Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Cells, Microbes & Viruses => Topic started by: paul.fr on 25/03/2007 22:24:30
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Mr Bored Chemist, gave this answer to another topic;
Most species are now extinct because they didn't work well enough.
which got me thinking, i know but it's true, why don't we clone animals that are near extinction?
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That would involve cloning wifeys meat pie.........but me wish to let it be extinct !
I think encouraging procreation amongst animals is always preferable but it's quite possible that cloning is the way to go.
Pandas for instance are well bad at ' getting it on '....
Even after a species is extinct it could still be cloned..if prepared accordingly.
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That would be cool, on the lines of Jurrassic park eh?
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That's what I meant about preparing it accordingly....If they had enough ' viable' DNA fragments and the process was also viable then it seems that it would be entirely possible...after all there are now many many many cloned animals about................which is nice !!
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Do we want to clone the ones that will eat us or eat us out of house and home..LOL LOL
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Mr Bored Chemist, gave this answer to another topic;
Most species are now extinct because they didn't work well enough.
which got me thinking, i know but it's true, why don't we clone animals that are near extinction?
I think the initial premise is inaccurate (I say inaccurate rather than wrong, because in a qualified way, one might argue it to be correct, but it is the unqualified nature of it that I have a problem with).
The notion that a dinosaur did not work as well as a human smacks too much of the notion that somehow evolution has some kind of objective goal, and that some time in the future, there will be species that are superior to us.
What happened to kill off the dinosaurs was not that they were not as good as humans, but that the world that they were very good at living in collapsed, so the different global environment favoured different species. We are better than T. Rex at living in our world, but that is different to saying that we would be better that T. Rex in living in its world.
Ofcourse, there are complicating factors, in that we also change our own world, and while some people may be paranoid that the changes we make to our world are to our disadvantage, to date the contrary has been true (the world we lived in 100,000 years ago would never have supported 6 billion human beings as the modern world does).
As for cloning animals that are near extinction – what is it you are trying to achieve by that (aside from pandering to some human sentimentality)? Are animals there merely as fodder to be put on display for humans, as if they were some ancient machine that has long past its useful life, but has been relegated to a museum so that school kids can gawk at it? Maybe there is an educational value in keeping hold of ancient species in that way – is that your objective, or is there something else you hope to achieve?
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As for cloning animals that are near extinction – what is it you are trying to achieve by that (aside from pandering to some human sentimentality)? Are animals there merely as fodder to be put on display for humans, as if they were some ancient machine that has long past its useful life, but has been relegated to a museum so that school kids can gawk at it? Maybe there is an educational value in keeping hold of ancient species in that way – is that your objective, or is there something else you hope to achieve?
to be honest, George. I had no specific reason for asking the question, it just popped in as i read the post from bored chemist.
Thinking about what you have written, i would agree that it we were to clone near extinct species it would most likely be more for sentiment than any other reason.
The Panda (i think) is near extinction in the wild, whilst it would on one level be sad that such a species may cease to exist except in zoo's, life as we know it would just carry on.
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I think if we can bring animals from the edge of extinction then we should.......I think we must !
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I think it is something that is important for all life.
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I think if we can bring animals from the edge of extinction then we should.......I think we must !
Do you have some rationale behind this view, or is it just sentimentality?
What about species that are already extinct, but that may have modern descendants that might have enough of the ancient DNA to recreate the original species (or, at least a close approximation)?
What about non-animal life (e.g. plants or bacteria) - do you think the same for them, or is it only about animals you think we should think this way? If so, then why the distinction?
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I think if we can bring animals from the edge of extinction then we should.......I think we must !
Do you have some rationale behind this view, or is it just sentimentality?
What about species that are already extinct, but that may have modern descendants that might have enough of the ancient DNA to recreate the original species (or, at least a close approximation)?
What about non-animal life (e.g. plants or bacteria) - do you think the same for them, or is it only about animals you think we should think this way? If so, then why the distinction?
YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY !!!
LOL..........I will answer these when I am conscious !!Hee hee !!
(I knew you'd pick me up on that.......and rightly so !)
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Quote by paul.fr
why don't we clone animals that are near extinction?
Just a thought, some animals are near extinction because of habitat change, we need to replace the habitat or releasing cloned animals will also fail.
Personally I cant see any other reason to do cloning experiments on animals other than a precursor to check whether humans could be cloned, we gain little by cloning animals.
The problem with cloning is ageing, the age of the original animal being cloned also has to be added on.
A newborn cloned lamb may be newborn but its cells are as mature as the mother from which they came and have the same genetic make-up.
Dolly the sheep's offspring died prematurely of arthritis and other adult animal diseases so it seems there are many unseen problems yet to overcome.
We clone plants all the time and call them "cuttings". They are quick to mature and genetically identical to the mother. But again, any disease of the adult will also show in the clone but at an earlier stage.
TMM
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We clone plants all the time and call them "cuttings".
Interestingly, some plant "clones" are hundreds of years old (possibly even thousands) and don't show the aging problem that animal clones do - a very interesting area of research.
Colleen
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We clone plants all the time and call them "cuttings". They are quick to mature and genetically identical to the mother. But again, any disease of the adult will also show in the clone but at an earlier stage.
TMM
and banana's
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Seeing as the cloned offspring of the nearly extinct animal would be genetically identical to each other it would ultimately lead to inbreeding. Nature seems to discourage inbreeding causing genetic disorders in animals that do and these mostly result in death before the animal is born.
Although some species have been able to survive this, many have failed and seeing as the animal was already nearly extinct it would be unlikely that the animal would survive making the cloning of nearly extinct species pointless.
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but wat about breeding the clones? they wud b too much alike in gentics and that wud cause major baby problems
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Plus we haven't even perfected cloning yet. There are too many anomalies when we try. I think it's foolish to try and play God anyway.
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Mr Bored Chemist, gave this answer to another topic;
Most species are now extinct because they didn't work well enough.
which got me thinking, i know but it's true, why don't we clone animals that are near extinction?
Yes because a good animal can dodge bulliets
And fish should know how to avoid nets! It's there own darn fault- I mean if there gonna let themselves get caught and shot
and arnt perpared to come to the local council meeting what do you expect!
With regards to cloning you need alot of different clones from different sourses- otherwise the genetic varity would be limited and the species weak as a result!
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I think we owe it to ourselves and to this planet to at least to attempt to preserve as much wildlife as we can.
Nature is a wonderful thing...(though..I would make exceptions for nasty germs and stuff ! (conditionally))......especially if we, as humans are directly or indirectly responsible for the extinction of species because of our own mismanagement of ourselves !!
Can you imagine that the only place to see a polar bear or a tiger...or an Orchid would be in a zoo ?
..........and......we can learn from preserving species....we can learn how to preserve ourselves too..