Just as importantly, Shapiro strikes a blow for scientific literacy. She shows that programs with potential practical applications-such as George Church’s efforts to introduce the mammoth genes for “luxurious” hair and cold-resistant hemoglobin into an African elephant, in preparation for introducing a quasi-mammoth into Arctic habitat-make more sense than trying to clone dinosaurs or dodos in order to assuage human guilt or indulge curiosity about seeing long-dead animals. Shapiro, a University of California at Santa Cruz paleogenomics researcher and “enthusiastic realist,” lays out a well-articulated argument for the “resurrection of ecological interactions” as the most appropriate goal of de-extinction research.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |