What pokes my skeptical brain is breathless repetition of press releases as if they were an accurate portrayal of scientific advancement. Marketing has a vested interest in exaggerating claims. All press releases are marketing.
They haven’t brought back a dire wolf. They have created, through gene editing, a grey wolf with a few dire wolf characteristics. Interesting, but not de-extinction. It reveals little beyond the intellectual exercise of thinking about the implications. There is also the danger that through such an intervention they will create a fertile breeding ground in the unique immune systems of novel animals related to extant species for novel virus mutations that could rampage through unprepared populations.
Humans and grey wolves outcompeted dire wolves 13,000 years ago. We don’t have every detail of that extinction, perhaps their pelts became highly desired, maybe climate change, maybe human pressure on their food sources, or some combination of all these things. The utility of this is in broader understanding of further and more complicated gene editing. We’re not going back, and I don’t know how wise it is to go much further without really understanding more about epigenetics and proteomics.
i really appreciate this thought—i completely agree. people seem to take advantage of the idea that the public doesnt really know anything about genetics—especially how much DNA is actually the same across all organisms! it is easy to say we have a wolf with 99.99% similarity to a dire wolf because a gray wolf has already done the genetic legwork to get there.
Yes this free enterprise de-extinction business is much in the news today. You just gave an excellent analysis and I sent it over to BlueSky where it can get more readers perhaps.
Just because we have the bii-tech to this kind of thing doesn't mean we should do it. Can doesn't imply ought. But we so often seem to think it does. I urge great caution.
What pokes my skeptical brain is breathless repetition of press releases as if they were an accurate portrayal of scientific advancement. Marketing has a vested interest in exaggerating claims. All press releases are marketing.
They haven’t brought back a dire wolf. They have created, through gene editing, a grey wolf with a few dire wolf characteristics. Interesting, but not de-extinction. It reveals little beyond the intellectual exercise of thinking about the implications. There is also the danger that through such an intervention they will create a fertile breeding ground in the unique immune systems of novel animals related to extant species for novel virus mutations that could rampage through unprepared populations.
Humans and grey wolves outcompeted dire wolves 13,000 years ago. We don’t have every detail of that extinction, perhaps their pelts became highly desired, maybe climate change, maybe human pressure on their food sources, or some combination of all these things. The utility of this is in broader understanding of further and more complicated gene editing. We’re not going back, and I don’t know how wise it is to go much further without really understanding more about epigenetics and proteomics.
i really appreciate this thought—i completely agree. people seem to take advantage of the idea that the public doesnt really know anything about genetics—especially how much DNA is actually the same across all organisms! it is easy to say we have a wolf with 99.99% similarity to a dire wolf because a gray wolf has already done the genetic legwork to get there.
Yes this free enterprise de-extinction business is much in the news today. You just gave an excellent analysis and I sent it over to BlueSky where it can get more readers perhaps.
Just because we have the bii-tech to this kind of thing doesn't mean we should do it. Can doesn't imply ought. But we so often seem to think it does. I urge great caution.