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

[grinninfoole.livejournal.com]

"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! "

That judge was wrong in that case, because the people involved were all of the same species. Neanderthals are a different species. We really don't know how they think, or how well they will adapt to living amongst us. They did go extinct, and we don't know why. What if the reasons stem from a mentality that can't handle our languages?

What might happen, if we did this, is that these new, non-human people might be enough like us to be able to sort of live amongst us, but not enough like us actually fit in. They might be just different enough to trigger an uncanny valley effect. Imagine having to live that life!

[gfish.livejournal.com]

Oh, they'd probably be stunningly ugly by modern human standards. They're literally troglodytes, after all. But I'm really not sure that's a reason not to make them. The people who raised them would certainly love them. We'd probably want to make enough to provide breeding opportunities for them. I think that's the only substantial moral quandary to be faced -- creating just one would be implicitly denying them the basic human right of finding a mate. Not being thought ugly by the majority culture just doesn't rank on the same level to me.

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

This (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ugly_Little_Boy) is what I immediately thought of.

[gfish.livejournal.com]

Hee, yes! I couldn't remember the name of it. Great story.

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

Weirdly, I was just talking to someone about it yesterday.