[LINK] "Is resurrecting Neandertals unethical?"

[rfmcdonald]

The question asked by GNXP's Razib Khan is straight-forward and increasingly non-science fictional.

An interview with paleoanthropologist Chris Stringer:

This raises one more question: Could we ever clone these extinct people?

Science is moving on so fast. The first bit of Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA was recovered in 1997. No one then could have believed that 10 years later we might have most of the genome. And a few years after that, we’d have whole Denisovan and Neanderthal genomes available. So no one would have thought cloning was a possibility. Now, at least theoretically, if someone had enough money, and I’d say stupidity, to do it, you could cut and paste those Denisovan mutations into a modern human genome, and then implant that into an egg and then grow a Denisovan.

I think it would be completely unethical to do anything like that, but unfortunately someone with enough money, and vanity and arrogance, might attempt it one day. These creatures lived in the past in their own environments, in their own social groups. Bringing isolated individuals back, for our own curiosity or arrogant purposes, would be completely wrong.

Broadly speaking, the idea of bringing the Neandertals--species or sub-species or population group or whatever--back does appeal to me. It's mainly that I agree the sentiment of a commenter who would appreciate it if our species was resurrected by a successor after our extinction once the successor's technology had advanced to the minimum level necessary, therefore with the Neanderthals ... This, of course, does not begin to effectively tackle the many and profound ethical issues associated with such a project.

Thoughts?