Do you think cloning can help save various species?

[archman]

I think we should clone celebrities.

 

[fabasard]

Ditto Shakybrainsurgeon. Cloning, while a good thing, does not solve the problem that drove the spiecies to extinction in the first place. Until man learsn to police his act, IE no dumping in the waters, cloning is irrelavent.

 

[ThatsSomeBadHatHarry]

who's first? we could always use another Christopher Walken.

 

[archman]

I was thinking more along the lines of cloning dead celebrities. John Wayne, Cary Grant, Picasso...

 

[noonoon]

I don't think anytime soon in the future that would be a solution for our depleting marine environment but EDUCATION and a serious amount of CONSERVATION would.

 

[IceIce]

Environmentalists have a schizophrenic view of humanity's role in all of this: we are either a) just another animal, with no special place in the biosphere, or 2) stewards of the earth. I believe the former, we are just another species. As such, we have a right --- in fact an obligation --- to promote our own welfare even to the detriment of other species because that's the way nature has worked for billions of years. If our presence makes hundreds of mammal or fish species extinct, then they deserve to go extinct, period. (or something like that).

The difference between human and animal, human have more intelligent and more emotions. Because of these two things we have more, we are capable of destroying and consume the other mammals. As the civilization getting more and more modern, the capacity, we consume more than the nature can grow.
The ecosystem becomes imbalance, and species start to extinct.

Imho, we should use these two things to help to recover the damage we make. Anyway, it ends up as our own good. We are not standing up watching something dies, but trying to help it recover, especially when we contribute to the damage.
That's what makes us different.

P.S : I'm not pro cloning, actually, I haven't give it a thought.
Maybe I could just vote to save the environment by being less destructive, which is something very relative.

 

[shakeybrainsurgeon]

To get back to the original question, we can conclude that cloning, at least with present technology, cannot save a species because:

a) cloning does not cure the original cause of extinction
b) cloned animals are generally less robust
c) many animals can't be cloned, not yet anyway
d) as DrBill and Harry have noted, cloning yields a genetic bottleneck which, though not insurmountable, is generally bad

However, some form of preservation of endangered species, e.g., sequencing of the genome, cryopreservation of germ cells and DNA, may be more feasible in preparation for future advances.

As for environmentalism, there is nothing wrong with preserving a pleasing environment for us and sustaining those species that are valuable to us or at least pose no threat to us. I still question the wisdom and practicality of humans taking on the role as guardian of every species that might possibly go extinct "on our watch". And I also question if we really are intelligent enough to prevent our own destruction.

But, whatever happens to us, the biosphere will survive.

 

[theskull]

I think we should clone celebrities.

Let's start with a herd of Jessica Alba!

theskull

 

[pterantula]

No, I say **** the humans; no other animal indiscriminately kills anything it can - especially as a collateral consequence, as we humans seem to love to do - without making use of the kill in some way. We kill just to kill. Let nature take some back. (Humans breed far too much, too often. I mean it. Ours is not a competition with the environment for survival anymore, and further viral infestations of humans brings the quality of ALL life, everywhere, down.)

I wonder if you attitude would be the same if it were you son/daughter, brother/sister or mother/father was one of the people killed?

The predictable response, to which I reply: I have no children, bringing them into this current cesspool of a world is incredibly cruel and selfish, and my family members know how to take care of themselves pretty well. We are organic beings (read, "talking meat"), and as such everyone eventually dies. We can mourn the absence but in the universal scheme it means nothing.

Individual humans are inconsequential - and it is against this fundamental horror which people rebel with all their strength, so that they might come to actually believe they "matter" in some objective manner. "Meaning" and "value" are entirely relative.

Don't mean to be a downer, just MHO. (=proof of relativity?...)

Sorry for the digression. End of rant.

 

[archman]

But, whatever happens to us, the biosphere will survive.

Oh lordy, that's one way to get kicked out of an ecologists' symposium!