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Paleontologist for Cloning
Since you were a kid, you've been absolutely fascinated with dinosaurs. By age 5, you knew all
the names of the saurischians and ornithischians and pointed out with glee every time someone
mistakenly referred to Apatosaurus as Brontosaurus. Since graduating from Colgate
(you got an A+ in Geology 115, of course), you've become an expert on the detection and extraction
of dinosaur DNA. Ok, no bragging, but it hasn't gone unnoticed that your PhD dissertation on that
very subject was published in Nature DinoScience. Your research shows that there are many more
sites of potential DNA fossilized in dinosaur bones and blood proteins than most scientists
realize. Given that the time is ripe for cloning dinosaurs, you've already begun to imagine
the educational and research possibilities! Imagine if we could view evolution first-hand;
why would that be advantageous, and what would be the best arguments to pose to the Judges?
Could any relevant scientific controversies be resolved by watching live dinosaurs interacting
with each other? Could this be an opportunity to glimpse into the Earth's past and help predict
the future? If you think about it, how much of human existence do we owe to the dinosaurs?
It might be worthwhile to explore for the Judges the real educational benefits that could be
derived from studying the cloned dinosaurs - what would those be? I hear the other side may
be arguing against cloning by citing S.J. Gould's ideas about chance as an important process
in evolution, using that as a scare tactic to conjure up visions of dinosaurs evolving into
bizarre, truly frightening life forms in the future. Consider exploring ideas that can serve
as a counter-attack. The best plan is for you to support dinosaur cloning and try to win a
research grant to study the clones. Fame, fortune, and a pet dino might surely follow!
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