To paraphrase Jeff Goldblum in “Jurassic Park,” just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should — even if that something is “cool.”
Ben Lamm and Eriona Hysolli recently took to Newsweek to announce that they and their team at Colossal Biosciences are bringing the woolly mammoth back to life. This is not a pie-in-the-sky pseudo-sci fi dream that might happen at some undefined future date. “Our first mammoth calves will be born in 2028,” they declare.
The plan is to recreate the genome (the complete set of genes or genetic material of a cell or organism) of the woolly mammoth from preserved mammoth remains. This will be achieved through DNA editing, synthesis technologies, and AI, which will “help us with all the computational analysis of ancient genomes, assembly, comparative genomics, and recommendation systems on what types of tools to use.” These recreated genetic packages will then be implanted into the harvested egg of an Asian elephant (the closest living relation of the mammoth) and — voila! — a baby mammoth (or “a cold-resistant elephant” as Colossal Biosciences’ website says.)
Ask why, exactly, we need to bring mammoths back to life, and the answers become numerous and hideously predictable. Colossal Biosciences’ website lists 10 “core goals” for resurrecting the species that can be boiled down to climate change and saving modern elephants from extinction. Both reasons are bogus.
To take the easiest one — preserving elephants — first, the obvious question is: How will elephants be saved with the reintroduction of
