Scientists are often accused of ‘Doing because they can without think about whether they should’.
That’s totally untrue. There’s a lot of recent research that suggests the de-extinction of organisms. We can’t go all Jurassic Park, but woolly mammoths, Smilodon (Yay!), passenger pigeons, tasmanian wolves… we have the DNA.
So there’s the question… should we bring these species back?
Is this just an excuse not to worry about humans causing extinction now? (We’ll just bring them back.)
Is this the coolest research ever? (Actually having animals to study.)
Is this the stupidest idea ever? (Where are we going to put a herd of mammoths?)
Here’s a video of Carl Zimmer on CBS talking about this.
What do you guys all think. Bring them back or not?
Resources:
Discussion at Northeastern University –
National Geographic Video and discussion –
