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Geneticist against Cloning
New advances in genetic engineering are on the cusp of bringing extinct species back to life,
but nobody explains the many obstacles and hurdles (cross-contamination, etc.) - thank heavens
you are aware of all of the recent literature about this! You plan to investigate for the Judges
if the number of failed attempts is acceptable that occur before a fully formed, live "baby" is
achieved through cloning. As an example, look at what happened when a Japanese scientist cloned
the first living mammoth (refer to the cloning e-folder for an explanation of the procedure).
How much time, energy, and expense was involved, and how long did the baby mammoth live? Does
viewing this as a real step forward in cloning dinosaurs accurately represent or actually
misrepresent the reality of the situation? With regard to dinosaur cloning, you'll need to
look into whether problems still arise about verifying if it's really dinosaur DNA. And what
about the possibility of creating a "Frankenstein-"like hybrid. What is a "hybrid" anyway,
and could these be out of control and beyond the limits of Nature and natural selection in the
Darwinian sense? Think about whether evolution is like a series of reinforcing cycles, which
once begun are too complicated and powerful to stop. After considerable expense, will the
hybrid be fertile or sterile and which dinosaur would be resurrected - T. rex perhaps?
Which dinosaur-related species would provide the donor eggs, and which species would be the
surrogate mothers? You plan to explain to the court that now is the time for scientists and
society to acknowledge that many scientific advances will result from new cloning techniques
but not from dinosaur cloning.
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