Should Homo sapiens Restore Homo neanderthalensis?

[Neu Mitanni]

The dolphin thread mentions Neanderthal Man in the context of personhood for dolphins. Interestingly enough, the actual and potential future personhood of Neanderthals themselves is under discussion:

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/02/ ... latestnews

As scientists come closer to completing a draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome, creating a living person from an ancient DNA sequence is becoming a real possibility, according to Archaeology Magazine.

In 2005, 454 Life Sciences began a project with the Max Planck Institute to sequence the genetic code of a 30,000 year old Neanderthal woman. Now nearly complete, the sequence will let scientists look at the genetic blueprint of humankind's nearest relative, understand its biology and maybe even create a living person.

citing this publication:

http://www.archaeology.org/1003/etc/neanderthals.html


So, it appears that it will soon be possible to restore Neanderthal Man. Should we do so?

I don’t have a firm opinion on the issue. I can see pros and cons on either side. I would probably tend to favor doing so, if for no other reason than if future scientists 30,000 years from now revived me, I’d probably be glad they did. Although if they revived me in a world in which I’d be a newly-made slave or, worse, a newly-made Eloi, I wouldn’t be so glad.

Your thoughts?

[Lackadaisical2]

We should make one, then fuck it to see if we can interbreed.

[New Chalcedon]

The dolphin thread mentions Neanderthal Man in the context of personhood for dolphins. Interestingly enough, the actual and potential future personhood of Neanderthals themselves is under discussion:

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/02/ ... latestnews

As scientists come closer to completing a draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome, creating a living person from an ancient DNA sequence is becoming a real possibility, according to Archaeology Magazine.

In 2005, 454 Life Sciences began a project with the Max Planck Institute to sequence the genetic code of a 30,000 year old Neanderthal woman. Now nearly complete, the sequence will let scientists look at the genetic blueprint of humankind's nearest relative, understand its biology and maybe even create a living person.

citing this publication:

http://www.archaeology.org/1003/etc/neanderthals.html


So, it appears that it will soon be possible to restore Neanderthal Man. Should we do so?

I don’t have a firm opinion on the issue. I can see pros and cons on either side. I would probably tend to favor doing so, if for no other reason than if future scientists 30,000 years from now revived me, I’d probably be glad they did. Although if they revived me in a world in which I’d be a newly-made slave or, worse, a newly-made Eloi, I wouldn’t be so glad.

Your thoughts?

NM, I don't think that they're actually planning to revive individual neanderthals, from reading that, but to re-create the subspecies of humanity called homo neanderthalis from their closes living descendants.

I, for one, don't believe that it's necessarily a good idea. Time only flows in one direction, and homo sap. survived because we would adapt better to the world around us than homo n. would.

Just my $0.02 worth.

[Northern Emirates]

This would be acceptable if we could prove one way or another whether they were sentient or not.

[Dyakovo]

we should not be playing god.

Why not? No-one else is.

[Neu Mitanni]

The dolphin thread mentions Neanderthal Man in the context of personhood for dolphins. Interestingly enough, the actual and potential future personhood of Neanderthals themselves is under discussion:

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/02/ ... latestnews

As scientists come closer to completing a draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome, creating a living person from an ancient DNA sequence is becoming a real possibility, according to Archaeology Magazine.

In 2005, 454 Life Sciences began a project with the Max Planck Institute to sequence the genetic code of a 30,000 year old Neanderthal woman. Now nearly complete, the sequence will let scientists look at the genetic blueprint of humankind's nearest relative, understand its biology and maybe even create a living person.

citing this publication:

http://www.archaeology.org/1003/etc/neanderthals.html


So, it appears that it will soon be possible to restore Neanderthal Man. Should we do so?

I don’t have a firm opinion on the issue. I can see pros and cons on either side. I would probably tend to favor doing so, if for no other reason than if future scientists 30,000 years from now revived me, I’d probably be glad they did. Although if they revived me in a world in which I’d be a newly-made slave or, worse, a newly-made Eloi, I wouldn’t be so glad.

Your thoughts?

NM, I don't think that they're actually planning to revive individual neanderthals, from reading that, but to re-create the subspecies of humanity called homo neanderthalis from their closes living descendants.

I, for one, don't believe that it's necessarily a good idea. Time only flows in one direction, and homo sap. survived because we would adapt better to the world around us than homo n. would.

Just my $0.02 worth.

You're right about their not planning to revive specific individuals. That's probably far beyond anything science can accomplish in the foreseeable future. I just used that as a handy example of why I might be for the proposed effort.

But as for the reasons why H. sap survived and H. neander didn't, what if Neanderthal Man died out because our ancestors deliberately wiped them out? Would it then be a good thing if we tried to make up for the actions of our ancestors?

[Sionis Prioratus]

Neanderthals died out for a reason. We should not tamper with the natural course of human evolution.

And what if the reason was it if they were the first victims of a genocide perpretated by humans? And a pretty massive one at that, in that not a race was exterminated, but an entire species.

(OOC: Did anybody else read Olson Scott Card? "Xenocide"?)

[Techno-Soviet]

We should re-create the Neanderthals and put them in huge death arenas, arming them with chainsaws and cybernetic limbs; and having them fight to the death for our amusement in massive gladiatorial matches involving white rhinos and Carthaginian-style war elephants, except we'd have men with rifles instead of bows on top of the elephants.

[The Romulan Republic]

So, it appears that it will soon be possible to restore Neanderthal Man. Should we do so?

I don’t have a firm opinion on the issue. I can see pros and cons on either side. I would probably tend to favor doing so, if for no other reason than if future scientists 30,000 years from now revived me, I’d probably be glad they did. Although if they revived me in a world in which I’d be a newly-made slave or, worse, a newly-made Eloi, I wouldn’t be so glad.

Your thoughts?

We should do so only if we are prepared, in doing so, to grant that Neanderthal all the rights and benefits of humanity.

This is going to be, I think, the big civil rights issue of the next half-century: do we grant intelligent non-humans human rights? Note that we may have some legal precedent in the Spanish decision about a year back to grant apes certain rights. I'll see if I can find a source for that, though I remember it quite distinctly.

We should make one, then fuck it to see if we can interbreed.

Only if they consent (and are established as mentally developed enough to be legally able to give consent).

[Dyakovo]

But as for the reasons why H. sap survived and H. neander didn't, what if Neanderthal Man died out because our ancestors deliberately wiped them out? Would it then be a good thing if we tried to make up for the actions of our ancestors?

Yes and no. Yes for the "making up for it bit" no for the simple reason that the world is already overpopulated.

[Satirius]

It'd be an interesting experiment in sociology. If we created a Neanderthal reservation, who knows what we could find about the formation of culture?

[Cennazluga]

This is a great idea. Geico can now use real cave men in their commercials.

[New Chalcedon]

Actually, Altamirus, that wasn't my point. Given all the times Humanity has plyed the role of God (sometimes successfully, others less so), opposing the idea on that ground is silly, IMO.

I was simply noting the lack of a point.

[The Romulan Republic]

It'd be an interesting experiment in sociology. If we created a Neanderthal reservation, who knows what we could find about the formation of culture?

Again, throwing them out into the woods and observing them would be inhumane. If we cloned a Neanderthal, I would expect it to be given full rights as a human, which includes the right to shelter, medical care, education, etc.

[Katganistan]

The dolphin thread mentions Neanderthal Man in the context of personhood for dolphins. Interestingly enough, the actual and potential future personhood of Neanderthals themselves is under discussion:

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/02/ ... latestnews

As scientists come closer to completing a draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome, creating a living person from an ancient DNA sequence is becoming a real possibility, according to Archaeology Magazine.

In 2005, 454 Life Sciences began a project with the Max Planck Institute to sequence the genetic code of a 30,000 year old Neanderthal woman. Now nearly complete, the sequence will let scientists look at the genetic blueprint of humankind's nearest relative, understand its biology and maybe even create a living person.

citing this publication:

http://www.archaeology.org/1003/etc/neanderthals.html


So, it appears that it will soon be possible to restore Neanderthal Man. Should we do so?

I don’t have a firm opinion on the issue. I can see pros and cons on either side. I would probably tend to favor doing so, if for no other reason than if future scientists 30,000 years from now revived me, I’d probably be glad they did. Although if they revived me in a world in which I’d be a newly-made slave or, worse, a newly-made Eloi, I wouldn’t be so glad.

Your thoughts?

I think that we should leave well enough alone. It opens a big fat ethical can of worms.
Are they property, since they are created in a lab?
Are they people?
How will they fit into the modern world?

I think that bringing back a human ancestor would be an amazingly bad idea.

[Gauthier]

The idea would backfire of course the moment Neanderthals started converting to Islam.

[My 3rd Floor Flat]

As a scientist i'd say that it has great potential to study a near relative of ourselves which is similar to a less adapted version of ourselveves and thus is very tempting. Overall it's a bad idea however.

Bringing back the species to sustainable levels? No, absoloutly not, evolution and extinction happens for a reason and the neanderthals went extinct naturally, they should not be brought back. Maybe bringing back one or two individuals to observe, maybe, it ties in with moralistic objections.

Over all i'd tolerate maybe a small sterile group being engineered and being cared for and given freedom but not bringing back a whole species.

[UNIverseVERSE]

No.

The main reason to do so, that I can see, is to investigate how they lived. However, the world has changed so much that it's impossible for us to get uncontaminated information on that.

On the negative side, they would almost certainly be mistreated in some way by the rest of humanity. So it's creating sentient beings, for no good reason, and with a strong probability that they would be mistreated in the name of 'science' or because they're 'inferior'.

[The Walden Estates]

Fucking, Jurassic Park.

[Grave_n_idle]

The dolphin thread mentions Neanderthal Man in the context of personhood for dolphins. Interestingly enough, the actual and potential future personhood of Neanderthals themselves is under discussion:

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/02/ ... latestnews

As scientists come closer to completing a draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome, creating a living person from an ancient DNA sequence is becoming a real possibility, according to Archaeology Magazine.

In 2005, 454 Life Sciences began a project with the Max Planck Institute to sequence the genetic code of a 30,000 year old Neanderthal woman. Now nearly complete, the sequence will let scientists look at the genetic blueprint of humankind's nearest relative, understand its biology and maybe even create a living person.

citing this publication:

http://www.archaeology.org/1003/etc/neanderthals.html


So, it appears that it will soon be possible to restore Neanderthal Man. Should we do so?

I don’t have a firm opinion on the issue. I can see pros and cons on either side. I would probably tend to favor doing so, if for no other reason than if future scientists 30,000 years from now revived me, I’d probably be glad they did. Although if they revived me in a world in which I’d be a newly-made slave or, worse, a newly-made Eloi, I wouldn’t be so glad.

Your thoughts?

From a purely scientific point of view, it could be fascinating... although the specifics of the program would be important.

The question gets a little thorny, specifically, over how we are going to interact with them - obviously, the first 'neanderthals' we genetically mapped would lack parents or other social influences of their own 'kind' - so do we raise them among 'human' families, or in isolation? Either path is problematic.

The latter option, perhaps, especially so - because we are aware of how important interaction is to our own specific 'kind' , and we run the risk of creating a deliberate 'feral children' program.

[Lacadaemon]

The idea would backfire of course the moment Neanderthals started converting to Islam.

It would make sense though since they both belong to the stone age.

[Grave_n_idle]

As a scientist i'd say that it has great potential to study a near relative of ourselves which is similar to a less adapted version of ourselveves and thus is very tempting. Overall it's a bad idea however.

Bringing back the species to sustainable levels? No, absoloutly not, evolution and extinction happens for a reason and the neanderthals went extinct naturally, they should not be brought back. Maybe bringing back one or two individuals to observe, maybe, it ties in with moralistic objections.

Over all i'd tolerate maybe a small sterile group being engineered and being cared for and given freedom but not bringing back a whole species.

I find it hard to reconcile your claims to being a scientist, with the claim: "evolution and extinction happens for a reason and the neanderthals went extinct naturally".

[The Walden Estates]

The idea would backfire of course the moment Neanderthals started converting to Islam.

It would make sense though since they both belong to the stone age.

Wow... that was a low blow, and extremely offensive at the same time.

[Gauthier]

The idea would backfire of course the moment Neanderthals started converting to Islam.

It would make sense though since they both belong to the stone age.

Wow... that was a low blow, and extremely offensive at the same time.

Islam Baiting is the Number 1 Sport on NSG.

[Techno-Soviet]

The idea would backfire of course the moment Neanderthals started converting to Islam.

It would make sense though since they both belong to the stone age.

Wow... that was a low blow, and extremely offensive at the same time.

Yet, it was so true.