[HN Gopher] Did scientists revive an extinct animal or just bree...
___________________________________________________________________
Did scientists revive an extinct animal or just breed a less
stripey zebra?
Author : sbuttgereit
Score : 58 points
Date : 2024-11-11 14:52 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| pvg wrote:
| https://archive.is/MN9bp
| atourgates wrote:
| The real answer at the end of the article is, "Maybe, we don't
| know yet, but we will soon."
|
| > Some of the criticism of the Quagga Project could be put to
| rest next year. That's when Annelin Molotsi, a molecular
| biologist working on the project, plans to sequence the genome of
| the re-bred quaggas.
|
| > "I think it will answer a lot of questions," Molotsi said.
| lolinder wrote:
| > "Even if they succeeded, the obvious question is, what would
| you do with it?" said Stuart Pimm, a professor at the
| conservation ecology research unit at the University of Pretoria
| in South Africa. "If you had a Woolly mammoth, you would put it
| in a cage. It's a colossal exercise in ego."
|
| This is my thought about all these efforts. The mammoth people
| talk like it's about a solution to climate change, but that's
| obviously working backwards from their goal (revive the mammoth
| for reasons) to some sort of reasonable-sounding justification.
| They set out with different motivations in mind.
|
| I'd ask the same question here: why try to bring back a species
| we already killed off? These won't be descendants of the animals
| we killed, so it's hardly a form of reparations. If it's about
| preserving the ecosystems we already have, there have to be more
| efficient ways to do that than rebreeding less stripe zebras.
|
| It's hard not to see this as just the same impulse that led to
| the poodle: because we can and because it will look cool and draw
| attention and make money. The only difference is there's a slight
| nostalgic bent to the aesthetic.
| soco wrote:
| The poodle doesn't shed as much as other breeds, thus I can
| have a dog while being also allergic to dogs.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| > If it's about preserving the ecosystems we already have
|
| If it went extinct then likely its ecosystem is already
| destroyed, so bringing it back won't do much good in itself,
| cause where would it thrive?
| ipaddr wrote:
| Climate changes and populations are not equally spread
| throwuxiytayq wrote:
| You can pass off practically any attempt to control reality as
| an "exercise in ego". There's very little harm to be done and
| very much to learn when it's done at a small scale. I'd be more
| cautious with mass mammoth deployments, though.
|
| That said, in this particular instance, they should have
| started with horses and painted some stripes for a roughly
| equivalent result.
| 6DM wrote:
| The immediate question that comes to mind for me is where would
| they live? Usually if they die off it's because they lost their
| habitat to some destructive force. Their evolutionary advantage
| or balance is gone. So even if they were the original animal
| brought back from extinction, what's to keep them from dying
| out again.
| DrScientist wrote:
| > to some destructive force.
|
| If that destructive force was humans then there is a
| possibility at least for change ( cf the rebounding of the
| whale population post hunting ban ) - however in this case
| I'd agree that in terms of needing a think woolly coat -
| probably not a good time to bring something like that back.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Why parts of the earth are covered in snow and ice and will
| still be at 2 degrees hotter.
| graemep wrote:
| Like a lot of mega-fauna a likely cause is humans wiped them
| out, not that their habitat does not exist. Mammoths only
| became complete extinct a few thousand years ago.
| BigGreenJorts wrote:
| While in most cases I fully agree with this, I think there
| are some key examples that were simply lost to over-
| hunting/poaching. Ones that comes to mind are the various
| white rhino species, Dodos, some Mega turtles of Galapagos
| mentioned in the article. In the case of the Rhinos, there
| has been a concerted effort to maintain their habitat, but
| that also makes protecting against poachers near impossible.
| In the case of artificial repopulation efforts like these,
| they are protected by the breeding program, with a lofty goal
| of producing enough specimen to return to their original
| habitat.
|
| I do think returning the Quagga or Whooly Mammoth is probably
| pointless, but they are high profile proof of concept.
| DrScientist wrote:
| Exactly - it's all about maintaining a diverse gene pool across
| the whole of the tree of life, rather than focussing on
| particular things like a hairy elephant ( mammoths are 99%
| similar to current elephants at the genome level ).
|
| There is no point in bringing back a mammoth when the
| environment it would require to thrive doesn't really exist
| anymore - particularly with the rapid warming of the Russian
| tundra.
|
| However sometimes you do need high profile mascots in order to
| get the funds/build broad support for, the more mundane work.
| It's a balance.
| animal_spirits wrote:
| The people who want to revive the woolly mammoth want to
| release them into the Siberian Steppe to restore grassland to
| fix carbon into the earth.
|
| - https://e360.yale.edu/features/the_case_for_de-
| extinction_wh...
| lolinder wrote:
| I mentioned that, but I think that's a pitch to get investors
| into a project that actually started because they read
| Jurassic Park and got the wrong message. It's a classic
| solution in search of a problem.
| tw04 wrote:
| The problem is Siberia releasing carbon, that's pretty
| clearly and well defined. I don't know what other "more
| efficient" solution we could possibly have. Sometimes
| nature is the best solution to the problem.
|
| It's no different than reintroducing beavers into areas to
| reduce wildfires. Nothing we've invented so far is a better
| option.
|
| https://coloradosun.com/2024/04/19/fighting-wildland-fire-
| wi...
| lolinder wrote:
| No one looked at siberia's carbon emissions and said
| "let's revive the mammoth to solve that problem". They
| started with the mammoth resurrection program and then
| found a justification for it.
|
| That doesn't mean the justification that they found is
| necessarily invalid, but the reason why solutions in
| search of a problem are problematic is that the chosen
| solution is rarely the optimal one because it wasn't
| designed for the problem--the problem was designed for
| the solution.
| schiffern wrote:
| What a weak, by-side-effect argument.
|
| You present no evidence it won't work, but you oppose it
| because you think the method _might_ be... sub-optimal?
| Maybe?
|
| Ironically it sounds like you started with opposition to
| this project (I blame Jurassic Park) and then worked
| backwards in search of a justification for your opinion.
| sobellian wrote:
| The giant problem leaping out at me is, what evidence do
| we have that mammoths could even survive in the wild
| today, let alone thrive to the extent necessary to change
| the ecology? They went extinct, after all.
| jjk166 wrote:
| If we knew the answer ahead of time, there would be no
| point in doing the experiment.
|
| One can easily argue that Mammoths ought to be able to
| survive - they survived periods with climates similar to
| our current one and there are a lot fewer paleolithic
| hunters running about now. But we won't really know
| unless we try.
| schiffern wrote:
| >a lot fewer paleolithic hunters
|
| Modern poachers with modern technology beat paleolithic
| hunters, hands down.
|
| Technology works, as it turns out... :D
| roywiggins wrote:
| If you started at the problem and worked in the other
| direction, maybe there are half a dozen ideas for
| solutions that are cheaper and more likely to work than
| "engineer mammoths." Like, is the engineering project
| even likely to _work_ , if it works will they actually be
| bred in any number, if they are will anyone be willing to
| let them roam free, if they roam free are they likely to
| survive and breed more, if they do are they likely to
| have a positive impact, etc.
| schiffern wrote:
| > maybe
|
| What is this, National Argument By Insinuation Day? :-\
|
| I don't even have a dog in this fight one way or another,
| I just call out terrible and weak logical arguments when
| I see them. This thread is rife with bad arguments.
|
| It seems people here thought "Jurassic Park bad," then
| twisted themselves into knots to come up with something
| to complain about. Bad form guys.
|
| If you want to fool people (in a durable way that's
| immune to logic), write a book or movie they watch as a
| kid.
| roywiggins wrote:
| The point is that when someone comes up with an expensive
| vanity project with a promise that it's really about
| climate change, you don't have to believe them.
|
| Maybe they are coincidentally right and it will work, but
| they definitely seem less interested in rigorously
| investigating whether it will work than investigating the
| cool parts of engineering a mammoth.
| schiffern wrote:
| ...and you don't have to disbelieve that it will work
| either. It gives you no evidence either way.
|
| " _Really_ about " climate change is a different issue
| from whether or not it works. You're again trying to
| change the subject to the distraction issue of original
| intent, not actual efficacy (for which you clearly have
| no evidence, only insinuation).
| roywiggins wrote:
| The odds that a vanity project that someone picked
| because they thought it was cool will fix climate change
| seems substantially lower than a project that was picked
| _because they really think it will fix climate change._
| Those two things are pretty closely related, since it 's
| much easier to come up with a cool project with a vague
| promise of a climate change goal than a project that will
| really work.
|
| Instead of bringing back mammoths, maybe help genetically
| engineer existing species to help them adapt faster, like
| people are doing with coral. I don't know, but
| "resurrecting the mammoths" is probably far down the list
| of useful climate change projects these people could be
| putting effort into.
| schiffern wrote:
| > I don't know, but...
|
| That's the thread, folks! Thanks for finally admitting
| your lack of a real evidence-based argument.
| roywiggins wrote:
| The mammoth-breeders aren't climate change experts
| either. They're genetic engineers. They don't know
| either, but they're selling it like they do.
| schiffern wrote:
| Genetic engineers can't talk to / work with climate
| experts? News to me.
|
| Specialization of labor within a project is hardly a new
| concept.
| roywiggins wrote:
| Well that's the thing, _I don 't think they care whether
| it would benefit the climate_. They want to do it either
| way. They're also trying to de-extinct the dodo and the
| Tasmanian tiger. So why should I trust them that they've
| done the research?
|
| If it does work, that would be awesome. A wooly mammoth
| certainly sounds cool and it's not my money, so whatever.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Someone might trust them because they sat through a
| presentation, read the facts and have a background. Why
| should you trust them? I don't think you should. Save
| your trust for things you know about.
| schiffern wrote:
| Quoting myself (guess you missed it the first time):
| > You're again trying to change the subject to the
| distraction issue of original intent, not actual
| efficacy.
|
| You're spinning in circles. You have no argument against
| the concept or against the results, but only a vague
| disdain for the path taken. You don't enjoy the
| _storybook_ , nothing more.
|
| Come back with a real argument please. Until then we're
| clearly done.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I dont think that is a fair criticism of solutions in
| search of a problem. I would argue that the vast majority
| of technology and innovation falls into this category.
|
| The wheel and combustion engine weren't invented as a
| bespoke solutions for automobiles and trains. The
| internet wasn't invented as a platform for e-commerce.
|
| History is full of examples of technology leading the
| application, with curious or enterprising individuals
| adapting the technology to a productive use.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| History is also almost empty of positive climate change
| outcome. Photovoltaic might be an exemption.
|
| EV batteries is still unresolved at scale and cars are
| still made of tons of extracted metals and oilchemestry.
| They are fun and new tech sell well and oil price go up.
| That's the reasons EV were invented. Branding them as
| _green_ works great because it's look plausible and we
| all want to have greener cars (and /or continue using
| them, which is correlated).
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| >History is also almost empty of positive climate change
| outcome.
|
| What would you consider positive a climate change
| outcome? I think there are tons of positive outcomes, but
| agree there is a lot of greenwashing as well.
|
| Moving from coal to natural gas has a enormous positive
| outcome. PV is as well. US CO2 per capita and total
| emissions are down 25% in the last 20 years, which is a
| massive positive outcome. Global CO2 per capita has gone
| negative, which is another massive win.
|
| It is too soon to tell, but we may even be at or have
| passed global peak emissions, which will be another
| massive milestone.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| > moving from coal
|
| We didn't, and coal consumption even double since 80's.
| What we did is add oil to it and then gaz [0]. Some could
| argue that without oil and gaz, coal might be even higher
| today. In that sense gas is more a "less bad" than a good
| one : it did not diminish the coal consumption neither
| out energy need.
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/fossil-fuels
| CrazyStat wrote:
| Individual countries like the US absolutely have moved
| away from coal; US coal consumption has been cut in half
| in the past 20 years. These reductions have been more
| than offset by increases in other countries.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| US Coal is half of what it was in 2007. Is that not
| progress? Would you rather we double it back to where it
| was? because that was the alternative alternative.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| By "we" I don't mean "USA" but "humans". I'm very happy
| USA did cut its coal consumption.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Let's be realistic though, if wooly mammoths we're
| released in Siberia, the first thing millions of trophy
| hunters would do is flock to Siberia and shoot them all.
| animal_spirits wrote:
| Yeah, but this is far from putting them "in a cage".
| Watching the documentary on the lead of this, Stewart
| Brand, it is clear his goal is to build the technology to
| prevent species extinction and to re-introduce animals that
| have already been extinct. The parts about climate change
| are a justification for pursuing woolly mammoths
| specifically.
|
| - https://www.weareasgods.film
| thayne wrote:
| That sounds like a justification for something they want to
| do for other reasons (like attracting funding).
| bondarchuk wrote:
| If it works it works and the original motivations don't
| really matter then. Now whether it would actually work is
| something else ofc.
| roywiggins wrote:
| well that's why I'm skeptical too, what are the odds that
| a big vanity project just happens to also be a great
| climate change fix? They also want to resurrect the dodo
| and the Tasmanian tiger. It's hard enough to find climate
| solutions that work when you're motivated by that, when
| you're motivated by "doing cool stuff" you might stumble
| onto a solution, but the odds do seem rather low.
|
| They would be trying to resurrect the mammoth either way,
| so it's not like there's any real incentive to actually
| research whether it will work.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _It 's hard enough to find climate solutions that work
| when you're motivated by that, when you're motivated by
| "doing cool stuff" you might stumble onto a solution, but
| the odds do seem rather low._
|
| Yes, it is critical to not let your focus split, and
| always stay true to the most important goal.
|
| If you're a robot.
|
| "Doing cool stuff" is one of the major, most basic drives
| behind progress of science and technology. Definitely
| more honest than "doing it for the money" or "doing it
| for social status", where you can always find ways to
| cheat if the going gets annoying. "Doing cool stuff" is
| up there with "doing it to save ourselves from an
| imminent, lethal threat" - the other highly reliable
| motivator that has little tolerance for bullshit, and was
| responsible for most of the rapid progress thorough
| history. Of the two, I'd prefer the one that doesn't
| involve violence and fear of death. It's probably more
| sustainable, too.
|
| See also: something something Feynman on having fun in
| research.
|
| Consider also: Most progress happens in small increments;
| the set of people motivated by wanting to solve climate
| is small, so it doesn't really hurt to also add the
| people motivated by doing cool shit in parallel. The
| chance of getting critical increment doubles; the chance
| of any one in any of the two groups having the full
| solution is ~zero.
| xorbax wrote:
| Also, recreation is technology. If it turns out that ten
| mammoths are more efficient and require less human
| maintenance to modulate tundra and encourage the
| ecocycle, we know how to do it. We don't need to start a
| 50 year investment in 2050 and hope it works. Mammoths
| are likely to be equally or more useful than AI image
| generation or gigantic warehouses that sequester carbon
| given various precision-machined parts and chemical
| engineering. Animals are more efficient and require fewer
| externalities than most human endeavors. Even if we just
| ignore the externalities and admire these new impressive
| technologies. Life is very efficient.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Agree with all, except for:
|
| > _Life is very efficient._
|
| I mean, _is it_? It 's a total tangent, but I've long
| been having a problem wrapping my mind around the topic
| of efficiency of life. At whichever scale I look, from
| ecosystems to inner workings of cells, I see systems held
| in balance by _negative feedback loops_ , zero-sum games.
| That is, everything fights everything else for resources,
| and what we call "balance" is a temporary equilibrium
| between reproduction, destruction and starvation. Feels
| like the _exact opposite_ of efficiency. And yet, I can
| 't deny that life can and does a lot with very little.
| I'm not sure how to reconcile this.
|
| I have this general image in my head wrt. efficiency.
| Imagine you want to put a box a meter above the ground.
| There are many ways to do it. You could strap a PLC
| controller and a rocket engine to it, and keep it up
| actively. You could put it on a floating platform, filled
| with hot air, or better, helium or hydrogen. Or, you
| could just put a mast in the ground and bolt the box to
| it. The first one is obviously the least efficient, and
| the last one the most.
|
| When I look at life, I see a lot of things being balanced
| by means equivalent to the rocket engine approach.
| stanford_labrat wrote:
| you'd be absolutely right that the global warming
| justification is a retro-active "find a problem"
| situation. the true motivator lies in the technology that
| Colossal is attempting to accomplish the mammoth cloning
| with.
|
| as it stands right now, cloning of any organism requires
| at the very least living fibroblast cells. Of course, you
| cannot get these from deceased mammals. Colossal's
| strategy is to essentially blast the host genome with
| fragments of the subjects DNA (which you can get from
| deceased/fossilized tissue) and hope that the end result
| is an elephant cell that's been reprogrammed into a
| mammoth-like cell from which to do cloning.
|
| imo if they really wanted a mammoth, they could just make
| a hairy elephant. that would be 10x easier. but the whole
| idea is being able to resurrect...mammals.
| patall wrote:
| Maybe my view is a different one here (I have donated to
| Pleistocene Park before), but at least here in Europe most
| big ecological project seem to follow the megaherbivore
| theory, and try to implement it in some areas.
| TylerE wrote:
| Doesn't that line of thinking just lead to endless
| reductionism? Is anything besides literally curing cancer
| and feeding the starving worthwhile for you?
| sushid wrote:
| I mean isn't that what a lot of random robotics labs do as
| well (e.g. "some potential application for this feature
| includes search and rescue, etc.")? What's wrong with it?
| DimuP wrote:
| At least that would be useful
| anyonecancode wrote:
| I'm skeptical that would work. Animals aren't robots; their
| behavior isn't just programmed in to their DNA. Absent adult
| mammoths to teach the newly "revived" mammoth how to be a
| mammoth, I doubt it simply releasing them onto the steppe
| would work. Very likely, the mammoth would die.
|
| So then this becomes an exercise in cruelty, bringing a
| creature to life only for it to suffer a painful, short
| existence. Reminds me of Frankenstein, honestly.
| josefx wrote:
| If only there was some kind of way to raise and train
| animals. Next thing you know people will try to harness
| fire and lightning, madness!
| jandrese wrote:
| What's wrong with the elk that are already there? Is there
| something about the mammoth that makes them better at fixing
| carbon?
| bobthepanda wrote:
| The description reminds me of the criticisms of panda breeding,
| where more pandas have been removed from the wild than released
| into it, and zoos have injured or killed pandas trying to get
| them to breed.
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/10/15/world/asia/pa...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _why try to bring back a species we already killed off?_
|
| To observe and study them, for one. Also, to see if we can (and
| learn how to and how not).
|
| > _same impulse that led to the poodle_
|
| What's wrong with poodles (or domesticated dogs in general)?
|
| (You could have said French bulldog. But you chose a very
| intelligent, hypoallergenic breed with few health issues
| compared to other pure breeds.)
| alephnerd wrote:
| > What's wrong with poodles
|
| Poodles have similar issues to French Bulldogs because they
| have a genetic bottleneck as well.
|
| > To observe and study them, for one. Also, to see if we can
| (and learn how to and how not).
|
| I can understand the reasoning of trying it for the sake of
| trying (ethical considerations aside), but I'm not sure if an
| extinct species that is resurrected via some form of cloning
| would even be a representative sample to observe actual
| behavior.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Poodles have similar issues to French Bulldogs because
| they have a genetic bottleneck as well_
|
| Source?
|
| I thought small and toy breeds make up most of the
| problematic breeds. Standard poodles' hip dysplasia, like
| retrievers', is mostly a product of early spaying and
| neutering leading to deformed hips. It's environmental, in
| other words, not genetic.
|
| > _not sure if an extinct species that is resurrected via
| some form of cloning would even be a representative sample
| to observe actual behavior_
|
| It would be a guide into what behavioural factors in modern
| elephants were evolved versus learned. Obviously not
| pristinely. But it's another data point.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > Source?
|
| https://cgejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40
| 575...
|
| > It would be a guide into what behavioural factors in
| modern elephants were evolved versus learned. Obviously
| not pristinely. But it's another data point.
|
| But couldn't you do the same thing with an RCT?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _couldn 't you do the same thing with an RCT?_
|
| Maybe, maybe not.
|
| You certainly wouldn't refine your genetic and artificial
| gestation techniques that way.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Fair point.
| fellowmartian wrote:
| All breeds have breed-specific issues, but saying that
| Poodles have similar issues to brachycephalic breeds is
| just silly, those are different orders of magnitude of
| suffering.
| lolinder wrote:
| I don't have a problem with poodles, but breeding them wasn't
| a conservation effort. Not everything we do needs to be, but
| I'm concerned that programs like this one suck air from
| programs that could actually make progress towards real
| conservation.
|
| If they framed it as a poodle-breeding effort I would be
| unconcerned.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| Do you really think bringing in the types that find
| reviving extinct animals 'sucks the air' from conservation
| efforts? It gives an interesting visual story that
| protecting a rodent species in the middle of nowhere can't.
| hunter-gatherer wrote:
| I'm sure OP just threw out poodle as a reference to all
| inbred (purebred) dogs. I have actually had this on my mind a
| lot lately, and I was telling my wife about how the wild dogs
| I've had experience with in the Middle East and Africa seemed
| so much stronger and capable than pretty much any dog in the
| west, probably because there is still some survival-of-the-
| fittest going on there.
|
| I used to have an AKC golden retriever that died of
| osteosarcoma at 14, and had a non-functioning pancreas since
| he was about 2, which meant he had to be supplemented with
| enzymes his entire life. The eugenics movement in the couple
| hundred years really has ruined dogs in the western world.
| There are so few people who breed responsibly that finding
| them is a huge chore. I'm inferring that what OP meant by
| "same impulse that led to the poodle" is this impulse that
| created all these genetic monstrosities. People need to let
| go of the "pure bred" idea in my opinion.
| InDubioProRubio wrote:
| We can also prep them up with good times economy money in
| some reservation and then have them poached off when bad
| times roll around.
| astura wrote:
| >hypoallergenic breed
|
| There's no such thing - certain breeds being "hypoallergenic"
| is a straight up lie that was made up by breeders to sell
| dogs.
|
| https://archive.is/8rUwG
|
| https://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-67491201380-2/fullt.
| ..
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I wouldnt be so conclusive. I'm open to the idea that
| hypoallergenic branding is garbage, but non-shedding
| certainly is a phenotype, which can have an impact
| independent of allergens in hair samples.
|
| It is also worth nothing that the cited study showed 4-5
| orders of magnitude difference between allergen samples
| from different _animals_ (0.1 to 1000 ug /g). The results
| just didn't group well across breeds. IF someone showed me
| this data at work, I would say they are either failing to
| isolate causes of variability or have a shitty measurement
| system.
|
| https://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749(12)00793-2/fu
| l...
| optionalsquid wrote:
| > To observe and study them, for one. Also, to see if we can
| (and learn how to and how not).
|
| The thing is that they are not actually bringing a species
| back. Rather, they are creating something that superficially
| resembles an extinct species based on an equally superficial
| set of selection criteria. Genetically speaking their
| "quagga" is still going to be much, much closer to the
| population of zebras from which it was bred, compared to
| actual quaggas. So whatever we learn from those "quaggas" is
| unlikely to be transferable to the historical quagga
| DrBazza wrote:
| In my area, they've released long extinct (for the UK) long-
| horn cows, and it's improved the local ecosystem [1] Similarly
| with beavers in the UK as well.
|
| Arguably mammoths would likely do the same after some period of
| time, and I'd hope other mega-fauna we've chased, killed and
| eaten into extinction.
|
| [1] https://www.kentwildlifetrust.org.uk/news/after-year-
| bison-f...
| lisper wrote:
| Similar story when wolves were re-introduced to Yellowstone:
|
| https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-
| do/wildlife/wolf-r...
| lolinder wrote:
| I'm 100% on board with concerted efforts to reintroduce
| species that already exist into habitats that they once
| roamed. That's a relatively low effort/high reward
| conservation project.
|
| I'm unconvinced that the value we expect to gain from
| resurrecting an extinct species is worth the overhead of
| doing so, compared to using those same resources to keep
| the species that we haven't yet killed off alive and help
| them thrive.
| lisper wrote:
| Sure. But I'm pretty sure we're not done driving species
| to extinction. The benefits of bringing back the quagga
| may not outweigh the immediate costs, but developing the
| ability to revive extinct species in general very well
| might.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| Sure, being able to revive extinct species might benefit
| [...] _only if_ we also become good at not driving them
| to extinction.
|
| This second ability is a must for the first one to be
| useful, and might even work alone. eg: just let the
| existing bisons grow new herds.
| samatman wrote:
| There needs to be a term for the cognitive fallacy that,
| just because two endeavors are conceptually adjacent in
| your mind, that puts them in competition for resources in
| any real way.
|
| That isn't how it works. Conserving megafauna and de-
| extincting the mammoth aren't competing with each other
| except in the very general sense that both are in
| competition with every other endeavour which is not
| explicitly engaged in profit seeking.
|
| But if you were to say "I'm unconvinced the value we
| expect to gain from preserving old computers in working
| condition is worth it, relative to efforts to reduce
| child mortality in West Africa" it would obviously be a
| weak argument which few would entertain. But the
| situation is much more like that than you make it look
| here.
| HelloNurse wrote:
| In concrete terms, woolly mammoths don't seem likely to
| starve endangered Siberian animals, and if they turned
| out to be an ecological problem (for example, they might
| eat important plants to an excessive degree) they would
| be fairly easy to capture, move and confine.
|
| In abstract terms, there is only a small difference of
| degree between capturing, reproducing and dispersing rare
| animals to increase a small population (for example,
| small raptors in cities as a defense against obnoxious
| birds); reestablishing a recently extinct population with
| imports from a place where an animal isn't extinct yet
| (for example wolves and bears in various places in
| central Europe); reestablishing a less recently extinct
| population with artificial marvels of genetic engineering
| (mammoths, aurochs); introducing completely foreign
| animals (for example rabbits in Australia, a major bad
| idea from a conservation point of view); introducing
| artificial animals that never had a population anywhere
| (hopefully all fiction, but for example photosynthesis
| would be impactful).
| Terr_ wrote:
| > There needs to be a term for the cognitive fallacy
| that, just because two endeavors are conceptually
| adjacent in your mind, that puts them in competition for
| resources in any real way.
|
| Perhaps: "The more roads you build, the fewer sidewalks"?
| On second thought, perhaps not, since they are a little
| _too_ closely related.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| But the wolves released weren't the same as the ones that
| once roamed. The Canadian wolves were chosen because they
| were from a healthy population that lived in similar
| habitat and preyed on similar species, not because they
| were just dropping in the same subspecies.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Why are you assuming there is a competition for resources
| at play?
|
| Some people would rather spend resources developing
| technology to resurrect species. Why not use that
| technology for conservation?
| aziaziazi wrote:
| Of course there is: money, which is arguably not
| infinite, neither does (unarguably) the ressources/human
| time you could buy with it.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| The two types of projects don't compete for the same pool
| of money. There's some overlap, but there's some funding
| that goes to specific goals on their merits, and then
| there's some funding that could be pulled in if the
| project captures someone's interest (including _public_
| ). As for buying human time, happily that often comes
| with a big discount for work on _cool stuff_ (a fact
| routinely abused by businesses in some sectors, such as
| game development or entertainment in general).
|
| There's also an extra discount for trustworthiness - it's
| much harder to fake results when the evaluation criteria
| include whether or not it's the cool stuff that was
| promised.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| Agree. The part "that goes to specific goal" is the one
| at competition between parties playing for that goal.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Finite time and money doesn't mean there is competition
| in real practice. If you think canceling one
| automatically means more support for another, you have a
| broken model of reality.
|
| If I save $5 on beer, that doesn't mean the nature
| conservancy budget gets more funding. It will almost
| assuredly stay in my bank account or get spent on chips.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| > If you think canceling one automatically means more
| support for another
|
| I don't, neither do I think competition means a close
| system. But it's definitely a system where parties
| influence each others.
|
| Your beer does not share any goal with mammoth, but other
| environmental projects does. Let's say you want to invest
| 5EUR to fight climate change. During your search of
| projets to support, you might encounter the cool-mammoth
| one. Now there's competition for those 5EUR.
| BigGreenJorts wrote:
| I'm pretty sure there was a more comprehensive study than
| the rivers video that showed it wasn't the wolves, but
| rather the fencing put up to prevent grazing that restored
| the forests and therefore beaver materials in Yellowstone
| park.
| kylebenzle wrote:
| Why bring up breeding for poodles in context to reviving
| extinct animals?
|
| Poodles have Non-shedding fur and don't bark much two HUGE
| benefits over something like a wolf or husky.
|
| As for the mammoths, we learn by doing. Going to space was an
| exercise of ego, exploring the new world, taking flight,
| developing nuclear weapons...
| codexb wrote:
| Large, charismatic megafauna have many uses. Their coats, their
| tusks, their meat can be extremely valuable. It's debatable
| whether humans are responsible for the deaths of most of the
| large megafauna that died out over the past million years.
| There were probably many factors.
|
| There don't need to be any other reasons other than, "it's
| interesting and will make money".
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _because we can and because it will look cool_
|
| Well, yes. That's science at its best :).
|
| See also: my favorite moment from _12 Moneys_ TV show:
|
| https://dy.town/uploads/still/file/137701/p2561846223.jpg
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Hey, what's with this poodle slander? The poodle was created
| hundreds of years ago as a working water dog.
| lolinder wrote:
| Yes, I've learned that from several other commenters. It was
| a badly informed throwaway line--s/poodle/bulldog/.
| EasyMark wrote:
| Maybe we have a moral obligation to undo the damage we've
| done?Not necessarily talking about mammoths here, but more
| recent species that we've made extinct. If it can be done in a
| way that's not just to make zoo animals, but actually restore
| them in the environment like we've reintroduced some animals
| into areas they've been driven out of.
| robertfw wrote:
| Might as well put that effort towards halting the ongoing
| mass extinction of more animals, before worrying about
| bringing back facsimiles of the ones we've already eliminated
| jjk166 wrote:
| This is the "lump of labor" fallacy.
|
| You can simultaneously prevent ongoing extinctions and work
| to undo past ones. The resources to do one likely are not
| transferrable to the other.
| justinator wrote:
| No one else wants to eat it? (I want to eat it)
| jjk166 wrote:
| If you managed to prevent the extinction of the the African
| Bush Elephant, what would you do with it?
|
| Species do not need to exists for a utilitarian purpose.
| Bringing back something that once existed can be a perfectly
| justifiable end in itself. Preventing a species from going
| extinct is not particularly controversial, even reintroducing
| species that have not been seen in a land in many generations
| is widely done and celebrated. The only difference between that
| and reintroducing a species that went extinct globally is the
| technical difficulty.
|
| It's very reasonable to believe that there could be benefits to
| restoring ecosystems, and that might motivate some people to
| provide their effort and resources to the endeavor moreso than
| the restoration of nature, but it's perfectly fine to have
| multiple aligned motivations.
|
| The world is a dynamic place, the true exercise in ego is to
| define the world as it happened to be when you were born into
| it as the status quo that ought to be maintained.
| parl_match wrote:
| I think there's a stark difference between an animal that
| evolved to live in a world that no longer exists, versus an
| animal that was hunted to extinction, for which there exists
| a plausible environment in which it can thrive.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Mammoths were hunted to extinction and would otherwise do
| just fine in many wild parts of the world.
| nostrebored wrote:
| The idea that ecosystems haven't been in permanent flux
| forever is odd.
|
| Things have been going extinct for millennia with no human
| intervention. The idea of the butterfly effect from human
| intervention causing ecosystem collapse is filled with
| hubris. There are some things that will obviously change a
| landscape. If we were to completely deforest the Amazon then
| there could be some disastrous consequences, sure.
|
| But the Brazilian Three Eyed Skunkowl going extinct isn't
| likely to cause some devastating collapse outside of a
| poorly-done model.
| griffzhowl wrote:
| Of course things have always been changing, but the current
| rate of extinction hasn't been equalled since the four or
| five largest mass extinction events. It's not an ordinary
| situation in life's history. Ultimately it depends what you
| care about but it's inarguable that the natural world is
| being greatly impoverished in ways that could take millions
| of years to recover from (e.g. in terms of species numbers)
| lynx23 wrote:
| Babylon AD comes to mind, which depicted this weird tendency to
| hold onto past animals.
| ksymph wrote:
| The question of 'Why bring back extinct species?' is
| fundamentally the same as 'Why save species from extinction?'.
| It's unspoken but seems to be widely understood that biodiversity
| and preventing its permanent loss has inherent value. It
| sometimes has economic or ecological value too, or the potential
| in the future, but even when that's not the case most would agree
| we should aim to minimize extinction of other animals - if for no
| other reason than it being easier to drive a species to
| extinction than revive any of the billions of extinct species out
| there. (at least for now)
|
| It's curious that the response to bringing back mammoths and
| less-stripey-zebras is so lukewarm when there's very little of
| the same criticism directed at efforts to save obscure species
| that are in decline. Say it was discovered that a small herd of
| quagga had survived since we thought they died out in 1883, but
| without human intervention they will soon due to habitat loss.
| Imagine: "Why would we want to save them? The world is
| inhospitable to them now, their population declined for a reason.
| They have no use to us, and their niche isn't one that couldn't
| be filled by living species that we could import. To keep them
| from going extinct would be a cruel and irrational act of ego."
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| Seriously. This can be visual, stunning, imagination engaging
| possible success that can be leveraged for more support for
| conservation. You won't build that kind of awareness with
| obscure rodents, that's just not how human civilization is
| wired to direct it's energy/attention.
| WhatsTheBigIdea wrote:
| This is an excellent question. Firstly, there are some very
| major differences between bringing a species back from
| extinction and saving a species from extinction. Perhaps the
| most radical difference is cost, with resurrecting an extinct
| species being likely impossible but best case costing at least
| 4 orders of magnitude more.
|
| If the cost of a chicken egg was $10,000 it would likely not be
| worth the trouble. At $0.15 or $0.60, though, chicken eggs
| provide an excellent value and are nice to have around!
|
| The real question here is why intervene to keep a species from
| extinction? The answer is that genetic diversity is massive
| valuable. The trouble is that the value assessment is very hard
| to calculate concretely and that value is also very hard to
| extract in the form of direct profits.
|
| Let's take the banana as an example.
|
| The global banana market had sales of about $140B in 2023...
| clearly people value bananas. Today 99% of global trade in
| bananas is in a single variety, the "Cavendish" banana. But it
| was not always so. Until the 1950's the world's dominant banana
| was the "Gros Michel". Over the course of the 1950's the Gros
| Michel went commercially extinct as a result of "Panama
| Disease". Researchers scoured the world to find a banana not
| susceptible to Panama Disease that could replace the Gros
| Michel in commerce. What they found is the Cavendish.
|
| Today, a new strain of Panama Disease has evolved to target the
| Cavendish. Extinction of Cavendish is proceeding more slowly
| than that of the Gros Michel, but it seems more or less
| inevitable at this point.
|
| The fact that we are likely to see 2 varieties of banana go
| commercially extinct within a single century, is kind of nuts.
| It seems that the half-life of a commercial banana variety is
| less that 50 years. The only reason we still have commercial
| bananas today is because of the rather deep genetic diversity
| in bananas the earth continued to possess in the 1950's. That
| genetic diversity is significantly diminished today.
|
| If we value the banana market as a perpetual annuity with the
| 2023 growth rate of 7% and a discount rate of 3%, the net
| present value of the banana market to the citizens of the world
| is approximately $3.5 Trillion.
|
| How much is it rational to spend preserving this perpetual
| annuity? Anyway you slice it, the answer is very big... and
| very much bigger than is currently being spent to preserve the
| genetic diversity of the banana today.
|
| What was the value of the American Chestnut tree? Hard to say,
| but it is clear that the loss was massive. I've read estimates
| that the American Chestnut provided (as fodder) something like
| 10% of the energy for the pre-extinction American
| transportation system as well as a substantial winter food
| source for all kinds of livestock, game and people. Just as
| transportation energy the yearly value of the American Chestnut
| would have been about 2% of US GDP.
| permo-w wrote:
| if every copy of a film was slowly being erased from the
| records, you'd rather preserve copies of the film than have the
| director's cousin remake it based on some pictures and your
| grandpa's diaries. you can obviously do both, but option 1 is
| clearly going to be more popular
|
| any number of analogies are applicable: breeding extant animals
| to resemble extinct ones based on what some self-appointed
| human reckons they were like is not comparable to preservation.
|
| it's nostalgia, it _is_ ego, it 's a vanity project,
| essentially. no surprise it was inspired by the Nazis
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