Neanderthal cloning

[gfish]

Just saw a neat link talking about Neanderthal cloning. And I know this is my neophile, technocratic side talking, but my only response to the idea is an immediate "do it do it do it!"

Caveats: Assuming we have figured out the cloning of large mammals and have worked our way up through chimps with a high confidence of success. Obviously making deformed babies that die within hours of birth is bad. But that's just a technical problem which will be fixed eventually. At that point... why not? I really don't find the other arguments persuasive. The kids won't fit in? That was the argument a justice of the peace in Louisiana used last month to deny a marriage permit to an interracial couple! The fact that we won't learn about native Neanderthal culture is both stunningly obvious and irrelevant. There is still so much we could learn about their capabilities. Really, the suggestion that we clone a bunch and put them in a little paleolithic enclave is the most revolting "solution" in the article. What an ugly idea, forcing sentients to live a squalid life under the excuse of keeping them "natural".

Comments

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

Creating people for science? That isn't too much better than killing them for science. It's stunningly unethical.

[ilmarinen.livejournal.com]

Ah, but realize Fish (at least at one time) has always wanted to create sentients for science! (AIs, which, if truly sentient, would be a similar moral issue, perhaps.)

The idea of recreating an extinct species? Think that's pretty cool. Admit, a person is a touchy issue. I think the current IP-law around genetics of all kind is all kinds of wrong, and until we can fix that, creating new people through that science is probably a bad idea.

-B.

[gfish.livejournal.com]

Well, one, we don't know if they're people or not. The very act of performing this experiment would almost certainly change the very definition of "people", probably making it far more expansive and helping us include at least the other chimps.

And two... if raised in a loving environment, who cares why the kid was made? People make babies for all kinds of crazy reasons.