Should We Revive Extinct Species? (washingtonpost.com) 203
An anonymous reader writes:
The last male northern white rhinoceros died just last week, and a total of just 29,000 rhinoceroses now remain on earth. But National Geographic reports that "the genetic material of several northern white rhinos has been stored away," and scientists hope to give birth to another using in vitro fertilization -- or to breed a hybrid using a genetically similar southern white rhino.
Meanwhile, a postdoctoral fellow in ecology and evolutionary biology reports that scientists are seriously considering the possibility of "de-extincting" the Carolina parakeet, America's only native parrot, which became extinct 100 years ago. Thanks to the data I compiled as well as cutting-edge machine learning approaches to analyze those data, my colleagues and I were able to reconstruct the Carolina parakeets' likely range and climate niche, [which] turned out to be much smaller than previously believed... While this may seem rather minor, some scientists consider the Carolina parakeet one of the top candidates for 'de-extinction', a process in which DNA is harvested from specimens and used to "resurrect" extinct species... If someone were to spend millions of dollars doing all of the genetic and breeding work to bring back this species, or any other, how will they figure out where to release these birds...? Whether or not de-extinction is a worthwhile use of conservation effort and money is another question, best answered by someone other than me. But this is just an example of one potential use of this type of research. "
It seems like all kinds of havoc could ensue if we released a resurrected species back into the modern ecosystem. And yet Harvard researchers are already working to breed a new creature that's half-elephant, half Wooly Mammoth.
What do Slashdot's readers think? Should we revive extinct species?
Meanwhile, a postdoctoral fellow in ecology and evolutionary biology reports that scientists are seriously considering the possibility of "de-extincting" the Carolina parakeet, America's only native parrot, which became extinct 100 years ago. Thanks to the data I compiled as well as cutting-edge machine learning approaches to analyze those data, my colleagues and I were able to reconstruct the Carolina parakeets' likely range and climate niche, [which] turned out to be much smaller than previously believed... While this may seem rather minor, some scientists consider the Carolina parakeet one of the top candidates for 'de-extinction', a process in which DNA is harvested from specimens and used to "resurrect" extinct species... If someone were to spend millions of dollars doing all of the genetic and breeding work to bring back this species, or any other, how will they figure out where to release these birds...? Whether or not de-extinction is a worthwhile use of conservation effort and money is another question, best answered by someone other than me. But this is just an example of one potential use of this type of research. "
It seems like all kinds of havoc could ensue if we released a resurrected species back into the modern ecosystem. And yet Harvard researchers are already working to breed a new creature that's half-elephant, half Wooly Mammoth.
What do Slashdot's readers think? Should we revive extinct species?
Yes (Score:5, Funny)
I want to shoot one.
Re:Yes (Score:5, Funny)
Only if good to eat.
Otherwise don't revive it.
Re: (Score:2)
Long ago, a caveman named Fred Flintstone got an order of spareribs that was so large it tipped his car on it's side...
I have a dream!*
* A steak the size of my car hood would also be acceptable...
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But how we will know?
There are lots of things that look good to eat that aren't, and lots of things that are delicious that don't look good.
Only way to know is to bring them back for bbq related reasons.
Re:Yes (Score:5, Funny)
There are lots of things that look good to eat that aren't, and lots of things that are delicious that don't look good.
You take my Tide pods out of my cold, poisoned hands.
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Which Trump are you: Beavis or Butthead, er, I mean, Eric or Don Jr?
Yes, please (Score:3)
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Yes, please...
Let's start with the NES Classic.
"I know this operating system! We use it at school!"
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"Yes. Just like in Jurassic Park!
Even that would have gone well if not for NEWMAN!
In a word... (Score:4, Insightful)
No.
Qualifier: maybe if they taste good, we should consider it seriously...mammoth steak, mmmmmm....
Re: In a word... (Score:2)
Qualifier: maybe if they taste good, we should consider it seriously...mammoth steak, mmmmmm....
Agreed. By all accounts the Dodo was both delicious and stupid. I could definitely make room for that on my menu.
Re: In a word... (Score:3)
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I believe they were referring specifically to Mammoths diets. However it is unlikely that mammoths were sustaining themselves by eating pine needles and bark. According to an article I'll link below we've been able to analyze stomach contents and permafrost samples of the appropriate period and such fare doesn't get mentioned at all.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technol... [www.cbc.ca]
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There's so much beauty and awe in nature and we pathetic bald apes are just trampling over it in the shallow quest for profits and a misguided sense of 'progress'.
We pathetic bald apes are part of nature. We're not some separate thing.
Re: In a word... (Score:2)
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That all changed when we learned to light shit on fire.
Why?
deextincting is a word? (Score:5, Funny)
>> ...scientists are seriously considering the possibility of "de-extincting" the Carolina parakeet, America's only native parrot, which became extinct 100 years ago.
No it didn't. It was simply stunned, and pining for the fjords.
No, for three reasons (Score:5, Insightful)
1) It's unlikely we'd be able to bring back enough individuals to avoid inbreeding and thus a population that would soon go extinct again.
2) It's likely that the reasons that it went extinct in the first place haven't been corrected.
3) It diverts resources from saving species that are on the verge of extinction, of which there are many. It's far easier to save something that is still alive than to bring it back.
--PeterM
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Well then we can rename it the West Virginia Parakeet.
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Wife:
1. HA!!!!
2. No, rename it the Eastern Colorado Parakeet
Me: ?
Wife: My father's family is from there. Do you have any idea how inbred they are? They call it "line breeding" there and say that's why their IQs are so high and they produce so many PhDs in their family.
(Me: Yes, they really DO produce PhDs. Also: They're inbred largely because they are d
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I also suspect that we'd keep anything created this way in a lab for decades before even attempting to reintroduce it to the wild.
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Well said. And might be worth adding that the current populations in the area of introduction may also be negatively affected, and other species caused to go extinct in turn. IMO, the more we can just leave wilderness alone, the better.
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Re:Yes, for three reasons (Score:2)
Re:No, for three reasons (Score:4, Informative)
1) It's unlikely we'd be able to bring back enough individuals to avoid inbreeding and thus a population that would soon go extinct again.
Odd notions about "inbreeding" abound. This remark manages to capture a number of misunderstandings about inbreeding and its significance.
Population ecologists do value, and try to maintain, existing genetic diversity since managing populations does become more difficult with low levels of diversity. But inbreeding per se is not some sort of apocalyptic doom for a population or species.
First note that successful wild populations with very low levels of genetic diversity are not rare.
The cheetah for example is an extreme case of low diversity since it appears to have gone through two bottlenecks (about 100,000 years ago, and about 12,000 years ago) with only a breeding population of fewer than a dozen each time, but went on to spread quite widely and develop a large population in Africa and South Asia. Many populations of various species have been founded by a few breeding pairs, or even one pair - all New World monkeys for example seem to have descended from a very small group African monkeys (perhaps a single breeding pair) who rafted across in a rare event tens of millions of years ago and went on to diversity into all the New World monkeys. As humans spread out of Africa, through Asia, and Oceania there were many cases of very small founder populations successively founding successful communities from populations that had already gone through multiple bottlenecks.
High levels of inbreeding do cause deleterious or lethal genes to surface with harmful effect. But over time this tends to remove them from the population. People tend to get a warped idea about the significance of this from a population perspective by the well documented existence of royal families among humans. Sure, inbreeding brings about monarchs who are idiots, infertile, or with other serious genetic problems - but in the wild this is how those genes get removed. Outside of human culture those drooling idiots would not be monarchs, they would be non-breeding dead ends, it is only human cultural tradition that insists they play the role of leader.
Similarly it is well know that many highly inbred domesticated "show" breeds have serious genetic problems. But this is due to the malfeasance of human breeders who intensively select for arbitrary cosmetic traits and ignore serious genetic disease.
The technology that permits the recreation of extinct species, by reconstructing a genome, is more than able to remove harmful genes with the same tools. There is no difficulty, really, in having a highly inbred population of low diversity, with no disease. This is what the standard strains of white mice and rats used in laboratories are. They are quite healthy but have zero diversity within a strain, they are literally clones of each other.
BTW - the mainstream culture of Americans has a peculiar and distinctive horror of inbreeding to a degree that is not supported by evidence. Throughout human history humans have commonly bred in small closed groups of only dozens to hundreds of individuals with little or no outbreeding. First and second cousin marriages are common in human culture. It turns out that a certain amount of inbreeding is actually optimal for successful reproduction, surviving child fertility is highest among humans with third cousin marriages, unrelated humans have lower success rates.
2) It's likely that the reasons that it went extinct in the first place haven't been corrected.
3) It diverts resources from saving species that are on the verge of extinction, of which there are many. It's far easier to save something that is still alive than to bring it back.
--PeterM
The reasons that species went extinct do need to be addressed, to bring a species back, though it is certainly possible to maintain some species in captivity. But not rarely the factor that needs to be addressed
Three examples of FUD (Score:2)
1) It's unlikely we'd be able to bring back enough individuals to avoid inbreeding and thus a population that would soon go extinct again.
You know neither how much genetic variation could be uncovered from extant specimens nor how much is necessary for survival.
Cheetahs are essentially clones and have survived extinction for 10K years since their last evolutionary bottleneck. Their genetic variation is consistent with a historical reduction in total population to a single pregnant individual.
2) It's likely that the reasons that it went extinct in the first place haven't been corrected.
They were deliberately exterminated.
3) It diverts resources from saving species that are on the verge of extinction, of which there are many. It's far easier to save something that is still alive than to bring it back.
Economics does not work that way. There is no basis for asserting that de-extinction would lessen support for prese
Didn't anyone pay attention? (Score:5, Funny)
Jurassic Park?
Really?
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Probably that is what he is referring to. The Darwin Award for stupid dinosaur tenders.
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What, you really think humans are not a part of nature?
We're just another animal, really. A bit more successful than most primates, but just another animal (for which read: a part of nature like any other)....
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> We're just another animal, really.
Things like nuclear power plants are not a part of nature. Don't be ridiculous.
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As much so as a bower bird nest.
Actually, fission piles can occur even without the intervention of biology, so they're about as natural as rocks.
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Nothing that was created by a deliberate process of design that requires teaching can be considered 'natural' - that is what the term 'artificial' means, more or less. There are some very limited cases of non-human species showing the ability to design some things within sharp limits, but this is quite different from the demonstrated abilities of humans, transmitted through culture, and which can be extended to arbitrary, unbounded purposes and materials.
Decisions... (Score:2)
Might be nice if we made a decision, as a species, about whether we are a part of or separate from the earth's ecosystem.
This half-in/half-out status dooms both organisms.
Sure (Score:2)
Good choice (Score:4, Interesting)
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The primary reason for their extinction seems to be the obliteration of canebrakes, the wetland cane stands that they used for breeding. The parakeet vanished when these were all converted into farmland through drainage. This has driven several other species to the brink of extinction also, including the Florida panther.
Sabertoothed Tiger. (Score:2)
I Want One!
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Yes!!! Bring back the dodo for..... KFC (Score:2)
I could really use some extra crispy dodo with the Colonel’s secret recipe right now.
reintroduce non-extint species in former habitats (Score:4, Insightful)
In Venezuela, there used to be "Gavialiloids", but they went extint (Ikanogavialis and heserogavialis, for example).
These were relatives of the Gavialis in India and indonesia, but those are close to extintion (because of antropogenic factors in their habitats).
There are conservation efforts in ceratin zoos (San Diego in particular is very active in this conservation effort), but nothing in the wild.
Since the Gavialis is not a danger to humans (they mostly eat fish, their long narrow snouts are too fragile for bigger pray), it would be nice to re-introduce them in the wild in the former habitat of their cousins, specialy in areas where "bad fish" abound (think piranhas and electric eels - Electrophorus electricus)...
All kinds of havoc? (Score:2)
Really? Like, for example?
As far as comparative effectiveness of funding, as a society we do all sorts of stupid misprioritization of funding all the time anyway; at least species revival can result in new scientific knowledge along the way.
As long as it's not a threat to humans (Score:2)
If the species is not a threat to humans, why not?
What practical benefit is there? It would be tremendously interesting - like seeing a coelacanth swimming around, and knowing this thing has been unchanged for 400 million years. [wikipedia.org]
The process of reviving an extinct species could advance science as well, so bonus there.
Existence is far from survival (Score:2)
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Habitat problems (Score:3)
You should only revive a species if you can supply it a habitat to live in.
Revive the extinct (Score:3)
you bred raptors? (Score:3)
you bred raptors
revive the Potomac Valley Velociraptor (Score:2)
and restore it to its natural habitat, roaming the halls of power eating everything in a suit or golf shirt.
no, i don't think slashdot be doing it (Score:2)
Extinction revival: a timely question (Score:2)
A somewhat more timely issue that requires the same level of debate is
Should we terraform Mars?
The impacts on the rest of the solar system would be subtle yet possibly devastating. The answer to this question could have a profound effect on the stock markets and the future of video poker.
Isn't today April Fools day?
As long as we don't exactly know (Score:2)
Silent Running? (Score:2)
Why is this story tagged with Silent Running? That wasn't about bringing back extinct species, but saving the ones we have.
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If Man caused the extinction, then it's[sic] a moral duty to bring them back
That makes no sense. We have no moral obligation to nature, or to extinct species. "Nature" doesn't care if those species are around or not. Nature is not suffering without them, and neither are those creatures.
If someone wants to bring them back, we should make sure they won't cause any problems. And if they won't cause any problems, then go ahead. It would be a great zoo!
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That makes no sense. We have no moral obligation to nature, or to extinct species. "Nature" doesn't care if those species are around or not. Nature is not suffering without them, and neither are those creatures.
Ah, the utilitarian perspective. Well that's true as long as you say "nature" = ~forces of nature well then they also don't care whether humanity or even life itself survives. If we're wiped out by an Armageddon-size asteroid today, though shit. The universe goes on. With luck even Earth goes on with cockroaches instead of people, or if not we go the way of the dinosaurs and the dodo bird.
Really when they say nature most people mean a proxy of humanity. We should support the biodiversity of Earth because it
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I'm not sure what saving a few endangered pandas will bring.
Not much but they're really cute. Practically speaking most of these extinct animals didn't have a huge impact on the environment, like the Carolina parakeet with the limited range. Cool bird, though.
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I'n not sure I agree with him, Chris Packham has suggested that it may not be worth it trying to save certain species:
Of course we would all like to keep it (the panda) on the planet but what I wonder is - is it disproportionately expensive to focus on these few animals, not just pandas but tigers and rhinos and elephants, and all of these rather famous creatures at the expense of lots of smaller ones."
Packham says saving pandas could be "waste of money" [bbc.co.uk]
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"... we should make sure they won't cause any problems."
Like being a mobile bioreactor for pathogens that outcompete us...
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If Man caused the extinction, then it's[sic] a moral duty to bring them back
That makes no sense. We have no moral obligation to nature, or to extinct species. "Nature" doesn't care if those species are around or not. Nature is not suffering without them, and neither are those creatures. If someone wants to bring them back, we should make sure they won't cause any problems. And if they won't cause any problems, then go ahead. It would be a great zoo!
Even though I agree that we shouldn't bring back those extinct species, I don't agree with your reasoning. You don't know whether "Nature" cares about extinction. If you were the species, you are a part of "Nature." If you only eat the extinct species, then you would care because you are counted as the Nature. However, "Nature" can't stay still and lament for extinct species. Nature is dynamic and it has to move on by attempting to change certain behaviors in order to get back to equilibrium (or survive). T
Re: Whoâ(TM)s to blame? (Score:2)
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. Haven't you looked up the proper usage of â(TM) in Strunk and White's Elements of Style? They have some rather scathing things to say about such poignant punctuation propriety pilferage.
Re: Whoâ(TM)s to blame? (Score:2)
This is a bit like recording every moment of your life. Because it's "information".
In reality, 99.99999% of all " information" being generated is going to be lost, and that's OK because most of it is incredibly repetitive. What do you figure are the odds of the northern white rhino being so different from the southern white rhino that it's actually information worth preserving? Probably about the same as the odds of there being something incredibly valuable in the turd I dropped in the toilet 5 hours ago
Re: Whoâ(TM)s to blame? (Score:2)
To the best of my knowledge, the northern white rhino and southern white rhino are pretty darn similar. But if we lost both of them, the loss would be more significant. And if we lost all rhinos (might happen), well, they are one of the few remnants of the perissodactyl line of mammals, so it would be substantial loss.
Right, so we're talking about degrees of differentiation. Some losses are worse than others, but the vast majority of the information lost when any single species goes extinct is a tiny subset of the information retained in other species. This can be represented, in code terms, by "deltas". If you lose the last code update you made to a project you were working on, it's probably not a big deal. If you lose the last 50 updates, it matters significantly more. But in either case you're only losing a small
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You can't study the unique feeding behavior of the Carolina Parakeet if all you have is a DNA sequence on a hard drive and no parakeet. Unless at some point, you actually make a parakeet, it's like having a pile of money you never spend and then finding out it's become valueless due to inflation.
Nor can you properly study it if you do bring the species back this way, since a large amount of what many animals do is thought to be heritable through group behaviour, environment and other non-genetic factors.
Weenies Who Hate the Science of Evolution (Score:2)
Re: Weenies Who Hate the Science of Evolution (Score:2)
The Evangelicals who think the world is 5,000 years old
No. Fundamentalists think the Old Testament is literal; Evangelicals believe Christ "died for their sins" and therefore they can 'transgress' without consequence...
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What "evangelical" seems to mean in the United States is that Calvin, Wesley, Spurgeon, etc were liberal wusses.
Re:Whoâ(TM)s to blame? (Score:5, Insightful)
If Man caused the extinction, then itâ(TM)s s moral duty to bring them back.
Great! Let's start with pubic lice and smallpox.
First stop mass extinctions (Score:2)
Before experimenting with DNA for 1-2 species, we should stop the mass extinctions in the first place.
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> What makes death by man any less natural than death by any other predator?
Oh come on. Passenger Pigeons were the common bird in North America, maybe the world.
Humans drove them into extinction in a very short period of time.
Saying nature selected these birds for extinction is absurd.
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"Nature selected" the passenger pigeon for extinction just as much as nature selects any other species.
Passenger pigeons were outcompeted by humans, failed to adapt, and went extinct. Other animals either didn't compete with the oddly effective humans, or adapted, like rats, roaches, cows and branches of wolves and cats.
Re: Whoâ(TM)s to blame? (Score:2)
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The American bison isn't extinct. They successfully evolved into tasty farm animals, and there are many near my home town. They weren't as successful as the cow, but they've found a niche. Many other North American megafauna did not, but most of those were eliminated by clever primates with sharp sticks and rocks, not guns.
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Saying nature selected these birds for extinction is absurd.
Last I checked humans were not synthetic and are also a superior predator than the passenger pigeon. Sucks that the pigeon didn't evolve to be less fun to hunt, but hey that's natural selection for you.
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"Man has the ability to reason."
Have you met us?
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This statement implies that other species don't have the ability to reason. So, do you have some evidence to support the notion that only man can reason? Or is it a religious thing with you?
Note that there's a fair amount of evidence to support the notion that (some) cetaceans can reason, as well as some of the current crop of dinosaurs (e.g. ravens)....
Re: Whoâ(TM)s to blame? (Score:2)
Re:Whoâ(TM)s to blame? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you believed in Evolution ...
Evolution is a scientific concept, not a religion. I accept that evolution is the most plausible explanation for the diversity of life, but I don't have "faith" that it can miraculously solve any problem or that we need to be "loyal" to natural selection by not intervening.
Re: Whoâ(TM)s to blame? (Score:2)
If you believed in Evolution, you would realize that bad actions (of the parts of any individual creature or group of creatures) are moving Evolution along.
If you understood evolution you would realise that it's not some guided process constantly driving species to be objectively "better", but rather a selective process which encourages the proliferation of traits which are better suited for a specific environment. There's no "moving it along"; it's always happening and nothing we do is going to stop it, slow it, or speed it up. All we can do is change the factors which encourage one trait over another.
Re: Whoâ(TM)s to blame? (Score:3)
That's just moral relativism. Without some kind of predetermined moral code (generally attributed to deit(y/ies), debating morals is no better than debating which color is best.
What you call "moral relativism" is the only kind of morality there is. If your idea of morality is unquestioningly following the dictates of your invisible friend - or of anyone else, for that matter - then you're not talking about morality, you're taking about obedience. Those are two very different things.
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Re: Whoâ(TM)s to blame? (Score:2)
No, that's ethics, the theory why morality is the way it is.
Incorrect. Ethics aren't a "theory". Ethics are external rules or reasons governing behaviour. Eg. rules at work, laws, or religious edicts. Morals are internal; your individual determination of right and wrong.
That's why morality can never be dictated by an external authority. Even if you say that your moral code comes from Magic Man, that's nonsense. Magic Man can only dictate an ethical gudeline. You must still have had some kind of moral code in the first place which lets you determine that the e
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Re: Whoâ(TM)s to blame? (Score:2)
Look, you can feel free to be as wrong about the definition of the word as you like. Even if I accepted your definition, it wouldn't change the discussion; it would merely make your original comment doubly irrelevant. I stated that if you're simply following orders, that's not morality. If you want a discussion, respond to that; don't go off on a tangent about where morals come from.
Re: Whoâ(TM)s to blame? (Score:2)
Nice false dichotomy fallacy to start off your chain of irrational logic.
One certainly can be "moral" and "obedient" at the same time.
Your inability to read/comprehend simple English does not make my comment a false dichotomy. In fact, since I never said that the two are mutually exclusive, you are constructing a strawman.
Further, presuming you mean by "invisible friend" (further compounding your disingenuous philosophical incompetence by thinking negative characterization is an argument),
It's an accurate description. If you think that me describing your invisible friend by his only observable properties is a "negative characterisation" then perhaps you need to rethink your theology.
the Christian God, we neither do follow "unquestioningly" nor is that even expected or required by the theological content itself. Refer to Job, Moses, Noah, Paul, etc., etc., for extensive presentation of contention with God, which is ultimately expected and even praised as the accepted nature of introspective human response to God.
Horseshit. Wherever those characters are written as "questioning god", it's painted as a lapse in their faith and intende
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Never let your morals stand in the way of doing what is right.
How 'Bout Smallpox? (Score:2, Interesting)
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What if the nest or beaver dam is made by artificial birds or beavers?
Did Tyrell's owl build a nest?
Is the wool from electric sheep considered synthetic?
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So (Score:2, Insightful)
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and humans killed most of them in the first place.
Humans definitely did not kill most of the species that have gone extinct. Going extinct is the natural way of things, unless you're a creationist and don't believe in evolution or something like that.
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> Going extinct is the natural way of things
Sometimes, not always.
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Re: How tasty are they? (Score:2)
If cows ever go extinct it'll be because humans have gone extinct.
Re: Yes, if only to learn on ourselves (Score:2)
Honestly, humanity is probably going to go away.
Yes, there's almost a 100% certainty that we will go away in another trillion years or so. I'm not sure how the rest of your comment follows from that.
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I doubt that bringing back Carolina Parakeets, or Passenger Pigeons, would have the same risks as bringing back a T-Rex.
BTW: Jurassic Park was run stupidly. The dinosaurs should be kept in deep pits. Zoos have been doing this for over a century.
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I thought politicians became statesmen after their deaths.