocked tusks of two combatants) far more violent (and the African elephant is dangerously violent at times).
For comparison, I’ll mention that the Carthaginian elephants with which Hanibal came close to destroying the Roman Empire in the second Punic war were not African elephants, but the smaller North African elephants (now extinct). How many did he have when he set out to cross the Alps and crush the Roman Empire? 37 or 38 (sources vary).
So, to sum it up, with the Mammoth, you’d have massive creatures far larger, stronger, and meaner than African bull elephants (themselves not used in warfare due to being too large and violent to manage – which is why Indian elephants are the ones used for labor, or trained for use in movies) , while also lacking any of the instinctive fear of humans that centuries of contact with modern armed humans have given modern animals.
And that’s just a few of the known risks – it’s the unknown ones that usually end up biting one in the hindquarters. We’re dealing with a largely unknown species here.
As Rand said, what could possibly go wrong?
It’s not like they would be hard to find and shoot if necessary. They aren’t going to be able to hide to any degree.
That’s what they said about the squatch.
Big animals are easier to control, it’s the really little ones that are expensive to manage.
Big animals are easier to control, it’s the really little ones that are expensive to manage.
True in some cases, but not in others. For example, by far the most damaging, expensive, and hard to control animal vermin in existence is often quite a bit larger than the average human.
They’re called politicians.
That’s a problem because they can blend in with the human population. If they didn’t have that going for them, it’d be no bag limit.
I say hooray – demonstrate the ability to re-create extinct species. That way, we can silence all the eco-fascists when they scream and wail about hwo we are killing off species.
Paul: Dinosaurs didn’t go extinct. There is a very good chance that if you look outside your window you will see some in your yard or on the telephone and power lines.
Also, dinosaurs are not thought to have been particularly sluggish. Metabolisms varied but the big raptors are in the same Clade as birds.
As to their extinction… I often tell friends that if birds had a religion it would be the Church Of the Second Asteroid. They are just sitting there waiting for Earth to get whacked again and take us out so they can resume their long reign.