The Debate Club discussion

Scientists are working on bringing extinct species like the dodo bird, wooly mammoth, Tasmanian tiger, and more back from the dead. Is this ethical? How will it affect the modern ecosystem? Is this something scientists should be focusing on?

I mean, getting samples to do so with valid reason seems ethical to me

i have nothing else to say besides the fact that jurassic park shouldve taught us not to mess with this stuff 💀

I don’t know much about this specifically, but i only think we should bring back species that are extinct specifically because of us, like the dodo.

NO ITS NOT
it's entirely possible that bringing these animals back could shift food chains and populations in entirely unprecendented ways
also, i might consider it if these were actually necessary species. bringing back random species is just going to wreak havoc on natural systems.

I'm with you, Sai.

organisms die out for a reason, because there was an imbalance in its habitat . so in most cases, no

there was obviously something wrong w the species in the first place if its gonna die out, so no. like extinction is completely natural and it doesnt just happen for no reason

gia wrote: "there was obviously something wrong w the species in the first place if its gonna die out, so no. like extinction is completely natural and it doesnt just happen for no reason"

Human activities are increasing extinction rates, so its not always natural
https://royalsociety.org/news-resourc...

I'd like to ask, how do you define "natural"? (not directed at a specific member, just asking in general)

gia wrote: "there was obviously something wrong w the species in the first place if its gonna die out, so no. like extinction is completely natural and it doesnt just happen for no reason"

extinction isn't always "natural", i mean technically yes but a lot of times species went extinct because of something extremely abnormal going on, like with the mass extinctions and stuff.

I feel like we should focus more on keeping endangered animals from going extinct than bringing back old ones. There are more than 47,000 species threatened with extinction rn. I don't think it's more important that dodo birds and dire wolves come back than keeping pandas and polar bears alive. (obviously there are way more those were just examples)

https://www.iucnredlist.org/about/bac...

YES DEFINITELY
and also because a lot of species that are currently endangered actually balance huge ecosystems on them, and that makes them even more important. for example, california sea otters are endangered and with a decreasing population, but they are also a keystone species and are disproportionately important to their ecosystem (they eat sea urchins, which eat kelp, which is the basis of the kelp forests that support incredible amounts of marine life and also absorbs co2, so without the otters the sea urchins devour all the kelp forests and the ecosystem crashes down.) this is just one example, but it does prove that every species is a crucial link in their environment that should never be removed or imbalanced.

source: https://defenders.org/wildlife/sea-otter

Sky ~take from you like you took from me~ wrote: "I feel like we should focus more on keeping endangered animals from going extinct than bringing back old ones. There are more than 47,000 species threatened with extinction rn. I don't think it's m..."

Definitely

the topic of resurrecting extinct species, such as the dodo bird, woolly mammoth, and tasmanian tiger, raises significant ethical questions. proponents argue that de-extinction could help restore ecosystems disrupted by human activity and could have educational value. however, opponents worry about unintended ecological consequences and the moral implications of playing god with nature (source: https://static1.squarespace.com/stati...).

one major concern is how these reintroduced species would interact with current ecosystems. ecosystems are dynamic and have evolved since the extinction of these species. bringing them back could disrupt existing species and habitats, potentially leading to unforeseen ecological imbalances (source: https://vjel.vermontlaw.edu/ecoperspe...).

scientists also face challenges related to the motivations behind de-extinction. some argue that resources might be better spent on conserving endangered species and habitats that currently exist, rather than reviving species that cannot fill their original ecological roles (source: https://blog.spcollege.edu/public-saf...).

therefore, while the idea of bringing extinct species back is fascinating and might have potential benefits, it is crucial to consider the long-term effects on ecosystems and prioritize current biodiversity conservation efforts.

1 million species could go extinct by 2050. Other sources say 50% of all animal and plant species could go extinct in the near future. We should be focusing ALL of our energy on conserving these species, instead of trying to bring back animals (and plants) that went extinct naturally (like the wooly mammoth), or went extinct centuries ago (like the dodo). Bringing these species back could damage ecosystems, outcompete native organisms and more. In my opinion, bringing these organisms back has a much, much smaller benefit than conserving organisms that haven't gone extinct yet.

https://www.cisl.cam.ac.uk/resources/...

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/cont...

This is a cool (?) website i found about extinct/endangered species:
https://www.whatismissing.org/explore...

EXACTLY
don't spend time and energy bringing back useless species. instead, spend that time and energy protecting the ones that are still here.

Sai :) wrote: "EXACTLY
don't spend time and energy bringing back useless species. instead, spend that time and energy protecting the ones that are still here."

100%

Please correct me if I get this wrong, but I was under the impression that "de-extinction" in a literal sense simply cannot be done, Backbreeding, yes, to an extent. But as far as I'm aware, you cannot reverse thousands of years of biological change. You can use DNA samples to create animals with features of the extinct animal, but you cannot recreate a species that has died out or evolved out of existence. Again, I may be wrong, so please don't hesitate to tell me if I am.

I think we do have tissue samples of mammoths and other extinct animals, so you could use that to clone the animals, but i'm not sure how scientists would get a population of genetically diverse animals.

I'm not entirely sure but I thought that scientists don't have the full amount of DNA or whatever needed to fully clone extinct animals. I think they have part of it so then they substitute other DNA from another animal to clone the extinct species. But since there's DNA from another animal that means the clone isn't entirely that species.

Hazel wrote: "I think we do have tissue samples of mammoths and other extinct animals, so you could use that to clone the animals, but i'm not sure how scientists would get a population of genetically diverse an..."

you won't get genetically diverse animals 😭

Sai :) wrote: "Hazel wrote: "I think we do have tissue samples of mammoths and other extinct animals, so you could use that to clone the animals, but i'm not sure how scientists would get a population of genetica..."

Huh?

mb i forgot the "get" lol

Ohh ok.

Sydney, that's my understanding, too. Also, extinction of species is often a result of natural selection. If the environment changes, some species can't adapt.

Scout wrote: "Sydney, that's my understanding, too. Also, extinction of species is often a result of natural selection. If the environment changes, some species can't adapt."

that's true. mass extinctions are caused by environment changes that are too drastic or too fast (or both) to let species adapt in time. like the meteor that ended the mesozoic era, or arguably modern times. statistics show we are headed for a sixth mass extinction--- no this is not a hoax, more and more species are being extinct everyday and we're slowly creeping up to meet the mass extinction crieria.

https://www.worldwildlife.org/resourc...
please read the whole article, there are so many important details and statistics i can't quote them all

i want to say no i really really want to say no but honestly i don't know enough about this to speak on it, and also i was so obsessed with dinosaurs as a kid, i wanted a pet maiasaura so bad and i cried the day i learned they were extinct you guys dont understand how happy my four year old self would be