

Why Not Bring a Neanderthal to Life? - linhir
http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/why-not-bring-a-neanderthal-to-life/

======
davi
_So why not do it? Why not give Harvard’s George Church the money he says
could be used to resurrect a Neanderthal from DNA?_

 _I’m bracing for a long list of objections from the world’s self-appointed
keepers of bioethics_

Good. Brace yourself, Mr. Tierney.

First, let's do a little googling. Find, for example, this article:
<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/baby/clon_silver.html>

_It's perfectly clear that if cloning works in every other mammal in which
it's been tried, it will work in human beings. But at the moment, there is a
pretty high frequency of birth defects in these other animals. There are a
large number of cloned calves that are born too big and have health problems.
As long as that frequency of birth defects is high, and we can't control it,
then it would be unethical to use this technology to try to bring about the
birth of a child._

OK. So let's pretend you could find a human carrier to gestate your transgenic
Neanderthal baby for you.

And let's pretend that in course of trying figuring out how to bring a
Neanderthal baby to term, 50% abort spontaneously in the third trimester.

Let's pretend that in the course of trying to get a Neanderthal baby to the
age of 18, 50% die of various congenital malformations.

Let's pretend that a Neanderthal is at least as self aware as a _homo sapiens_
with Down Syndrome.

Now, let's spend your $30 million elsewhere, please.

God, what a trollish article. But it worked on me.

This is the kind of article that actually scares people and gets them confused
about something relatively innocuous, like stem cells. I have flipped the bozo
bit on this guy. And if George Church is really in favor of this idea, I'll
flip the bozo bit on him, too.

~~~
gravitycop
_let's pretend you could find a human carrier to gestate your transgenic
Neanderthal baby for you._

How about a chimpanzee carrier, as George Church suggested?
[http://www.google.com/search?q=george+church+chimpanzee+nean...](http://www.google.com/search?q=george+church+chimpanzee+neanderthal)

<http://reason.com/news/printer/131717.html>

 _Church would modify a modern human genome so that its DNA matches the
Neanderthal version. [...] this Neanderthal genome would not be inserted into
a human cell but instead into a chimpanzee cell. This chimp cell would be
reprogrammed to an embryonic state, and then introduced into a chimpanzee's
womb where it would develop into a Neanderthal infant._

~~~
davi
Good links, thanks.

But do you think a chimpanzee carrier makes it okay to inflict (with
reasonably high likelihood) mutations and health problems on animals you are
expecting will have near-human, or even human, levels of intelligence?

I don't.

~~~
gravitycop
_do you think a chimpanzee carrier makes it okay to inflict_

What is the test for "okay"?

 _okay to inflict (with reasonably high likelihood) mutations and health
problems on animals you are expecting will have near-human, or even human,
levels of intelligence?_

They could be aborted, instead, by not carrying out the project.
<http://news.google.com/news?q=abortion+birth+defects>

In the process, an entire race of humans, or near humans, would also be
aborted. <http://news.google.com/news?q=racial+genocide>

~~~
jacquesm
troll alert...

------
russell
There are huge ethical problems. Neanderthals are human or near human. It is
quite probable that they can talk. They are not sheep. Before we attempt it we
need to know if they can be cloned without subtle brain damage. If something
goes wrong, you cant just euthanize the failed experiment.

It's an interesting idea, but I dont think we are ready yet, either
scientifically or ethically.

------
wheels
I think it'd be really interesting seeing the ethical implications of having
such a clear example that the difference between humans and animals is only a
matter of degree. Which is a neanderthal? What would their rights be?

------
tyohn
Would Geico hire him?

------
time_management
Off the cuff answer: because he'll get all the girls.

Real answer: I think the problems implicit in cloning are foremost. Assuming
we're able to surpass those, we have the inherent ethical issues of bringing a
human-like (and possibly more complex/intelligent than humans) being into a
very strange environment.

I think we should do it, if we can guarantee a reasonable likelihood that he
or she will not endure an inhuman amount of suffering, but there are a lot of
ethical issues that have to be addressed. Who will raise him? How hard will we
try to give him a "normal" life and prevent his inevitable celebrity from
affecting him? How will we determine if he's competent to own property, attend
school, live on his own, etc.?

~~~
gravitycop
_possibly more [...] intelligent than humans_

Do you think it is likely that mean modern-Neanderthal (Neanderthal raised in
a modern environment) IQ would be higher than mean modern-human IQ?

~~~
time_management
I think it's possible, but I have no idea how likely it is.

------
giardini
It would make watching professional football more interesting.

