Jurassic Park Redux
$15 million funding has been raised to re-animate a version of the extinct woolly mammoth.
[quote=CNN;https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/13/world/woolly-mammoth-resurrect-deextinction-scn/index.html]Proponents say bringing back the mammoth in an altered form could help restore the fragile Arctic tundra ecosystem, combat the climate crisis, and preserve the endangered Asian elephant, to whom the woolly mammoth is most closely related. However, it's a bold plan fraught with ethical issues.
The goal isn't to clone a mammoth -- the DNA that scientists have managed to extract from woolly mammoth remains frozen in permafrost is far too fragmented and degraded -- but to create, through genetic engineering, a living, walking elephant-mammoth hybrid that would be visually indistinguishable from its extinct forerunner.
"Our goal is to have our first calves in the next four to six years," said tech entrepreneur Ben Lamm, who with Church has cofounded Colossal, a bioscience and genetics company to back the project.[/quote]
Essentially what they're proposing is creating a genetically-engineered hybrid species. Woolly mammoth v2.0, you might say.
I have to say this prospect fills me with dread. I can't quite put my finger on why. I do recall about five years back, there was some discussion of re-animating an extinct hominid species, which I thought objectionable, on the grounds that this being would be brought into a world with which it had nothing in common and none of its kin, which would be a hellish experience, I would have thought. Plus it would be created without any way of being asked whether it would want to live in these circumstances.
I remember someone saying on this forum a few years back, that Craig Venter, who is one of the leaders in the field of genetic engineering, being asked if he could be accused of 'playing God'. 'We're not playing', he was said to have replied.
[quote=CNN;https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/13/world/woolly-mammoth-resurrect-deextinction-scn/index.html]Proponents say bringing back the mammoth in an altered form could help restore the fragile Arctic tundra ecosystem, combat the climate crisis, and preserve the endangered Asian elephant, to whom the woolly mammoth is most closely related. However, it's a bold plan fraught with ethical issues.
The goal isn't to clone a mammoth -- the DNA that scientists have managed to extract from woolly mammoth remains frozen in permafrost is far too fragmented and degraded -- but to create, through genetic engineering, a living, walking elephant-mammoth hybrid that would be visually indistinguishable from its extinct forerunner.
"Our goal is to have our first calves in the next four to six years," said tech entrepreneur Ben Lamm, who with Church has cofounded Colossal, a bioscience and genetics company to back the project.[/quote]
Essentially what they're proposing is creating a genetically-engineered hybrid species. Woolly mammoth v2.0, you might say.
I have to say this prospect fills me with dread. I can't quite put my finger on why. I do recall about five years back, there was some discussion of re-animating an extinct hominid species, which I thought objectionable, on the grounds that this being would be brought into a world with which it had nothing in common and none of its kin, which would be a hellish experience, I would have thought. Plus it would be created without any way of being asked whether it would want to live in these circumstances.
I remember someone saying on this forum a few years back, that Craig Venter, who is one of the leaders in the field of genetic engineering, being asked if he could be accused of 'playing God'. 'We're not playing', he was said to have replied.
Comments (77)
Church?!! Oh, the irony!
It was you who said it. Search your feelings [s]Luke[/s] Wayfarer.
From the Cambridge Dictionary
Speak for yourself: something you say to someone to say that the opinion that they have just expressed is not the same as your opinion
Example:
"We had a really boring trip."
"Speak for yourself! I had a wonderful time!"
Bringing long-extinct animals to life, in this case a mammoth and that too just a hybrid, is a wonderful achievement for science but, for better or worse, it's a gateway through which similar experiments can be conducted on humans themselves, not just archaic humans but even modern ones. Are we prepared for that I wonder?
Notwithstanding the slippery slope fallacy, I feel we have good reason to protest - Camel's Nose Story (Arabia)
[quote=Wikipedia]The camel's nose is a metaphor for a situation where the permitting of a small, seemingly innocuous act will open the door for larger, clearly undesirable actions.[/quote]
True, but I had read it on this forum, or actually the previous forum. In fact I even remember who said it, but he's not around any more to ask.
Quoting StreetlightX
They say they're not in it for the money. " 'There is "zero pressure" for the project to make money', Lamm said. He is banking on the endeavor resulting in innovations that have applications in biotechnology and health care. "
And who runs biotech and health care?
I have no doubt as to the purity of his intentions. He's probably a lovely, intelligent, interesting bloke. Unfortunately this won't be up to him. That's how the world works.
More like The Island Of Dr. Moreau
[quote=Wikipedia]The Island of Doctor Moreau is an 1896 science fiction novel by English author H. G. Wells (1866–1946). The text of the novel is the narration of Edward Prendick who is a shipwrecked man rescued by a passing boat. He is left on the island home of Doctor Moreau, a mad scientist who creates human-like hybrid beings from animals via vivisection. The novel deals with a number of philosophical themes, including pain and cruelty, moral responsibility, human identity, and human interference with nature.[/quote]
There's an underlying paradox in this:
1. We need to undo the damage done by humans (mammoths were allegedly hunted into oblivion by humans). Bring back the mammoths.
2. There's a good reason why the mammoths went extinct. Mother Nature knows best and she works through us as much as she does through climate, geography, other living organisms, etc. Don't bring back the mammoths.
3. Bring back the mammoths & Don't bring back the mammoths. [contradiction]
Selective breeding is not the same as genetic engineering. Science is creating completely novel life-forms, not variations of existing life-forms. Dogs are all genetically descended from common ancestors, but if you take that genetic code and alter it directly through genetic technology, it's a different kind of principle altogether. Any scientist could in future tell if a dog specimen contained GM technology. Like, if you found a relic in some dig with plastics in it, you would know it had to originate with a technological culture, that it isn't something that could have occured naturally or could have been made a thousand years ago.
I'm not saying that genetic manipulation is necessarily a bad thing - I mean, I'm completely on board with the COVID vaccine development effort. I know that if I was a parent that was told my child had a genetic condition that could be ameliorated through such means, then of course I would be on board with that, too. But I still think that 'species manipulation' is a different thing and a line that perhaps ought not to be crossed.
Yes, now you mention it - another example of Wells' prescience.
I do feel that there's a reason extinct animals died out, or at least, that there might be.
As for the role of early humans in driving the mammoths to extinction - is that a theory? I thought natural climate change was a part of it. Admit that I don't know, though.
Nature doesn't create novel life forms?
Well I recognize it as an artificial(!) distinction that is contextual and useful in some circumstances while not being very useful in others. If there's a use here, I'd like to see it argued for, rather than taken for granted on the basis of some kind of implicit intuition.
Yes, it is sometimes hard to articulate this notion. My intuition kicks in. Respect and care for animals should be the point.
Hah! Like minds! I didn't see your post before I posted mine.
No, it isn't an artificial distinction. There's more to it. Please argue from the organic standpoint of evolutionary theory, where the environment provides the basis of life, which ultimately includes mutation.
And to re-iterate, the other factor to consider is that the end result of these efforts are sentient beings with the capacity for suffering. Even if they’re dumb animals, they’re not simply inanimate objects or machines.
Sure. Naturally-occurring mutations are not brought about by direct manipulation by human scientists. Is that what you had in mind?
Yes.
Actually this is not true if what I have heard from a national parks guy responsible for culling wild dogs is correct. He told me that even seemingly innocuous breeds like cocker spaniels and poodles when left behind in the national park by their "owners" can adapt, join a pack, and become efficient predators very quickly.
BOOM. :100: :up:
I can't think of any "completely novel lifeforms" created by science. You would be referring to new species, not hybrids or modified species, I take it? Wouldn't the mammoth/ African elephant be a hybrid, just as the so-called Tigons or Ligers or mules are?
A bit of both some say. Double the threat, twice as likely to die out.
All this reminds me of dear ol' Jesus - resurrection! I hope when this mammoth is finally reanimated, they name him Jesus; it is, in a sense, the Jesus of mammoths.
But liberals will read this is a morality tale about hubris and human overambition.
Some people have too much money. And time.
Or, you know, pretty much all the animals and plants that we eat or use or live with. All have been created, intentionally or not, by humans.
Quoting Janus
That's what the article is about. The proposal is to create a new species of animal, based on splicing the genetic material of one extinct species with that of a living species. In this case, there is obviously no chance of creating such a species by interbreeding, because one of the sources is extinct.
Incidentally, Jurassic Park was the first ebook I ever read, on a work-issued Macintosh Powerbook 170. Excellent read. Also loved the first film, one of the great cinematic experiences.
Direct manipulation of genome is just the latest technology used in the process of adapting other species for our needs - and we are already using it (all those GMOs, you know). But I don't get your point. Why are you drawing the line at this technology and not, say, at irradiating seeds to induce more random mutations? Or the good old-fashioned selection and hybridization? Is there some red line that is only crossed with "direct manipulation of the genome"?
Good point! There's no difference between breeding dogs and hybridizing an elephant with a mammoth except that mammoths have been out of circulation for the past 20-30 thousand years; it's almost like necrophilia and the offspring, half-dead & half-alive; a good storyline for a horror novel/movie. That's the problem!
Don't you feel you are being a little blasé? Agree with it or not, the ability to directly manipulate the genetic code, which is quite distinct from selective breeding, is a big deal. The potential to literally create new species is a big deal.
Sure, it won't be a case of interbreeding. Is a mule or a ligon a new species? I believe those examples of hybrids are infertile, which is what the term 'mule' generally refers to. Most animal hybrids are infertile, or poorly fertile or only the females of males are fertile if I remember correctly. It will be interesting to see whether this Melephant will be fertile.
You don't have a problem with it when it comes to vaccines do you?
Yes, it's a new technique. So was grafting when it was invented, as well as every technique in our arsenal.
I am not taking a pro or contra position - I am just looking for something more substantive than hand-wringing.
Quoting SophistiCat
Haven’t been aware of doing that. In a sense, I can only appeal to a sense of normality, and how this might be considered a transgression of it, due to the technological ability to manipulate the molecular code. It is not at all the same as interbreeding, grafting or hybridisation. If you don’t think it’s a big deal, then no big deal.
The benefits of the various techniques of cultivating various animal and plant species have been enormous too. The benefits of creating this elephant/ mammoth hybrid might also be enormous. Does the technique matter, are you worried that the subject animals and plants might have suffered or are you objecting to "playing god"? Because if the latter then you should for the sake of consistency, object to all forms of selective cultivation.
Selecting breeds is one thing, but the breeding is still fundamentally natural. Creating new species or changing species by genetic manipulation is a different matter. So you will say ‘why is it different’? And again, if you can’t see the point, then I’m probably at a loss. Guess I’ll just go back to hand-waving but you won’t be able to see that, this being a Forum.
Sure. There's also a difference between hybridisation and selection. And a difference between pumpkins and shovels. Point?
I can understand queasiness, but that's not much as a subject of discussion. Caution I can understand as well, but it needs more substantiation than just pointing out that something is new and different. (So was everything else when it first appeared.) I myself do believe that we should proceed carefully and publicly with potentially disruptive innovations - not an original position, of course.
I agree that a distinction can be made which means there must be difference. The question is as to the ethical significance of this difference. It's just that I don't know what your problem with this difference, well actually with the genetic engineering technologies. is.
Isn’t there a difference in kind here? DNA itself was only discovered around the time I was born, a little after in fact. It’s impossible to say that we’ve ‘always been doing this kind of thing’, when we didn’t even understand what the genetic code was two generations ago. So it’s not simply novelty, it’s also a new kind of power - potentially enormous power. The power to change the human genome or create new species. It’s an ethical minefield. And it’s hardly being managed by Platonic philosopher-kings.
You may recall a Hong Kong doctor was severely punished - I think even jailed? - for manipulating the genetic code of a set of twins using CRISPR. He was just trying to help prevent some condition they had, according to him. But it caused international outrage, and the fact that he was criminally sanctioned says something - that we realise that there is something momentous at stake when we start manipulating the genetic code. People ought not to be too sanguine about that. Plastic has been immensely useful, but plastic pollution is wiping out entire ecosystems. Inventions often have unintended consequences, and these inventions are operating at a really fundamental level of existence.
I think the thing which really got under my skin about the mammoth story was that basically it is sensationalist. They make a half-arsed attempt to present it as ‘environmentally helpful’ but if you read the whole piece, other scientists are scoffing at that. Basically it’s sensationalism, first and foremost, as Jurassic Park itself was. What a story! What an amazing thing! Extinct creature, re-animated! Step right up! It’s closer to P T Barnum than Christian Barnard.
But surely you're the first one here to fall victim to such sensationalism? A typical fruit shop ought to be more terrifying to you than this kinda-distant, not-affecting-too-many-people-just-yet kinda story. Especially if you're concerned with genetics.
This was 70 years ago now. It boggles the mind to think how much engineering has subsequently gone into the tomato, let alone everything else we eat. At least in the Global North. It strikes me that we've 'naturalized' 'artificiality' to such an extent that it takes something as 'sensational' as bringing back the mammoth snap us 'into' - even momentarily - the recognition that we live in naturally artificial worlds from the get-go.
It's interesting that we have qualms about doing what we've always been doing. It's kinda like being reluctant to participate in artificially inseminating a woman while simultaneously willing to engage in coitus with her to make her conceive. It's the same thing.
Nevertheless, @Wayfarer's concerns center on the welfare of a sentient entity. How will the animal take it? Will it be happy/sad? Needless to say the success of the project will have ramifications on all sentient beings; after all, what's to keep genetic engineers from repeating the experiment on other animals and that includes us by the way? In a broader context, is genetic engineering as a whole a negation of the value of sentience? We are, for sure, self-experimenting at this point and while I personally see no harm in it, some may find it a bit too much for their sensibilities (ref: The Invisible Man; Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde).
‘Engineering’.
One of the concerns. The other is the distinction between genetic engineering and selective breeding, although apparently this is too subtle a distinction for folks hereabouts.
For what purpose other than some mythico-religious (ie. artificial) sense of nature? You keep pointing out to differences as though the significance of such differences are obvious and self-evident. But that they are not, is just the point in question. You keep pointing out a different means of engineering, as though the mere fact of it being a different means is self-evidently a difference in kind. But for two pages now this has gone unargued for, or even clarified as to what is being ought to be argued for, for that matter. It's no good to just point your finger ever more vigorously and say 'can't you just see?'.
My favourite definition of intelligence is ‘the ability to make distinctions’. Can’t you just see? Anyway, SLX, that’s it from me, I know you hate my posts, and everything I write, so it’s basically a coconut shy, my saying things and you throwing tennis balls at them, so over and out.
Perhaps a computer analogy will aid the discussion. I turn on my laptop, wait for the OS to load, log in with my password, and click the game icon Civ VI and I play the game [high level computer language]. This is selective breeding.
A hacker gets access to my computer; he instructs my computer to load the game Civ VI using binary code (1's and 0's) [machine language]. This is genetic engineering.
The people who made my laptop (God) programmed it in machine language [1's and 0's]. The hacker (genetic engineer) compared to me (selective breeder) is much too close for comfort to those who made my laptop (God).
In short, through genetic engineering we're displacing/replacing god and I reckon people don't take too kindly to that.
I don't really understand the logic of your analogy, but I do think it's feasible to compare genetic engineering with hacking the genetic code. I'm sure that's not even a novel idea. (Quick google: 'hacking and genetic engineering' - number one hit - Hacking Darwin: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Humanity. Looks an interesting read. Will peruse in further detail. ....first thing I pick up is he's a Wuhan Lab Leak advocate, dials back my enthusiasm by about 3 out of 10, but will still consider....)
I now see what the problem is with ethics and genetic engineering. We, play along please, invented God because we realized that we fail as moral beings; thus the need for some all-good deity who never errs morally.
The rapid developments in genetic engineering gives us the power that once only God wielded, power of life.
This is/can be interpreted as an encroachment into divine premises but without divine moral clarity and infallibility. A very dangerous cocktail of knowledge (gene/life manipulation) and ignorance (moral deficiency) - the issue, it seems, is about Faustian Knowledge
[quote=Wikipedia]The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil at a crossroads, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures.[/quote]
Knowledge, it seems, is something even the Devil trades in...for souls, one's morality.
Forgive me for a quibble which may not be particularly relevant to the issue at hand. Mammoths and Mastodons both have been extinct for about 10,000 years. There's probably a good chance they could mate and produce fertile offspring with modern elephants. Dinosaurs, on the other hand, have been extinct for about 65 million years. Their closest living descendants are birds.
I didn't much like the JP movies, but I do remember my thought when I first heard about it was "That's really cool." I feel the same way about what they're thinking about doing with the mammoths. Which isn't to say that I don't understand your qualms. I see our growing ability to manipulate the genetic makeup of our species and others as a step out onto very thin ice.
One difference is that animal and plant husbandry create "novel" organisms that will fit into a particular existing environmental niche currently filled by a very similar organism. As we've seen from our recent problems with invasive species, dropping a truly novel organism into an existing ecology can have disastrous results. I don't see this as a conclusive argument against this type of genetic manipulation, but it's worth taking into account.
As an engineer, I think it's accurate to call animal husbandry a form of engineering. That doesn't mean I don't understand the distinction you're making. It's kind of the difference between designing an addition to an existing house and designing a development which involves the clear cutting of 500 acres and building new houses and condos. As a civil engineer I can tell you that the engineering and permitting standards for the latter are nowhere near adequate to prevent serious unintended consequences to nearby properties, downstream waterways, and local animal and plant life. That's something we see all the time. How much worse would this be for something as novel as the new genetic technologies. As inadequate as the current design requirements for civil design, at least there are codes and professional standards that apply. For genetic manipulation, there are none.
Sure thing - the title was referring to the movie, Jurassic Park, with its theme of re-animation, not to the actual Jurassic. I’ve been interested in dinosaurs since childhood and well understand the timescales. Actually one of the ‘mammoth stories’ I remember from many years ago was the discovery of a wooly mammoth preserved in ice with food still in its mouth, as if it had been snap frozen. Must have been some cold wind, that one. :scream:
I think your comments on comparisons to building codes are spot on, although as I mentioned, when a Chinese doctor altered the genome of twins using CRISPR, he was sanctioned and ultimately jailed (mind you the CCP jails people for all kinds of reasons, he was jailed for ‘falsifying documents’. There’s a Wiki entry on the story here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_Jiankui_affair ). I’m hopeful that these issues are subject to very searching scrutiny by regulators.
I was thinking about that after I wrote it. Even if there were codes for genetic engineering, I'd still be worrying. The uncertainties and consequences of being wrong are too great.
Ben Lamm is out of his whamilibammilylammily mind!
I suppose such experiments allow scientists to skirt around regulations and bans, allowing them to practice and perfect techniques which then, at some point, once fully mastered, could be used on people. There really is no difference between a space rocket and a nuclear-tipped ICBM, is there?
The New Atlantis - Atlantis, a civilization that destroyed itself with its own highly advanced technology or so the story goes. Interesting!
A few salient points:
1. Gene therapy failed to live up to the hype. Scientists found out that treatments based on gene editing wasn't, after all, that simple.
2. Gene-based diagnosis turned out to be mixed blessing. They could diagnose the condition but couldn't treat it (the therapeutic-diagnostic gap). The classic case being Huntington's disease.
3. Designer babies - perfect humans, even mentally and physically "enhanced" - become a possibility but what are the costs?
4. Will clones be happy?
An aside:
[quote=Eric Cohen (The New Atlantis)]The most tempting reason to engage in genetic engineering is to assert new kinds of control over our offspring, and to design children with certain desirable human attributes: children with high IQs, perfect pitch, beautiful appearance, remarkable strength, amazing speed, and photographic memories. Some might even seek to design human offspring with better-than-human attributes.[/quote]
Is the mind the brain? Can our minds be altered by modifying genes (physical stuff)?
Projecting our (generally ignorant?) ideas of perfection onto individuals even before they are born, I fear it will be destructive beyond imagination.
Aside from potentially being able to avoid/cure genetic defects, I think this idea is very perverse.
You have a point. Evolutionary fitness is not exactly being the fastest, strongest, brainiest.
Yeah but what if Mammoths went extinct because of climate change from the end of the last ice age, and not because of humans? Then we'd be bringing back an extinct species into a world they didn't evolve for. I think it's interesting as hell, and if someone wants to cultivate a small herd in Siberia for the science, then fine. But I'm not so sure about bringing them back for ecological reasons.
Then we engineer them otherwise. Promethean dreams or barbarism!
Chargaff seems to have regretted his major contributions to the science of genetics as is clear from the tone and content of his quotes; you can be find them in his Wikipedia page (click the link for more). For him genetic engineering was mankind overstepping its mandate. His point was that humanity has no idea what it's getting itself into. A real-life repeat of Victor Frankenstein's disastrous experiment with nature's mechanisms, exclusively divine domain is a possibility that we can't rule out. We need to tread carefully, this is treacherous, unmapped territory. Even the smallest mistake can have undesirable consequences.
Maybe Chargaff is overreacting to the situation. I dunno! Only time will tell...as is always the case.