Is De Extinction Worth Pursuing

Once humans migrated to North America and Australia, they killed or ate large animals, potentially wiping out entire species. Desertification, deforestation, erosion, and soil salinization were all human measures to build more cities. Changes in climate and diseases brought by domesticated animals were also linked to the extinction of large animals from Eurasia. The Pleistocene re-wilding of North America has two aspects: restoring past potential and preventing new extinctions with more protected populations. C. Josh Donlan from “Restoring America’s Big, Wild Animals” argues that although species such as camels, lions, and mammoths that disappeared 13,000 years ago cannot be brought back in the same form, restoring close relatives is a possibility and can potentially economically and culturally benefit ecosystems. Donlan then proceeds to explain the importance of large animals, his strategy, and challenges of reintroducing large creatures. On the other hand, Dustin R. Rubenstein, Daniel I. Rubenstein, Paul W. Sherman, and Thomas A. Gavin from “Pleistocene Park: Does Re-Wilding North America Represent Sound Conservation for the 21st Century?” assert that humans should focus on preventing the extinction of new animals since bringing back vanished species is improbable. In fact, restoring North America to its pre-human state may be detrimental to current species and ecosystems.

De-extinction offers the possibility for extinct species to be brought back to life by reproductive cloning. Critics argue that de-extinction will reduce the will of society to protect endangered species, as well as harm the existing ecosystem upon species’ reintroduction. However, supporters argue that many species would be great candidates for de-extinction and will possibly be beneficial to the ecosystem. I will argue that de-extinction should not be pursued. I will argue that reintroduction of unextinct species could cause humanity to become disinterested in protecting endangered species due to the loss of finality of extinction. Furthermore, re-introduction of extinct species into ecosystems would negatively shift the balance, and may cause endangerment and potential extinction of otherwise unharmed populations.

De-extinction, the revival of extinct species through cloning, has reasons for and against it. However, the Point argument supporting it was better because it explained how reviving these species would not only be beneficial in that area of studies, but in science and the world as a whole. There are many reasons stated for this, including the repairing of Earth and the expansion of human knowledge and capabilities.

According to Stanford Researchers there are five key benefits that would arise from de-extinction. This includes scientific knowledge, technological advancement, environmental benefits, justice, and wonder. Scientific knowledge refers to the fact that de-extinction could offer insight into the evolution of species. Technological advancement would occur meaning it would be a huge step forward for genetic engineering. The environmental benefits include the facts that de-extinction could restore and fix threatened or damaged ecosystems. Many people also fell that we owe these animals justice since humans are the reason a vast majority of these animals have gone extinct in the first place. Finally, many would wonder what it would be like to see a species that was previously extinct (Discover

George Church, the lead researcher working to de-extinction of the mammoth at Harvard, says that bringing back the mammoths could help convert the Arctic tundra back to the grasslands that existed during the last ice age. Reviving the mammoth could help slow climate change by shifting the landscape back toward the grasslands. This is the case for many other animals, with another example being the passenger pigeon, whose extinction was man made. After its species termination it caused forest fires and many other calamities. Bringing back this this animals and many more can help restore parts of the earth’s environment.

There are many different thoughts on if scientist should de-extinct dinosaurs. Many people think we should not and that is the most agreeable side. People need to think about how they became extinct in the first place, it is because of humans. Now all of the sudden scientist want to bring them back.

In topics of scientific research, pros, in many ways, can provide reasoning to outweigh the cons. De-extinction does this in certainty of different environmental and health benefits.

De-extinction, or resurrection biology, or species revivalism is the process of creating an organism, which is either a member of, or resembles an extinct species, or breeding population of such organisms. Carl Zimmer is a popular science writer and blogger who has specialized in the topics of evolution and parasites. In Carl Zimmers’ article he writes about “the history of life for a living” and longs to go back in time. When writing this he gives the readers a suggested time frame dating back to 520 million years ago. In his Ted Talk as well he elaborates on the different eras and explain what each one entails. Traveling back in time would be amazing, there would be so many new life to experience. About 100 million years ago Dinosaurs and Woolly Mammoths roamed the earth.

In 2003 the Pyrenean Ibex, an extinct subspecies, was successfully cloned and brought back to life albeit only for a few minutes (Zimmer, 2015.) Thus bringing the idea of cloning extinct species itself to life. Newton (2015) shows that in animals cloning is achieved by transplanting the nucleus of one animal into an enucleated egg cell of another. Cloning has become more precise and increasingly common in our rapidly progressing society (Newton, 2015) however from this a debate as to whether these technologies should be used to clone and bring back extinct animals has arisen. A central reason as to why this causes such a large debate is due to the apparent defiance of nature that is occurring (Zimmer, 2015.) There are many arguments

For thousands of years, humans have been some sort of virus to Earth, destroying habitats, and causing millions of different species to go extinct, for example, the dodo. After all of the destruction we caused, scientists have found a way to reverse it, to a certain extent. The fantasy of bringing back extinct species is now a reality. There have been cases of scientists successfully bringing back an extinct species. Cloning for de-extinction should be widely accepted, scientist proper tools, good reasons, and they have already cloned a few species.

Species revival does come with beneficial factors, giving reasons for why it is possible. However, with various types of research, there are causes that result in debate and hesitance to furthering development of the idea. This is very common in the debate of pursuing de-extinction for different points. First, a major question returns of “ where do we put them—what changed in their original habitat that may have contributed to their extinction in the first place?” (Text 3 Lines 25-27) There were specific aspects in habitats that contributed to the loss of species. Thus, in question comes of how extinction is preventable prior to the research made of how to resolve this. What this argument overlooks is the improvement to habitats that are additional to de-extinction.

In the late 1700’s, French naturalist Georges Cuvier proposed a preposterous hypothesis: some species had not only become exceedingly rare, but had in fact died off entirely, a claim that contradicted scientists and churches across the world. Since Cuvier’s bold conjecture, scientists have coined the term “extinction” to describe this ongoing action, and now deem the process completely natural. As knowledge of paleontology and geology expanded, other researchers uncovered further details and amassed a colossal amount of information pertaining to extinction, including evidence revealing five biological catastrophes known as the “Big Five” mass extinctions. The disappearance of 50 to 75% of all species on earth characterize these types of events.

As humans, we are naturally inclined to wonder as to what life on earlier Earth once entailed. Whether it is by pondering: fossils, skeletons, or our own imaginings we have an innate curiosity to uncover the secrets of our prehistoric ancestors. It is therefore no surprise that there is an imminent buzz surrounding the cutting edge idea, that is de-extinction.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to walk with dinosaurs again? Well that could be more near than you think. De-extinction is the process of bringing back extinct species, such as the mammoth and the carrier pigeon. The articles “Should We Bring Back Extinct Species” by Joseph Bennett, “Last of His Kind”, and “We Might Soon Resurrect Extinct Species. Is it Worth The Cost?” by Steph Yin all explore the ideas of de-extinction. Scientist should not be permitted to bring back extinct species because de-extinction is too expensive and it could harm the ecosystem.

In the Americas, many mammals and their commensals were lost in the end of the Pleistocene epoch, about 13,000 years ago (Martin 2005) and with them, many ecosystem processes and services were lost. The Pleistocene rewilding intends to bring back the biodiversity that vanished 13,000 years ago, reinstituting ecological and evolutionary processes that were transformed or eliminated by megafaunal extinctions (Donlan et al. 2006). Pleistocene rewilders also advocate this conservation strategy based on aesthetic and ethical grounds; they argue that