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Novak is among a small group of "de-extinction" engineers, a relatively fringe group of scientists that hope to use genetic engineering to protect or revive iconic animal species ravaged by human activity.
To some, de-extinction is an ecological-sized guilt trip, a species-wide Pet Cemetery horror story ripe for disaster. Yes, biodiversity is important; but who is to say that an extinct species can adapt and survive in an ecological system that's moved on since its passing? Or perhaps more importantly, what if newly-revived animals—a true "invasive species" for Earth—cause more damage than good to our fragile ecosystem?
"Why go through the trouble" is something his team gets asked, said Novak. For passenger pigeons, the answer is simple: recently, almost a
millennium[century] after their man-driven extinction, we finally understand the critical role they played in shaping the eastern North American ecosphere.
The passenger pigeon isn't extinct -- it's merely resting.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 25 2018, @11:52PM (20 children)
I disagree. The former is a lot easier to do than the latter and definitely is something we can pull off now. After all, a passenger pigeon colony merely requires a viable, very simple culture in order to function, it doesn't require a particular culture, much a human-level complex culture (as I noted before). But implementing the ancient Egyptian culture, is far harder for both reasons. It requires a particular, very complex culture.
(Score: 2) by The Shire on Friday October 26 2018, @12:08AM (19 children)
You underestimate the complexity of animal societies.
Nevertheless, as I've pointed out, the creature they are working to produce will not be a passenger pigeon anyway. It will be a sort of frankenstein's monster, the mutant bastard child of the passenger and the banded tail pigeon. So you're not resurecting the species that was destroyed, you're introducing a new hybrid. So what's the point?
What's dead is dead, let them rest in peace. Billions of species have risen and gone extinct in the history of this planet, it's a normal process - whether they die off because of man or because of nature, it's all the same. This nonesense is either a play for fame or for research money (or both). But ultimately even as presented it can never succeed.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 26 2018, @01:41AM (18 children)
Not at all. I strongly doubt that there was a lot of cultural complexity to passenger pigeon societies to be relevant. But even if hypothetically, there was, there would also be enough brain power among said passenger pigeons to figure out a viable culture (with modest help/training from humans).
Unless, of course, it's not. Looks like they're planning to replace stem cell DNA from band-tailed pigeons with DNA from the passenger pigeon. That leaves DNA from the mitochondria, not a significant contribution.
(Score: 2) by The Shire on Friday October 26 2018, @02:20AM (17 children)
Let's assume all the best cases here - that they can do this at all, that mitochondria plays almost no role in an animals structure (it does, but for arguments sake...), and that they successfully recreate the passenger pigeon. Now what? Exactly what was the point? The world has one more kind of pigeon, one that previously was unable to survive around humans. Bravo. Will people be "flocking" to zoo's to see them? I think not. Will they became a fancy kind of squab? Probably.
Imagine your lifes work amounting to the recreation of nothing more than another flying rat. What a waste of time.
The only people who want to see this happen are the researchers who get grant money for it, and the tree huggers that live their lives filled with guilt over the animals humanity has displaced.
(Score: 2, Funny) by khallow on Friday October 26 2018, @01:23PM (16 children)
We would have demonstrated the power to undo some of the worst environmental harm that humans are capable of.
Compared to what? I can think of a lot worst wastes of time. Meanwhile being the first to restore a species from extinction is a place in history.
Why is that not a sufficient number of people?
(Score: 2) by The Shire on Friday October 26 2018, @02:28PM (15 children)
> We would have demonstrated the power to undo some of the worst environmental harm that humans are capable of.
So let me be clear here - in your mind the loss of the passenger pigeon is one of the worst environmental catastrophes man has caused? M'kay...
Also, worth noting that the techniques they would be using for this bird are in no way applicable to other extinct species. DNA does not survive the test of time. There is only a chance with this pigeon because they have lots of fairly recent DNA samples to work with. So all you're demonstrating is the power to do what geneticist can already do - clone animals.
> Meanwhile being the first to restore a species from extinction is a place in history.
The Guiness Book of World Records is full of people who "have a place in history", doesn't make it any more meaningless. Bringing back a simulacrum of a pigeon is a footnote at best. And are you saying that fame is the goal of these scientists? Because the end work product really has no other value.
> Why is that not a sufficient number of people?
The number of people is not the point - it's the motivations. Desire for fame, grant money, and pointless guilt. That's not a constructive set of reasons to embark on such a project. The researchers strike me as bored and looking for ways to get free cash to continue making mud pies. Their genetic manipulation talents would be better spent trying to improve livestock health or investigating human genetic disease.
Which would you rather researchers target - bringing back a dead pigeon or helping to cure your child's genetic disease?
That's what I mean when I say this project is pointless. Other projects are far more deserving of those research dollars.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday October 28 2018, @01:29AM (14 children)
Yes, because it's permanent without human intervention. Most human environmental harm goes away when the activities generating the harm stop.
That is wrong. DNA does survive the test of time to a significant degree. It'll apply to many other extinct species.
If you think that bringing back an extinct species is comparable to, say eating the most hotdogs in a few minutes or the longest mustache (typical Guinness book things), then maybe you don't have the perspective to think about this subject.
They're motivated. Checks the box. I'm similarly concerned by the motivations that bring you to post. Maybe those aren't sufficient either for you to have a valid opinion on the matter.
Why do you think these are unrelated issues? For example, there are genetic diseases [wikipedia.org] that come from defective mitochondrial DNA and for which the process of bringing back the passenger pigeon would improve fertilization techniques.
If you can happen to think of such projects that can't possible occur if we bring back the passenger pigeon, then feel free to tell us. Else it is a false dilemma.
(Score: 2) by The Shire on Sunday October 28 2018, @02:32AM (13 children)
>That is wrong. DNA does survive the test of time to a significant degree. It'll apply to many other extinct species.
DNA has a half life of only 521 years. in the case of virtually every extinct creature that means viable dna no longer exists:
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/279/1748/4724 [royalsocietypublishing.org]
>If you think that bringing back an extinct species is comparable to, say eating the most hotdogs in a few minutes
The net effect is the same. Neither "achievment" has a useful outcome. The complexity of one over the other does not change this fact.
>Why do you think these are unrelated issues?
Because restoring the passenger pigeon requires only tech that already exists. The challenge is finding enough dna to make a viable fascimile of the original animal. They're not pushing the boundry of science, it's more of an expensive scavenger hunt.
>If you can happen to think of such projects that can't possible occur if we bring back the passenger pigeon, then feel free to tell us.
Anytime you direct the talents of qualified scientists on a while goose (pigeon?) chase you are removing that talent from real research. Skilled geneticists are a finite resource. I would again put it to you - would you like to see your child die from a genetic disease because research dollars and scientific talent had been redirected to recreating a flying rat?
The dead don't care how they became extinct. Let them rest.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 30 2018, @11:20AM (12 children)
Even when that is true, that still leaves plenty of animals that went extinct in the past 10k to 20k years.
Patently false since bringing back an extinct species is a useful outcome despite your numerous assertions to the contrary.
So does anything else that we ever do. Of course, the tech didn't always exist before we made the attempt. Again, for all your blather about tech that already exists, bringing back the passenger pigeon, a task that has never been attempted before, would require tech that has never been used in that way before.
Like what? Sorry, scientific talent is not that scarce a resource and bringing back an extinct species is a big deal.
(Score: 2) by The Shire on Tuesday October 30 2018, @06:11PM (11 children)
> bringing back an extinct species is a useful outcome
I challenge you to name a useful outcome from resurrecting a dead pigeon.
> scientific talent is not that scarce a resource
Have you seen the latest statistics on global IQ values? Finding anyone with even half a brain is getting very difficult. Present company excepted of course.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 31 2018, @12:35AM (10 children)
I already mentioned two. First, it's a technology demonstration that extinction of species can be reversed. Second, it is the start of reversing a significant bit of environmental harm committed by humans.
(Score: 2) by The Shire on Wednesday October 31 2018, @01:34AM (9 children)
A technology demonstration of existing proven technology is not useful. In this context it's more of a circus event than a scientific breakthrough.
As for "reversing a bit of environment hard caused by humans", well I'm pretty sure the earth couldn't care less. Nature itself is constantly destroying and recreating environments, only humans seem to have a need to cling to the past. Change is inevitable, stop trying to bring things back. Humans survive because we're really good at adapting to new environments, lets focus on that instead.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 31 2018, @02:11AM (8 children)
Then you can point to the extinct species that has been brought back via that "existing proven technology"?
The Earth doesn't care about your opinion either.
The passenger pigeons didn't become extinct in the first place because humans adapted to an environment. They became extinct because we didn't! But if we suppose that bringing species to extinction is some sort of valid human adaptation to the environment, then conversely, restoring those species would also be valid human adaptation to the environment.
(Score: 2) by The Shire on Wednesday October 31 2018, @04:37AM (7 children)
>The Earth doesn't care about your opinion either.
The earth doesn't care about anyones opinion, mine or yours. Nature doesn't give a damn what lives or dies, it kills indiscriminately and has rendered infinitely more species extinct than man could ever achieve. Yet you seem to harbor some kind of existential guilt that the rise of mankind has resulted in some species dying out. And you seem to think that bringing back a fascimile of a pigeon will somehow redeem humanity, but nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed it would be far more unnatural to create this freak than to let it fade away.
Clearly we have a difference of opinion that won't be resolved here. You seem to think there is value in bringing back a bird that went extinct and my take is that bringing back a bird that honestly most people didn't notice was gone is pointless. One thing is for sure, neither you nor I nor this discussion will have any impact on what those scientists ultimately do. So it's all rather moot isn't it.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 31 2018, @05:57AM (6 children)
I imagine, if you really thought about it, you could come up with a few other things that Earth doesn't care about. And the Earth doesn't care about your opinion... it still doesn't. Nope. Still doesn't care. Let's check now. Nope, still doesn't care. How about now? Still doesn't care? Maybe now? Still doesn't care.
We can continue till the heat death of the universe to remark on how inanimate blobs of matter don't care about our opinions... or we can find something that isn't profoundly stupid to think about instead. It has never mattered that the Earth doesn't care and never will matter.
All which is completely irrelevant. Unlike "Nature", we have agency, including the power to make mistakes and limited power to fix the mistakes we do make. And we can choose to give a damn.
We are as a species guilty of the extinction of the passenger pigeon. That happened as a result of actions of members of our species. It's not an emotion, it is merely fact.
Unless, of course, that's wrong. Then well, it can do that. Remember first, that the "fascimile" of the pigeon will be a real pigeon with real passenger pigeon DNA and circularly real pigeon sociology. Second, why does it matter whether the pigeon is a "freak"? Earth doesn't care, right? Environmental nihilism works both ways.
Sure, it can be resolved. Change your opinion. Stop being yet another irrational monkey pounding out noise on a keyboard and lowering the IQ of the world.
Let's review the errors: 1) ignoring that extinctions of species can cause considerable environmental harm - it's not always true, but there was a large amount of biomass in passenger pigeons at one time, indicating that they probably had a substantial role in their ecological systems and hence, harm likely occurred by their removal from that environment, 2) when humans cause environmental harm by species extinction, fixing that can be justified on moral, legal, and environmental grounds, 3) some species gets to be first and the passenger pigeon with its near relative and low cost to breed is a good candidate, 4) there's no point to talking about "existing technologies" when doing something significant for the first time - the technology doesn't exist else it would have already been done, 5) ecological nihilism is pointless - it's irrelevant that Earth doesn't care and conversely, Earth equally doesn't care that the replacement for the passenger pigeon is not an absolutely perfect replacement for the original, 6) we are powerful enough that we can make nature and Earth adapt to us rather than the other way around with consequences that can be both good and bad for us, and 7) the fallacious argument that somehow we'll cure yet another genetic disease, if the small amount of funding from this project is dumped down the human research money sink.
On that last point, it can take billions of dollars to research a human medical treatment. A similar treatment for pigeons would be orders of magnitude less. This project allows us to research and develop those "already developed" technologies for treating genetic disease (and probably a bunch of other tasks like fertility treatments) which we haven't actually developed in a productive setting without requiring the dumping of vast sums of money without even a modest guarantee of a positive return on investment. Human research is inherently very risky and unproductive which is why we have so many animal models in the first place just to modestly improve the eventual odds of success. Alternate research pathways like restoring extinct species allow us to explore completely new ways of bioengineering rather than the flawed and outdated disease-treatment model of medicine which are soaking up so much funding in current medicine research.
Finally, it's tiresome to see an argument that boils down to "let's not do something because I don't want/like/feel good about it." Your arguments have been remarkably frivolous and pointless. It's clear you haven't thought about this enough. Not every extinct species is equally worthy of being restored nor has enough available DNA or related species to successfully restore using the approach described in the story. But to completely dismiss reasons why we would want to restore important species like the passenger pigeon, you demonstrate that you're missing important parts of the debate. Sure, if we completely ignore the reasons for doing something, then tautologically we fail to come up with reasons for doing something. It's a foolish way to think. And Earth just doesn't care.
(Score: 2) by The Shire on Wednesday October 31 2018, @04:56PM (5 children)
> And the Earth doesn't care about your opinion... it still doesn't. Nope.
You seem overly focused on my opinion and less concerned that yours is of equal value. Try looking inward a bit, challenge yourself. As hard as you may find it to believe, sometimes, just sometimes, it might be YOU that's wrong. I know that's a difficult concept for the current crop of entitled kids but hopefully you're a bit older and wiser and still capable of critical thinking.
> Unlike "Nature", we have agency
You poor child, you haven't yet realized how little we differ from the rest of the animals when it comes to choice. Sure, we are capable of regret but nature is not capable of forgiveness. The deed is already done - the passenger pigeon is gone. As it turns out, nothing bad happened as a result. Bringing back some kind of Frankenstein pigeon will not allay your regrets. Indeed, since you did not personally take part in their destruction, you should not be harboring any guilt to begin with.
Try focusing your attention on helping people around you, on fixing the things you are responsible for that you regret. I dare say the resurrection of a pigeon won't help you feel better for longer than it takes to read some article about how they accomplished it. And honestly, if you feel guilty just for being a human, well there's nothing that can help you with that. You can't be anything other than what you are, faults and all. So learn to deal with it. Dead birds are not the answer to life the universe and everything.
> it's tiresome to see an argument that boils down to "let's not do something because I don't want/like/feel good about it."
That's ironic considering the argument you present is entirely about you wanting to feel good, to feel like you've vindicated our species by returning a pigeon to life. I personally don't ascribe to that kind of delusional thought process. Rationally, the argument boils down to usefulness of time spent. If the passenger pigeon really was, as you say, "an important species" then perhaps you can explain why it's loss has resulted in no adverse effects whatsoever. Hell, most people have no idea they even existed in the first place. This is not a species that is missed. No, the argument is about you feeling guilty about being part of a race that has come to dominate the earth at the expense of other life forms. But this has always been the way of things and your trivial attempts to play god and resurrect species that could not survive in our presence are pointless.
The difference between you and I is that you think with your gut. You seem to believe that bringing back a bird or even a wide variety of extinct animal life will make some kind of difference in the world. I assure you it would not. No one but guilt ridden tree huggers think there is any point to such a program.
However, if you really need to point at something where we brought back a species from the brink of extinction then perhaps you can satisfy your remorse with the bison. We nearly wiped them out and now there are large herds again. But bison serve a practical purpose - they're quite tasty. Passenger pigeons on the other hand, well suffice to say we already have squab.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday November 01 2018, @11:29PM (4 children)
Because you're misunderstanding the argument. First, it is as I already noted rather stupid to claim that an argument has greater or lesser "value" because of what an inanimate blob of matter thinks about it. Further, you've just admitted by by your standards, your opinion has no more value than my disagreement with your opinion. Since I have reasons for my opinion and you don't have reasons for your opinions, then I have the more valid opinion. End of story.
Similarly, I'm not interested in your whining about critical thinking because you're not doing it and have already admitted that it would have no value by your standard, even if you were to do it.
Nature is not animals. And I think I've noted already that I don't care in the least what nature is incapable of.
Nothing bad happened? How do you know that, or are you just saying stuff? We already know that passenger pigeons are extinct, which is in itself a bad thing. Species dependent on the activities of passenger pigeons, including humans, are adversely affected as well. "Harboring guilt" is an emotion. I already stated my position on that.
Well, that is another point for bringing back the passenger pigeon. As I already noted and you already ignored, this fixes things for which we are responsible and a fair number of us regret.
I disagree on the "no adverse effects whatsoever". Thus, your whole paragraph was a waste of time to type.
We call this projection. You have yet to present a rational argument for anything you've written so far, much less evidence. But I'm supposed to be the emotional one?
Already being done. The bison is up to about 500k members with 30k in wild herds. Could be better, but it's pretty far from extinction and they're contributing to a lot of wild ecosystems.
(Score: 2) by The Shire on Friday November 02 2018, @01:16AM (3 children)
Ok. You think I'm an idiot and you're the rational guy who's right about this. I think the same of you. We've both expended more energy on this subject than the bird is worth. I think it's safe to leave it at that.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 03 2018, @02:22AM (2 children)
And I made a solid case for why. Meanwhile you've talked multiple times about how much Earth and Nature care about this argument despite it contributing not in the least to the rationality of your argument. I think that tells us all who was the rational guy in this argument.
And?
Than the bird is worth to you.
(Score: 2) by The Shire on Saturday November 03 2018, @02:09PM (1 child)
lol, whatever man. More power to ya on your crusade to resurrect your bird.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday November 04 2018, @10:27PM