If I've noticed one thing about the world at large these past few years, it's that reality has been quickly catching up to science fiction. In just a few quick blinks of history's eye, we've gone from whale oil lamps and horse-drawn wagons to invisibility cloaks and body parts grown in Petri dishes. Now comes perhaps the strangest development yet: Extinct species resurrected from the grave.
It's not quite Jurassic Park, but it's certainly a Paleolithic playground: Scientists say they've figured out how to use DNA obtained from wooly mammoth hair to create a real live mastodon.
Suddenly, extinct doesn't mean forever anymore, and all you need to go back to the future is a little elephant DNA and about 10 million bucks. Of course we're a long way from herds of mammoths roaming the North American interior, but we're also a heck of a lot closer than anyone ever dreamed we would possibly be. And this scientific leap raises some intriguing questions.
Are we, for example, about to get a "do-over" on all the terrible extinctions human beings have caused? Maybe. Creatures with feathers or fur or hair, horns, and/or hooves are the best candidates for the process because DNA from these sources is pure enough to work with. Samples can't be more that 60,000 years old, so we won't be seeing T-Rex thunder through the neighborhood any time soon. But we could see flocks of passenger pigeons or Carolina parakeets take wing again. Or live dodo birds. Or Tasmanian tigers. Or any of the hundreds if not thousands of animals that have disappeared, one way or another, at the hand of man. That's a thought that has to thrill environmentalists and others who value Earth's precious biodiversity.
But there's a darker side to this coin. If certain animals can be regenerated with relative ease does that mean we'll become more cavalier with the future of those that still exist and less concerned about protecting the habitats they depend upon? If we can restore the mountain gorilla once all have vanished, will we begin to say it doesn't matter if they do? If we can rescue the black-footed ferret from oblivion on command, will we cease to concern ourselves with preserving the priceless prairie landscape it calls home?
These are important questions. I would hope that as a civilization we would answer them with humility and conscience. Because there is no "bad" science, no evil technology. There is only what we choose to do with it. The finger of blame cannot ever be pointed at the tools we create, only at the decisions we make about how to use them. I hope that we'll be wise enough to use this startling new capability solely to repair the previous tears we've made in the web of life and not as a license to be cavalier. I would hope we find in it a second chance and not a new excuse. And I hope that it might someday give my daughter the chance to see a world that should have been left for her to see in the first place.
