Cloning extinct species

[orcot]

Sometime ago I readed a article that said that it my be possible in the near future to clone a Tasmanian Tiger.
And initial rechearge was done to extract live DNA from a frozen mammoth.

And I was wondering if it would be possible and etchical to recreate a neanderthaler.

Not that I'm particulairy caring in the sience that involves this all. But what would the implications be if we create something that has a mental capacity similar to our own.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

About the same as what we face with the most intelligent animals that already exist, including the primates, the cetaceans (whales and dolphins), the psittacines (parrots), and the proboscids (elephants). Like it or not, the fact is that we've set ourselves up as stewards of their universe because they're just not as intelligent and capable as we are. We can't undo that so we have to decide how to wield that responsibility.

I think most of us enlightened folks here on SciForums would say that we haven't done a very good job so far, but the last couple of generations of humans have at least begun to acknowledge the existence of the issue.

Or perhaps take a cue from the way we deal with really unintelligent people. I have a friend whose one son has Down's Syndrome. He's around thirty now. They just treat him like a child of about the same mental age. Always supervised, but allowed to explore his limited world to the extent that they're capable of making good judgments about his health and safety.

Did you mean the Tasmanian wolf, a marsupial predator that only became extinct in the last few decades? I've never heard of a Tasmanian tiger and Tasmania is an awfully small island to have two different predatory species. Perhaps it's the same animal. It's also called the zebra wolf for the obvious reason that it's striped.

 

[Mr Anonymous]

... Not that I'm particulairy caring in the sience that involves this all. But what would the implications be if we create something that has a mental capacity similar to our own.

....em, would the point rather not be, other than re-animating a prehistoric Modern Human, what else is there actually in pre-history which qualifies as close enough to fore fill that precise criteria?

Neanderthals weren't similar to us in any respect, apart from the having legs thing and a head. They didn't have similar mental capacities to our ancestors, hence the, y'know, extinction part of their given life style... ?

In general terms, bring a single thing back from the dead, as it were, whole and complete probably impossible, best y'could probably hope for would be a Chimera - thats a hybridised form of one species DNA integrated into a similar, but currently living, genus.

In the circumstances, that only really leaves splicing Neanderthal DNA with Modern Human...

Can't y'just read the Christian Scientists Monitor's editorial concerning that little piece of particular monkey business in your minds eye...

 

[orcot]

to fragile Rocker. I gave no ID whats the correct term tasmanian tiger or tasmanian wolf but we mean the same.

to Mr Anonymous. I agree that with today standards it's imposible to recreate DNA from broken fragments. But keep in mind we have fairly intact mitochondrial DNA and a lot of fragments. What this properly means is that we have enof materials to put the puzzle together someday.
Never forget that the double helix structure was discovered in 1953, 52 years ago. So things are still evolving.

And I don't believe you give this little people enof credid. Imagen that all of humanity would get extinct today and you have to figure out what they were. ith nothing else to help you but some bones and the cities. You will notice a clear diference between the north and the south. And from the information you could collect the most logicale conclusion would be that there were 2 intilligent species on this world and that the most intiligent species lived in the north.

THe first humans came from africa to Europe, but thimes where different then. Africa was wet and full of food and Europe was under ice.

A other thing that people useually forget is that the first rock paintings where made 20 000 years ago and humans are around 130 000 year.

The neanderthalers were proberly a intiligent species, that made his own house, his own weopons and his own clothes, hunted and stored food. And he proberly didn't have much time to do anything else.

And apperently until 20 000 years it was the same for us.

best y'could probably hope for would be a Chimera

I do agree that this would not be a option avaible. Not that I mind to fill up the haps that are the same anyway, normal primates have 98% in commen with us, so it will be proberly more then that for a neanderthaler.
But I wouldn't like it that any women gets involved in this proces.
More like a advanced test tube baby if you want to go sientific.

 

[i stole this name]

Why do we have the need to do such a thing in the first place? Most scientific breakthroughs nowadays are just for the sake of having done it. I think its unnatural, you're ruining someones life, AND ruining their death by bringing their soul back from limbo, what's the point?