Should Mankind use Technology to reintroduce species?

My "no" vote is based on "reality".

First I would like to applaud your creation of this thread; it may become highly edifying, if emotion is not allowed to reign supreme.

I take issue with your comment ".......Nature intended them to be".

(I would definitely not use a capital "N"), and insist, nature does not "intend" anything; nature is a description of the biosphere, and is not an entity, and has no "intentions; nature just "is".

Picky perhaps, but anthropomorphosizing "nature" is a primary reason that the actual "nature" of nature is so broadly missunderstood.

Evolution on this planet, perhaps the most obvious, basic, and important "backbone" of nature, has I feel ended.

The many aspects of the natural environment which test for mutational validity are no longer in place. The human specie has rendered them ineffective, by overiding in the short term, those forces that would, in the long term produce possitive, or negative reproductive effects from a mutation. Permanently changed forever is, also, the timeframe itself; the hundreds of millions of years required for mutations to make noticeable alterations to a specie will no longer be available. In fact within the next few hundred years, at the rate we are going, this planet will be unable to support life, any life.

Granted, I hope, science and a major change in human priorities, could allow some retardation of this process, but biology is now at a crossroads, and in my opinion the wisest road to travel is to replace nature, not restore it.

An honest appraisal of the natural process; consume other species, kill or be killed, compete, compete, compete....should fuel an appetite for change.
Nuture itself contains the seeds of its own destruction; killing each other over property, reproductive "rights", heirarchical power, etc., makes no sense, it is just the way we are; the way we have had to have been in order to survive in the "natural"environment.
Who would vote for a politician who espoused these ideals?
It is time for a change.

But I will offer another "no";
Should we take the rest of nature with us if we can avoid it - NO!

Thanks, I agree this could be a very interesting topic if its debated and not responded to emotionally.



I actually agree with you that nature just is, I was stimulating discussion by providing a balance and constructive question rather than filling the thread with my own personal opinion.

When I talk about Nature I am not refering to mother nature but to the nature that is everthing natural, the universe, trees etc. That nature is such an emense thing that I feel it deserves a capital N for that reason alone! But from mankinds perspective the very existance of Nature does give it entity like qualities, we refer to it in just such a way all the time (maybe we find it easier to handle to concept that way )



In the short history of our species Homo sapiens have evolved within the species, we have become taller, we reach puberty at an earlier age, one could argue that technology itself is a branch of evolution. Evolution may also exists in nature (note the small n here! ) it just takes place at such a phenomenally slow rate that we cannot perceive it.

There's an interesting post relating to this very subject here http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/jul00.html




I concur although I was using extinction as an extrapolation of endangered, the question


Maybe I should have asked "Should Mankind use technology to reintroduce extinct and/or endangered species?" Endangered yes, recently extinct due to mankind yes, extinct due to nature, no.

In fact I've edited my first post and change to

This has messed up our votes though, sorry BoGoWo, but I suspect that you would have voted for Yes Endangered anyway judging by this comment



And I would have voted for Yes both with the caveat that the species should be recently extinct and have been caused by mankind not nature.

So if you're ok with that I think the poll still does reflect our views

For the record, the votes after the mess up were

Yes Endangered
50% [ 1 ]
Yes Both
50% [ 1 ]

It seems I was correct about the potential of this thread;
and, by the way, welcome to A2K.

Actually you are wrong, I would have voted for, hmmm, lets see now:

Should Mankind use technology to reintroduce extinct and/or endangered species?

Yes Extinction 0% [ 0 ]
Yes Endagered 50% [ 1 ]
Yes Both 50% [ 1 ]
No Extinction 0% [ 0 ]
No Endagered 0% [ 0 ]
No Both 0% [ 0 ]
Don't Know 0% [ 0 ]

Hmmm, aren't Yes Extinction, and No Endangered the same, as are
Yes En.. and No Ex..? Whatever; I would have voted no both, with the caveat that the science of cloning etc. which would be used for this process is well worth pursuing for other purposes, and for knowledge alone.

And as for the voting, no problem; here at A2k we tend to vote with our commentary, not with our "clicks" (clicks are so black and white and impersonal).

Also I loved your comment re evolution:
"one could argue that technology itself is a branch of evolution."
Here, here good point, if a little licencious with actual scientific definitions.
And thanks for the link; I will munch on it later at leisure.

Yep you're right about the the poll BoGoWo, a bit of brain fade for me there.

I've deleted to extra pointless options without impacting the poll itself.

but anyway as you said its the commentary that's the important bit

QUESTION:

CAN mankind use technology to reintroduce species?

Yeh, well, I look forward to seeing what the "poll" looks like next time I come to visit!
Speaking of two (weren't we?), as in "oo"'s in too, and cows that go "moo".

Couldn't resist; I digress........ (a lot)

It helps me to pretend to be thinking!

Given the attached article which states



Lets assume with future advances all we need is a sample of DNA to begin the cloning, al la Jurassic Park!

So yes, lets say we can use technology to reintroduce species, and more, in the future we will be able to bring extinct species.

It's not too far a stretch of the imagination that we could introduce DNA characteristics of an extinct species into an existing species in the same genus and then use selective breeding to create a "pure strain" (I hate the terminology, sounds very Nazi like)

In fact I recall a selective breeding process in South Africa that attempted to do a similar thing with a type of gazelle

DeK

I'm pretending to chew the cud

I wish I cud.

My answer is no on all counts. There are enough people on the planet and not enough space left for the animals that are out there since the forests keep being cut down.

I pretty much say no it's a tough call. Our intervention might be missing with the Ol'natural selection process. Really we are to shortsighted to understand millions of years of changes.

I guess the question now is what will the scientists do?

DeK

Thanks for the info that scientists actually CAN reintroduce extinct species. Wow!

Should they?

Hummm...I guess I'd rather they spend their time and resources trying to prevent any currently living species from going extinct.

Anybody ever see Jurassic Park?

No they should not but it is a good bet that it will happen. Death or extinction is an integral part of life and evolution. The clearing away of one species make way for something else. We should not be messing with the process, we don't know enough about it to do so wisely.

We might add a few more options to the poll:

-- We should use technology to actively destroy species, encouraging monocultures instead.
-- Create new and improved species, as slight variations of existing ones.
-- Create new and improved species, with radically new designs.
-- Homo Sapiens is an endangered species, let's fix our own stupidity through genetics.



Like it or not, the first two options are being done on a large scale already.
"...more than half of the world's soybeans and a third of its corn now contain genes spliced in from other forms of life".

I'm still searching for that article showing how chlorophyll genes can be added to any living cell. We can actually create green people who photosynthesize the sun directly, without effecting any other bodily functions.

The benefit of hindsight.....they have a lot to answer for!

I agree, the article I read didn't even stop to consider if they should al la Jurasic Park....