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De-Extinction Is Now a Thing—Starting With Passenger Pigeons

posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday October 24 2018, @03:21PM   Printer-friendly
from the buy-stock-in-car-washes dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

Singularity Hub:

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.

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday November 01 2018, @11:29PM (4 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday November 01 2018, @11:29PM (#756665) Journal

    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.

    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.

    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.

    Nature is not animals. And I think I've noted already that I don't care in the least what nature is incapable of.

    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.

    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.

    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.

    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.

    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.

    I disagree on the "no adverse effects whatsoever". Thus, your whole paragraph was a waste of time to type.

    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.

    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?

    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.

    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)

    by The Shire (5824) on Friday November 02 2018, @01:16AM (#756693)

    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)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday November 03 2018, @02:22AM (#757168) Journal

      You think I'm an idiot and you're the rational guy who's right about this.

      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.

      I think the same of you.

      And?

      We've both expended more energy on this subject than the bird is worth.

      Than the bird is worth to you.

      • (Score: 2) by The Shire on Saturday November 03 2018, @02:09PM (1 child)

        by The Shire (5824) on Saturday November 03 2018, @02:09PM (#757284)

        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

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday November 04 2018, @10:27PM (#757752) Journal
          You could have just wrote that way back when. It's not like nature is going to care.