[U] More -- On The Bio-Ethics -- Of "De-Extinction" -- Mammo-phants Edition: And Church's "Colossal'" Aims

I want to return to this sensational story -- as more and more tech focused outlets, and Bitcoiners in particular, are weighing in to say this is a good (or, at least "not so bad") idea. It happens that many of them -- or their parent/affiliated venture arms -- also happen to be investors in the "Neo-Jurassic Park" efforts. So do take their statements as. . . positively dripping, with financial self interest (directly, or indirectly).

For the more serious bio-sciences / bio-ethicists' side of the ledger, The Washington Post sent a reporter out to collect quotes. Here's a bit of that -- the WaPo's thoughtful piece -- on the bio-ethics:

. . .[The] idea has also generated a fierce ethical debate, not unlike the one that played out on movie screens years ago: Is this another case where scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should?

“I’m quite leery of a technological fix for the problems we’ve created,” Wendling said. . . .

Christopher Preston, a professor of environmental ethics and philosophy at the University of Montana, questioned Colossal’s focus on climate change, given that it would take decades to raise a herd of woolly mammoths large enough to have environmental impacts and there are tried-and-true conservation tactics that need funding.

“We should be making sure those get enough resources, rather than getting taking our eye off the ball by the distraction of a project such as de-extinction,” he said. “It's very hard for me to think that the idea you could de-extinct a woolly mammoth is a technological fix for anything that needs fixing in the next century. . . .”

Paul Thompson, W.K. Kellogg Chair in Agricultural, Food and Community Ethics at Michigan State University, said. . . . there should be a high ethical bar when considering gene modification, and pointed to the controversy over the modification of plants, which prompted calls to label all foods containing genetically modified organisms or GMOs. He questioned whether creating a new species of “quasi-mammoths” is in the interest of the animals that would be created.



Thompson said biologists are still trying to uncover what makes some species invasive and others helpful to a new ecosystem, and said there’s a conversation to be had about whether introducing a woolly mammoth equates to introducing an invasive species. . . .

Of course, promoters of Colossal are given the closing quotes, urging CRISPR scientists to "stop wringing their hands" -- and just (effectively) "Slap it on a lunch-box" -- for kids, at a Siberian-tundra version of. . . Jurassic Park.



Gee -- where have I heard that before (credit Ian Malcolm)? Grinning. . . ever, grinning -- on a flawlessly fine Friday here.

नमस्ते

Updated -- as just suggested by a long time erstwhile commenter, as well: