Today’s “Last Word On Nothing” blog raises some interesting questions [LINK]. It’s nice to suppose that we now have the scientific ability to do something like recreate an extinct species, but should we?

I know there has been hype before about recreating dinosaurs, sabre-toothed tigers, and woolly mammoths, but there are also a whole host of other species that mankind has wiped off the face of the earth by its own arrogant stupidity. One of the obvious ones is the Dodo. We hunted that to extinction, and we are pushing and have pushed many more species the same way.

If we can recreate a mammoth, shouldn’t we recreate some of the more recently extinct species? But would we actually learn anything? I mean would we actually learn that just because we can drive a species to extinction, it doesn’t mean that we should, and just because we can now recreate it if we do, does it mean we should? Where are the lessons that we have learnt or should learn about how we are but one species on this planet, and whilst we might consider ourselves to be the most intelligent one (or not), would we be better spending our time and effort not allowing species to become extinct because of our actions (or inaction?)

Dinosaur, woolly mammoth, and sabre-toothed tiger are all arguably species that died out because of other forces (i.e. Not man induced) but is it still right to bring back those species now?