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In the Name of Science!

  • Thread starter Jimmy
  • Start date
Jimmy, I was actually seconds away from posting this!

I think it'd be really cool to clone a Neanderthal or two. Of course I'd want them to be treated humanely, possibly giving them human rights if it turns out they are capable of understanding and exercising them.
 
i think it would be totally cool!

the only problem is what to do with it lol. Do you let it mature? Kill it and examine it? Maybe clone alot to do both? Would it be right to let a "family" roam in some secluded place?
 
Definitely yes!
At least it'll be interesting to see if they could talk and stuff.
Seeing a parallel branch of human evolution would totally rock!
 
if they can do that with these animals, why not work on doing it with animals that have already/or are becoming extinct? animals that werent killed off over time from climate change, but animals killed off from overpoaching? i think it would be "cool" to bring a neanderthal back, but what would it really prove? is it worth the money? we could use this technology in so many better ways than this. why waste time?
 
Ok, we are talking about a creature that clearly had culture, belief systems, possibly art and pretty much anything else we think makes us human. These were creatures as intellegent as humans I believe and I feel that cloning them would be equivalent to cloning humans. They likely would understand anything human beings do at least at a rudimentary level and this worries me. As an archaeologist however I would be really excited to see what they would be like especially if you allowed the clone individual to be raised as if it was any other human child. To clone one just to study it like a caged monkey I think would be wrong. I just couldnt go along with it unless you were going to allow the individual all of the rights of a human being and full cultural immersion.
 
if they can do that with these animals, why not work on doing it with animals that have already/or are becoming extinct? animals that werent killed off over time from climate change, but animals killed off from overpoaching? i think it would be "cool" to bring a neanderthal back, but what would it really prove? is it worth the money? we could use this technology in so many better ways than this. why waste time?

I was actually going to say the exact same thing. Couldn't agree more.
 
Ok, we are talking about a creature that clearly had culture, belief systems, possibly art and pretty much anything else we think makes us human. These were creatures as intellegent as humans I believe and I feel that cloning them would be equivalent to cloning humans. They likely would understand anything human beings do at least at a rudimentary level and this worries me. As an archaeologist however I would be really excited to see what they would be like especially if you allowed the clone individual to be raised as if it was any other human child. To clone one just to study it like a caged monkey I think would be wrong. I just couldnt go along with it unless you were going to allow the individual all of the rights of a human being and full cultural immersion.
ktulu, you believe they are a legitimate species now?

But I completely agree with you. This isn't fair to them, those other humans. Bringing them back (though I doubt that they could) may be interesting, but they are atleast somewhat intelligent and likely sapient. So how can you justify thrusting them into todays world or racism and hatred over religion and resources. They would never be seen as equals, and while I don't think animals should be seen as equals these people are not CREATURES, they are people too.
 
Encino Man, anyone?

if they can do that with these animals, why not work on doing it with animals that have already/or are becoming extinct? animals that werent killed off over time from climate change, but animals killed off from overpoaching? i think it would be "cool" to bring a neanderthal back, but what would it really prove? is it worth the money? we could use this technology in so many better ways than this. why waste time?

Because they didn't make it for a reason? Being able to bring species back would only be a further detriment to the ideology behind saving animals in their current state. Who cares if we kill the penguins? We can bring them back later on if we want.

Don't get me wrong, I think it is cool. I was a bigger fan of Jurassic Park than anyone.

xvart.
 
  • #11
thats not what i meant xvart, what i meant was for animals that are critically endangered, never did i say it was ok to just kill stuff because we could bring it back later. i meant as a conservation effort, bringing back animals like the red pandas, rhino, or tigers. not as an excuse to kill anything. Its called sanctuaries, or any form of national wild life preserves. if animals were able to be cloned, sure it would be identical to something else. but after awhile, would it really matter? the offspring will be genetically unique, even if more than one clone of an animal is out there, the offspring will never be the same. Like how we are Tissue Culturing plants like Macrophylla, Villosa, Edwardsiana, or any other number of endangered plants to help CONSERVE the natural balance.
OR
Clone these animals FOR the things they are being poached for
PRESERVE the natural animals.
WHY when we have this technology would we bring back something as miniscule as Neanderthal, when we could bring back something we NEED to conserve? something that is nearly extinct, and the penguin reference, only certain species are endangered, but why is this?
global warming would be the #1 answer for most of this
as well as polar bears, ice caps melting...nothing we can do about it but STOP poaching, and STOP over polluting the atmosphere. The animals going extinct from poaching are the animals that need to be focused on first. Natural selection plays its roll, but poaching is NOT natural selection. am i wrong?
 
  • #12
You are talking about racism and prejudice against neanderthals?! Dude! How many do you think they'll clone (eventually)? Thousands? Millions? Of course not! If they do, It'll be at most only a couple, and they'll live in some kind of a lab "zoo" type of thing to observe and study.
I was just thinking about it yesterday actually. I'm pretty sure they'll be able to replicate the DNA from them (they've already taken it apart and determined they had red hair and green-brown eyes), so with time they'll for sure be able to replicate DNA from fossils tens of millions years old, bring back the animals... Imagine an aquarium with underwater halls and stuff filled with prehistoric animals... pity we'll probably be all dead by the time that happens :(
 
  • #13
never did i say it was ok to just kill stuff because we could bring it back later.

I never said that is what you said. I was just simply expanding on the "thought exercise."

if animals were able to be cloned, sure it would be identical to something else. but after awhile, would it really matter? the offspring will be genetically unique, even if more than one clone of an animal is out there, the offspring will never be the same.

True, to a degree. But they will never have the genetic variety that a whole species has. Just like those cults and tribes and kingdoms where the main guy only breeds with his family... And we all know how that turned out.

Clone these animals FOR the things they are being poached for
PRESERVE the natural animals.

Have fun floating that one by PETA, lol. :-))

WHY when we have this technology would we bring back something as miniscule as Neanderthal,

Woah. As minuscule as the neanderthal? The whole point is that we will learn more about our development and where we came from.

Natural selection plays its roll, but poaching is NOT natural selection. am i wrong?

Yes, you are wrong. ;) Somewhere along the way we developed tools and became more "advanced" than our animal friends. We now dictate what can live and what can die; and, if, unfortunate as it is, we decide that we really really want elephant ivory, than we will have it. Unfortunately, the elephants will die and become extinct, but only because they couldn't compete with us. It is the very definition of natural selection.

xvart.
 
  • #14
ktulu, you believe they are a legitimate species now?

But I completely agree with you. This isn't fair to them, those other humans. Bringing them back (though I doubt that they could) may be interesting, but they are atleast somewhat intelligent and likely sapient. So how can you justify thrusting them into todays world or racism and hatred over religion and resources. They would never be seen as equals, and while I don't think animals should be seen as equals these people are not CREATURES, they are people too.

Not touching the whole different species/subspecies/human debate.

The question of putting them into this world also begs did they look different enough to tell them from modern humans, many people think they didnt. I dont know but I am glad to see someone else respecting their err human rights? I used the word creature for the reason that it is not precisely know if they are a completely seperate species or if they are a sub species of human. If they wanted to clone cromagonons I would have used the word creature. Of course if we do clone them we might see alot more of those bumper stickers that say: Neanderthals for the repatriation of Europe, Homo sapiens go home. LOL.

As for how many they will clone it all depends on if they can interbreed with modern humans and if so will we let them? If so there could be many people with features of a neanderthal and the genes will be floating around int eh human gene pool.
 
  • #15
Neanderthals for the repatriation of Europe, Homo sapiens go home
lol! I love that!

I've said before, I'm 100% behind throwing off the locks on the laboratory doors and exploring anything we think we might be able to do. Cavemen, woolly mammoths, cloning, cyborgs, silicon consciousness and even those blasted penguins! lol! Provided people and animals are not being abducted from their homes to perform experiments upon I think science should be allowed to proliferate. How much worse can we get than the 70,000+ Hiroshima's already assembled and waiting to be launched? I think it's high time for some optimistic research into longevity, cloning and other bio-science instead of continuing the proliferation of megadeth.

A cloned Neanderthal would quite likely have a different mentality than a modern human, would it know enough to look both ways before crossing the street or would it behave as a deer behaves, darting blindly into traffic? Would it be able to understand syntax and language enough to communicate effectively in two way conversation? Would it's vocal cords be developed enough for such speech? There's a billion questions to think about. The earth certainly has changed in these intervening years. While it would not have physical memories of chasing mammoths but the genetic memory and the early brain circuits (oral/survival, anal/territorial) would show us humanity in it's extreme infancy and the full force of the domesticated primate. Rev. Donald Wildmon would come on the air and declare it "satanic science" but that would simply make it all the more wondrous. I would want it to have as much rights to marry and enjoy life as anyone else, though. Provided how it does in it's socialized upbringing it may need a lifetime "assistant" to function in the world, as do some mentally challenged and handicapped people. Plus, the republicans would hate it, it would likely be on welfare, (or doing ads for Geico...) lol!

However, to continue the discussion from the body worlds post, what assurance do we really have that the Neanderthals want to be resurrected? ;)

Anyone ever see the movie "Iceman" which is a team of scientists who somehow resurrect a caveman and keep him in a Bio-dome type environment? It's from the late 80s I think, the caveman begins to venerate the helicopter which keeps flying over the enclosure. I can't remember much else but I'm not talking about Encino Man with Polly Shore! lol!
 
  • #16
lol! I love that!

Obviously a cloned Neanderthal would likely have a different mentality than a modern human, would it know enough to look both ways before crossing the street or would it behave as a deer behaves, darting blindly into traffic? There's a billion other questions to think about. The earth certainly has changed in the intervening years. Yet I fully would want it to have as much rights to marry and enjoy life as anyone else, though, provided how it does in it's socialized upbringing it may need a lifetime "assistant" as do some mentally challenged and handicapped people. Plus, the republicans would hate it, it would likely be on welfare, (or doing ads for Geico...) lol!

However, to continue the discussion from the body worlds post, what assurance do we really have that the Neanderthals want to be resurrected? ;)

I think its interesting that first you question if they would have the ability to culturally learn how to deal with modern life, even though they clearly had a complex culture of their own. I think its interesting that you feel it may be mentally challenged even though we have no good way to measure how intelligent or not they were. Though they may have an issue with how hot the earth has gotten since they were last around, and they will probably miss hunting the friendly little cave bears. LOL.

Also I agree they should get welfare they definitely got the short stick on that whole evolution thing. LOL.

I thought about bringing up their opinions on cloning and being resurrected but I dont see any way to get their consent or assure they want to be brought back to life. (unlike with use of modern human bodies) Though I havent heard of a theory of mass suicide as the reason Neanderthals went extinct so we are probably safe betting they wanted to live as long they could have.
 
  • #17
I don't think cloning in this sense would bring back the species, similarly it would be of limited use to save endangered species. With only limited samples of individual's DNA there would not be anywhere near enough genetic diversity for thriving in situ. But maybe if a large catalog of DNA was gathered it could work... the penguin gene bank...
 
  • #18
I think it's high time for some optimistic research into longevity, cloning and other bio-science instead of continuing the proliferation of megadeth.

I can't remember much else but I'm not talking about Encino Man with Polly Shore! lol!

Sounds like you are talking about two of Polly Shore's classics: Biodome and Encino Man!

However, to continue the discussion from the body worlds post, what assurance do we really have that the Neanderthals want to be resurrected? ;)

Of course they want to be resurrected! How could they not? You know they want to watch some cave man insurance commercials on a plasma screen while listening to their iPod!

xvart.
 
  • #19
I think its interesting that first you question if they would have the ability to culturally learn how to deal with modern life, even though they clearly had a complex culture of their own. I think its interesting that you feel it may be mentally challenged even though we have no good way to measure how intelligent or not they were. Though they may have an issue with how hot the earth has gotten since they were last around, and they will probably miss hunting the friendly little cave bears. LOL.
Come now, let's not fight over here too. I'm all for having my naive assumptions destroyed, bring on the cave boy! Once again, we're actually on the same side, for Bear God's sake! lol! :)

Sounds like you are talking about two of Polly Shore's classics: Biodome and Encino Man!
Geez, did Polly do a movie called Biodome too? That little frizzy haired twerp is gonna haunt me to the grave!
 
  • #20
Geez, did Polly do a movie called Biodome too? That little frizzy haired twerp is gonna haunt me to the grave!

According to my roommate my Sophomore year of college, it is "allegedly" a classic. He literally would come home everyday after Architecture studio and watch it... Everyday...

xvart.
 
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