The following is an edited excerpt.
Scientific developments—principally advances in cloning technologies and new methods of not only reading DNA, but writing it—make it much easier to concoct a genetic approximation of an extinct species, so long as DNA can be retrieved from a preserved specimen.
Most arguments in favor of species revival fall into two basic camps: Why impede the progress of science? And we should do it because we have an obligation to do it, to right some of the enormous wrong we have done.
[But] do we really need a reason to revive a vanished species? In my own experience, whether fans of de-extinction begin their justification from a scientific rationale or a moral one, they usually end by saying something like “besides, it’s just such a really cool idea.”View the original article here: Species Revival: Should We Bring Back Extinct Animals?
Additional Resources:
- “Is extinction really such a bad thing?” New Scientist
