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Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Tasmanian tigers
It's hard to read this without thinking of an Ed Wood villain cackling in the background:
Exactly 69 years after the last Tasmanian tiger died in an Australian zoo, scientists are planning to use Jurassic Park-style technology to bring the carnivore back to life.
The thylacine, a wolf-like creature with a backwards-facing pouch and jaws the size of a shelf bracket, was the biggest meat-eating marsupial.
I suppose if I approached the question rationally, I would note that we've created dozens (if not thousands) of new plant species through genetic modification. Reviving an old animal species through cloning, then, shouldn't ring too many alarm bells.
Except, of course, for ye olde slippery slope. If you revive one extinct species, why not more? Why not older species that have been extinct longer? The condor, the dodo, the true conservative in the Republican party?
Why not clone an Einstein for every generation to advance the state of theoretical physics? How about a Cro-Magnon man or even Lucy to advance our knowledge of our own history? Or, even better, to piss James Dobson off to no end?
Because, such opportunities, while great, diminish us. We are better for forgoing such research -- like Indiana Jones letting the Holy Grail fall into the abyss.
