The thought of bringing back animals from the past has been a fascination of scientists, writers, and filmmakers for many years. With some recent breakthroughs in cloning this may be possible, specifically with mammoths. While it may be possible, the question of the ethics and logistics around it must be raised. The benefits of this recreating a mammoth are more superficial in my opinion, but they are still relevant. The data we could take from observing an animal that has not existed for thousands of years, or the closest thing we will ever come to it. From this data we could make better inferences about the ecology and evolution of mammoths. There would also be an enormous economic benefit to the country who would host this species, which …show more content…
Any organism, especially ones with higher intelligence, are a cumulation of their phenotypic traits and environmental interactions (Gill, 2015). While it may have the outwards appearance of a mammoth (long red hair, thick fat layer, smaller ears) because mammoths are herd animals, it must be raised in a elephant herd structure (Gill, 2015). While we assume that elephants can be proxy parents to the mammoth child, the truth is that there is learned behaviour that a mammoth needs to survive that an elephant can not impart. Thus while it may look like an mammoth, behaviorally it will be an elephant. This will make that mammoth child ill adapted to the Siberian environment, and there is an ethical duty to the animal to give it the best possible life. To do this you may need to alter the environment for it, or force an elephant herd to adapt to colder climates. This brings into question how far we are willing to go for a frivolous endeavor such as this. These are only some of the major concerns around this issue, but there are others. These include considerations about financial cost/benefit, adaptation to disease, and long term upkeep of a mammoth herd. (Gill,
I believe that they should do this due to many reasons. My first reason is that bringing Wooly Mammoths back can help reclaim a lost ecosystem. For example, the permafrost is melting, releasing greenhouse gases that have been trapped for many years, but Woolly Mammoths were essentially the creators of grasslands which will help the ecosystem and restore population of horses and other animals. Another reason scientists should do this is because Wooly Mammoths could help slow global warming. For example, the soil is colder where animals like reindeer and moose live. So if Mammoths came back they could make the soil colder. Finally, scientists should bring back Woolly Mammoths because humans simply enjoy it. Many kids are just fascinated by ice age animals like the Mammoth and the dinosaur. Therefore, scientists should bring back Woolly
“Opponents of bringing back extinct species think that it may make people less concerned about future environmental destruction” People would not half to worry about environment distractions if they bring back the Wooly Mammoth because it would make its environment healthy again. “De-extinction could offer insights into evolution and natural resources that are currently unavailable to us.” Even humans could get something out of bringing back the Wooly Mammoth such as resources that we don’t have right now that could help us in the
Both in and out of philosophical circle, animals have traditionally been seen as significantly different from, and inferior to, humans because they lacked a certain intangible quality – reason, moral agency, or consciousness – that made them moral agents. Recently however, society has patently begun to move beyond this strong anthropocentric notion and has begun to reach for a more adequate set of moral categories for guiding, assessing and constraining our treatment of other animals. As a growing proportion of the populations in western countries adopts the general position of animal liberation, more and more philosophers are beginning to agree that sentient creatures are of a direct moral concern to humans, though the degree of this
Recently, Harvard geneticist George Church and his team announced that they could produce an Asian elephant-mammoth embryo in a couple of years. The result would not be a mammoth, but it would be an Asian elephant with mammoth traits. The team chose to use Asian elephant because they are the most like wooly mammoths. The team has incorporated traits of a wooly mammoth into elephant DNA using CRISPR, a gene-editing technology. The team must raise the embryo in an artificial womb since Asian elephants are endangered and cannot be put at risk. I think this task would be very hard to achieve because it would be hard to raise an embryo for so long. Although this task is hard, I think it is very interesting because
If this process is successful, scientists might be able to clone other living organisms that lived thousands of years ago, such as plants or bacteria, which could help cure diseases like cancer or AIDS today. The mammoth part was particularly interesting, because as long as the nucleus is still intact, scientist might still be able to clone it even though most of the cells were frozen in the tundra long ago. If this process does work, then scientists might be able to clone nuclei from species that lived in the desert, or possibly deep in the ocean and bring them back as well. The article also brought up an important problem with today’s environment and how the cloned species wouldn’t be able to survive. This does bring up a valid point, since the environment that many of these animals lived in thousands of years ago were vastly different then they are today. Furthermore, even if scientists were able to successfully clone a species that was able to survive in today’s environment, the addition of this new species could change the environment’s ecosystem or might cause other animals in said ecosystem to become either endangered or
Over the past decades, scientists have developed numerous approach to de-extinct species through back breeding, cloning and genetic engineering. Bringing back extinct species has advantages for both humans and animals. The de-extinction of species such as woolly mammoth and saber tooth tigers would not only advanced scientific knowledge but also have environmental benefit such as restoring environment that are damaged or threatened with the help of certain now-extinct species. But the consequences to bringing extinct species back greatly outweighs the positive. While Victor Frankenstein pursuit for knowledge in itself is justified, playing with the boundaries between life and death is something that should not have tempered with. Extinct species could carry diseases that could potentially wipe humanity from the face of the planet or result in other unforeseen consequences. The de-extinction of species should not be tolerated in order to avoid consequences that could endanger the lives of humanity as well surrounding species.
In the article “Fresh Mammoth Carcass from Siberia Holds Many Secrets,” (article here) a scientific find is discussed that may change the history of cloning. In May 2013, a few scientists discovered an almost perfectly preserved carcass of a woolly mammoth, who they nicknamed Buttercup. What was even more amazing, is that during excavation the carcass oozed dark red liquid which proved to be actual woolly mammoth blood. Blood is excellent for a cloning experiment as it may contain some DNA. Sadly, this cannot be said because there wasn’t enough DNA to create a mammoth genome. Still, there are other ways of dealing with this as scientists can put together a genome from the various remnants of the mammoth or even transpose DNA from several
Did you know that scientists are trying to bring extinct animals like the Woolly Mammoth back to life? That would be cool to see, but is it worth it? Scientists should not bring Woolly Mammoths back to life. It would be a waste of money, it brings less attention to animals about to go extinct, and it could hurt the ecosystem. First, bringing back extinct animals would be a waste of money.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Would you want to hear this sound every day? Well you would of there were woolly mammoths here. Did you know that scientist are thinking about bringing them back. You probably have mixed feelings in that. I say no. Scientist need to stop because they could be bad for the environment, it would be a bunch of money on them, and it is not the same environment as it was when there were here before.
We should clone endangered and extinct animals because they can help cure diseases that we don’t know how to do today or that we don't have the ability to do today. It is a good idea to clone animals because
It is important to carefully examine the pros and cons of bringing back extinct animals.
When I first started to contemplate my position on this topic I hadn’t really realized the magnitude or the amount of controversy that surrounds animal research and testing. When I started to search for content to include in my paper I read many articles on the subject and I was amazed to find that being involved in this field can be a dangerous job. In an article titled Defending Animal Research I was shocked to read that some extremist groups are willing to harm property and human beings in order to get their point across. It was noted that since 1990-2012 that there have been 220 attacks on individual’s who participate in animal research studies. This number has increased from 9% to 46% over this time period. I understand and respect the
First, mammoths were an interesting animal. They lived all over the world. At the beginning, they lived in Eurasia and Africa, but as time went on, they moved over to North America (“About Mammoths”). Mammoths even roamed the earth from five million to four thousand years ago (“Mammoth’s Info”). During the ice age, it took the average woolly mammoth calf about five or six years to wean, and this showed that the cold conditions were tough for the young mammals (as cited in “Columbian Mammoth & Channel Island Mammoth”). Also, woolly mammoths weren’t the only “woolly” creatures during this time. There were also a species called the woolly rhinoceroses that existed around the same time (“10 Fascinating Facts about Woolly Mammoths”). African elephants aren’t even that much smaller than woolly mammoths like many people are lead to believe. The average male woolly mammoth was only about nine to eleven feet
Just imagine if scientists cloned an endangered or even an extinct animal. If they ever cloned an extinct animal, the world will be like Jurassic Park in real life. All the dinosaurs and extinct plants that inhabit the earth before all of us were even created would be able to come back. That would be really insane. I chose this benefit because it really caught my attention. Think about all the possibilities if this ever happened. But what is required to be able to do this? According to Apecsec.org, “Genetic engineering is required to clone extinct animals. The field of genetic engineering is just in its infancy stage. By focusing on bringing back extinct animals, we could develop technologies that would help treat genetic diseases and mutations that occur in humans.” (Apecsec). With genetic engineering we will be able to clone endangered and extinct animals. Other researchers say, “With the modern technology nowadays, it is possible to address the problem of endangered species, or even recreate the extinct species of animals.” (Occupytheory). Teachers could use the animals they clone in science classes when they teach about them. In the article, “Pros and Cons of Animal Cloning”, scientists can pick and choose the best specimen for the process. Scientists in Midlothian, Scotland, cloned a sheep they named Dolly. Dolly was the first animal to be successfully cloned by a process of nuclear transfusion
Humans admire and appreciate the beauty and uniqueness of an animal, whether it be small or animal. As well as beauty, animals are necessary for maintaining biodiversity which can lead to a healthy ecosystem, and conserve the population of not only the fauna but the flora as well, even micro-organisms. Professor Sharpin states “there is a lot of carbon trapped in the Siberian permafrost and if these animal’s slowdown that melting, we can slow the release of that carbon, potentially slowing the rate of global warming”. So, this study states that the woolly mammoth can help preserve the ice and delay the process of climate change by minimising the release of carbon trapped in the permafrost (Morse. F, bbc.co.uk, 2015)