bringing back extinct animals?

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Ancestors or descendants?

ruveyn

Nope, not descendants. Ancestors. You have to take members of the two species that have produced the extinct species in the past and bring them together in conditions similar to those in which the extinct species was born in the past. In this way, the extinct species could possibly be obtained after several generations.

You have specified a condition virtually impossible to achieve, to wit, "conditions similar to those in which the extinct species was born in the past". There is no way we can do this. What you are saying is that if we could turn back the clock we would have the past. That is a counterfactual definite impossible to accomplish.

ruveyn

Well, if the ancestors are also extinct, then yes, it is impossible.

The problem is the ratios of the gases in the atmosphere, along with atmospheric density, relative humidity, temperature, and other environmental factors that have changed substantially in the past 65+ million years. Any recreated dinos would have to be kept in specially built environments, much as deep sea creatures brought up to be put on display in zoos have to be kept in pressurized tanks.

Agreed, though there is an important distinction to be made between what science learns to do and what the commercial sector exploits that knowledge for.

There is another matter to bear in mind when bringing back extinct species. Even if we can find intact, complete DNA to work with, the host species that gives birth to it will not be the same as the mother of that species. In the case of Neanderthals, for instance, we do not have a host Neaderthal female to carry a Neaderthal pregnancy. Since the interuterine environment plays a variety of important roles in the development of a fetus, the resulting "recreation" would probably not be an exact duplicate of the original.

I sort of seethe point that you are trying to make, but I'm still a little unclear.In what specific ways has the environment changed. I know that the Earth now is cooler than it was during the Mesozoic, but other than that I don't know much about the Earth's climate history. Also I don't think that the pressure change in 65+ million years is nearly as much as the pressure change from deep sea to surface.

There was much less oxygen in the atmosphere than today in the Mesozoic. I'm sure there were other differences too.

To math girl:

Huh?
What are you talking about?

"the two species that produced the extinct species"

Evolution doesnt work that way.

One species gradualy spawns offshoots, some of which may become destinct species.

There is no hybridization involved in speciazation.

The family tree branches apart- not together.
If a species is extinct- its ancestors would also be extinct. And the ancestor's dna would be even harder to obtain.

They need to bring the dodo bird back. It would make one hell of a pet!

If there's profit in it then its inevitable!

Not necessarily.

There would be plenty of profit in turning base metals into gold. So European Alchemist tried to do that for two thousand years. They never succeeded.

There would be a great profit in creating a perpetual motion machine. Victorian scientist tried to creat that -but never succeeded.

Chinese alchemists tried to creat the elixer of eternal life. They failed, but ironically they did stumble upon a profitable byproduct- gun powder- an invention which has shorten the lives of millions since its discovery!

So reviving extinct species is not inevitable just because it might be profitable. It has to possible first. The jury is still out if its possible.

I think it might be possible for some creatures: insects trapped in Amber, and for certain larger animals of recent vintage ( like the dodo and the thylacine). But even those examples may not be feasible much less profitable. I agree that dinos are unlikely to be ever revived.

I think you misunderstood the point. The poster who said this specifically pointed out that IF science could do it .... then they would if there was a profit in it.



You're limiting your thinking too much. History consistently shows that predictions made about the future fall short of the reality. That is, the reality is always more fantastic than anyone dreamed.

As long as reviving dinosaurs doesn't violate some fundamental law of the universe, then I would be hesitant to say it will never be done.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrenean_Ibex

Apparantly it has been done this year, but the species went back to extinction.

to stone man

The poster was vague.
She said "it will happen as the technology becomes available"- Not "if"- nor
did she say "when".
But by saying "as" she was clearly implying that it was inevitable.

Obviously jurrasic park might become real in a 100 years. Never say never.
But scientists today consider recreating the genome of single dinosaur gigantically impossible.
. Bringing back a whole jurassic eco-system would be a billion fold impossible
It would make sending a human to alpha cenauri look like child's play.



But- scientist do talk about the possibilty of cloneing animals that went extinct
in the last 200 years-due to mankind's own depredations- like the dodo and
the ivory billed woodpecker.

So - lets confine this to what scientists speculate might actually happen in our lifetimes.

It didnt profit anyone to rescue the Dodo when it was alive- so why would
it be profitable to bring it back by cloning?

They spend the taxpayers money to save the California Condor from extinction.
They would have to spend even more if the species became extinct and had to
be brought back by cloning.
So the kind of cloning scientists actually talk about as being possible- are species that would not be very profitable to clone. The projects would be pure philanthropy.

On the other hand...

they did recently find that Wooly mamoth cub frozen in ice in Siberia-fur and all. They could clone it. Plant in the womb of a modern Indian Elephant- and- maybe you could start a subartic alaskan tourist theme park and charge admission to see the llive mammoths walking about. You could call it " Pliestocen Park".

Maybe you could get DNA from those saber toothed tiger bones in the LaBrae tar pits and work up to restocking the park with other extenct iceage mega fauna.
mammoths died out around 12000 years ago- so they would be 100 times harder to recreat than the passenger pigeon that went extinct in 19th centurey.

But they would be ten thousand times easier to clone than the dinosaurs that died out 100 million years ago.

Get in on the ground floor right now!

Buy shares of stock in my Pliestocene Park Corporation right now!

I advertising Pleistocene Park spamming? I think it is.

Anyway, it would make more sense to clone animals that we know went extinct because of humans. A lot of animals have gone extinct. The question is which ones went extinct naturally and which went extinct unnaturally. As for saber toothed cats and mammoths, I think sabertoothed cats went extinct right before the ice age due to climate change, while mammoths went extinct at the end of the ice age because of climate change. I'm fairly sure that neither of them died out because of humans. If extinct species are going to be brought back, it should be the species that are no longer with us because of human destruction.

I agree. That if we actually tried to bring back extinct species it should be ones that we -human race- caused to go extiinct- for a number of reasons -both philosophical and practical.

In short- it would be easier to clone a dodo ( from the dna in a museum speciman) then it would be to clone a smilodon, terasaur, or trilobite. And it would be easier to raise it to maturity and creat a whole breeding population etc etc.

We already invest in saving the California Condor- just this side of extinct. So clonning programs if they actually happened would be something like that- non profit ventures.

Most likely bringing back an extinct animal would have to be a kind of expensive icing-on- the cake of restoring the ecosystem of some natural habitat.

For example - if you resotored first growth forests to the wetlands of Arkansas- then-and only thne would you able to support a sustaining population of ivory billed woodpeckers. So reintroducing Ivery billed woodpeckers might be atempted after the ecosystem was already resorted and protected.