Readers debate ethics of resurrecting extinct species
Your letters and comments on the October 28, 2017 issue of Science News
Culture club
The book Rise of the Necrofauna tackles the challenges of using gene-editing tools to bring woolly mammoths and other long-gone species back from the dead. These “de-extincted” creatures would have to contend with a radically changed world that includes new habitats and diseases, Tina Hesman Saey wrote in her review “Resurrecting extinct species raises ethical questions” (SN: 10/28/17, p. 28).
Readers online had a lot to say.
“You can bring these animals back physically, but many animal species also have culture and cultural evolution,” reader Greg wrote. “How are we to resurrect that?”