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Markets in everything?
The new claim is that a woolly mammoth could be regenerated for as little as $10 million. The basic technique, as I understand it, is reconstructing the genome of the mammoth and modifying the DNA in the egg of a modern elephant and bringing the final-stage egg to term in an elephant mother. It is noted that the same will be possible with Neanderthals, as it is expected that their genome will be recovered and sequenced shortly.
Didn't I read as recently as ten years ago that "Jurassic Park" scenarios were more or less impossible? I don't expect Neanderthal man to reappear soon, but assuming the world stays (relatively) peaceful and wealthy, what is the chance of seeing one or more such beings within the next two hundred years? Yes I know all about the law, eventual demographics, and the fear of planet-wide interspecies war, but at $10 million and over one hundred countries in the world, is not private philanthropy robust?
As one commentator asks, if we humans killed them off in the first place, does that mean we have any obligation to revive them now?
Posted by Tyler Cowen on November 20, 2008 at 09:16 AM in History | Permalink
Comments
Come on people,let's not be a bunch of wimps. I want to see a Neanderthal!
Posted by: josh at Nov 20, 2008 9:36:58 AM
I say bring the sagacious Michael Crichton back first.
Posted by: Jeff H. at Nov 20, 2008 9:37:57 AM
This sorta thing is the reason I wonder if I'm not wrong about the prospects of brain emulation and cryonics.
Who knows what we'll be able to do in 80 years if we aren't working on ash-brick recipes.
Posted by: burger flipper at Nov 20, 2008 9:43:46 AM
There are well-preserved mammoth specimens 37,000 years old. Velociraptors were around 75 million years ago. I'm not checking all the dinosaurs from the movies, but the DNA is in much worse shape than it is from a frozen specimen mere tens of thousands of years old.
Also, I don't know if we have any relatives for the dinosaurs which are as close as elephants are to mammoths, though egg-laying presumably makes it somewhat easier than live birth.
In two hundred years? Maybe. I can imagine more powerful systems of deduction which can deduce the genes from dinosaur remnants.
Posted by: Nancy Lebovitz at Nov 20, 2008 9:47:22 AM
There's always the basic question in this endeavor:
Is it the restoration of the real thing or a replica?
Posted by: Phil at Nov 20, 2008 9:52:07 AM
It will be sponsored by Geico.
Posted by: David at Nov 20, 2008 9:54:51 AM
If you look up the word "philanthropy", its "love of man".
I'm not sure how spending this kind of money on a Frankensteininan science project
qualifies as "philanthropy", surely there are better causes out there.
Posted by: Superheater at Nov 20, 2008 9:56:13 AM
Can we bring back Julian Simon?
Posted by: Speedmaster at Nov 20, 2008 10:01:29 AM
Superheater,
I'm a man. And damn it, I want to see a Neanderthal! Come on people, pony up!
Posted by: josh at Nov 20, 2008 10:13:06 AM
I think there are 3 main lines of argument for the disappearance of Neanderthals: we killed them; the ice age killed them; we merged them into us thru intermarriage.
If we killed them in a pre-historic genocide, are we thus morally culpable and so obligated to revive their genome and thus them in compensation?
If the ice age killed them, what responsibility to them do we have? As our very near relatives, who may share many many of our genes, should we not also revive them to help ensure the survival of our common genes?
If we intermarried them, and thus "they is us," would we have no obligation to them, as they live in us now?
To revive intelligent beings - if it is possible to do so without harming them, as it does now - would seem to me a profound moral obligation. Robin Hanson should examine this under his statement of "actions should be as noble as possible, but not nobler."
Posted by: StreetWalker at Nov 20, 2008 10:19:03 AM
"Philanderthal"?
Posted by: Andrew at Nov 20, 2008 10:21:08 AM
I'm definitely in favor of the whooly mammoth. And I'm even more excited about the neanderthal--although, of course, it is not clear how we incorporate the neanderthal into society.
Posted by: steve at Nov 20, 2008 10:32:55 AM
Steve, the Republican party can take them in. God knows they can use the improved brain power.
Posted by: meter at Nov 20, 2008 10:45:35 AM
@Steve
"how we incorporate the neanderthal into society"
As intelligent beings apparently capable of speech, good stone tools, and fine art (cave paintings), I think they will do quite well.
Will they have to be half-human to start, as I suppose we would sequence the genome, reconstruct it chemically, and use it to to inseminate a human egg, implant it, and have a caring birth mother take it to term?
Or perhaps we would use a method of wiping the DNA from a human egg, inserting the Neanderthal DNA, and then "cloning" it in the petri dish before implanting in said caring birth mother?
Either way they will, it seems, have to have a human mother, at least at first, and thus will have strong social and biological links with us. Again, since we probably share many genes, embracing them as brothers would seriously be in our interest.
Posted by: StreetWalker at Nov 20, 2008 10:51:54 AM
Man,
Imagine the teasing a Neanderthal kid's gonna endure. "Your mother was a monkey!" It's not even racist, because it's true.
Then again, he'd probably grow up into a kick ass middle linebacker. And PSU's known for their linebackers.
I can see the angle here.
Posted by: Jeff at Nov 20, 2008 10:52:31 AM
I see lots of problems with having Neanderthals around. Think of the issues that arise because we happen to all have different skin colors. Race should not be an issue, but it is. What would happen when Neanderthals come back? Quotas, minority requirements, Neanderthal neighborhoods, Neanderthals voting Democrat or Republican. Many problems. Sorry josh.
Whereas the woolly Mammoth ... that would be actually cool. I want to see one. I want to wear a sweater made out of mammoth wool (or a Super 180 Dior suit made of mammoth wool) and I want to eat mammoth steak. I do. I want my mammoth with fries and confit d'echalote, and a 2005 Chateau Haut-Brion...
...but I will have to wait, mammoth meat will be forbidden in Europe because it is genetically modified stuff :(
Posted by: londenio at Nov 20, 2008 10:52:53 AM
The neanderthal/modern human interbreeding theory is pretty much dead. The genomic and mitochondrial DNA sequences that we have in hand do not support the theory that there was any significant level of interbreeding.
Going from even a complete DNA sequence to cloning an animal would be the tremendous technical feat. Synthesizing complete chromosomes for a mammal is a huge technological barrier. $10 million is only a reasonable number if there are completely intact mammoth cell nuclei available.
Birds are the closest relatives to dinosaurs, but that is a much more distant relationship than mammoths and elephants.
You are not going to find dinosaur samples younger than 65 million years old, roughly. All the DNA is far too fragmented and degraded, not to mention hopelessly contaminated by microorganims, for a "Jurassic Park" scenario to be anything but science fiction.
Posted by: Josh at Nov 20, 2008 11:04:22 AM
The woolly mammoth in the Age of Global Warming? Too cruel.
Posted by: dearieme at Nov 20, 2008 11:04:32 AM
Can I be a mammoth mahout? Can I, can I, can I?
Posted by: dearieme at Nov 20, 2008 11:06:51 AM
"As one commentator asks, if we humans killed them off in the first place, does that mean we have any obligation to revive them now?"
Erm, the 'them' you are using doesn't make sense. If I kill a human, I don't make it right by having a baby and creating another human.
Posted by: Ross Parker at Nov 20, 2008 11:29:57 AM
My understanding is that neanderthals probably had the same cognitive capacity as sapiens. The problem is they're going to look a little funny, and I think their coordination is kind of lousy. So I think they'll be smart enough to want to fit in, but they won't be able to fit in. Thats a bit of a social dilemma. A lot of thought would have to go into the most humane way to raise a neanderthal.
Posted by: steve at Nov 20, 2008 11:36:36 AM
Yet we're missing the real proof that there might be markets for everything! From the Yahoo! article:
The researchers have been pulling DNA out of mummified mammoths and their hair for more than a decade, but because it is so old, the DNA is broken down. It is also contaminated by bacteria and fungi.Mammoths offer a better target than most extinct animals because many of their bodies have been frozen since death -- some so thoroughly that the meat is still edible.
Let's find out if they're tasty first!
Posted by: Ironman at Nov 20, 2008 11:37:43 AM
No way is $10 million dollars a barrier to this. There are tons of private investors who would eagerly pay ten times that amount for a mere chance of being involved in something so dramatic.
Posted by: Giovanni at Nov 20, 2008 12:00:31 PM
some so thoroughly that the meat is still edible.
I don't think I actually want this question answered. But I can't resist asking it.
How do they know?
Posted by: Tom West at Nov 20, 2008 12:03:41 PM
Wonder if it tastes like chicken
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/04/070412-dino-tissues.html
Posted by: Andrew at Nov 20, 2008 12:08:35 PM
