Science Tidbits #6

[RJDiogenes]

An infinite number!

[scottydog]

Here is an interesting article about the pros and cons of de-extinction of long lost animals.

[Lupine]

I'd be for "de-extinction" if the animals were actual clones and not something that was genetically engineered to look like the original animal. Yeah there might be some environmental benefits, but you could do that same with existing species- such as the inadvertent introduction of hippos in Columbia which some argue could act as stand-ins for the extinct Toxodon.

[RJDiogenes]

"Undead Dodos." I sense a bias.

I'd be for "de-extinction" if the animals were actual clones and not something that was genetically engineered to look like the original animal.

Same here. If they have access to the complete Dodo genome from remains, why don't they shoot for doing it right?

They do raise some valid issues about what to do with orphan clones who have no grown ups to learn from. And it even goes deeper than that. For example, Elephants are coprophagic. They die if they don't ingest the gut flora from their mom's poop. What if Wooly Mammoths are the same, but regular Elephant gut flora is not compatible enough-- their own gut flora may have gone extinct with them. And Dodos went extinct because of invasive predators introduced to their environment by explorers-- are all those predators now going to be removed from the environment after all these centuries?

I do want Dodos and Wooly Mammoths back, but it really needs to be done right.

And we don't really need to create a more hopeful story about combating mass extinctions-- humans are already the only species in history that has deliberately saved other species from extinction.

But I did get a kick out of the idea that extinct species never asked to be brought back. I can just imagine a teenage Dodo clone: "I never asked to be born again!"

[Lupine]

But I did get a kick out of the idea that extinct species never asked to be brought back. I can just imagine a teenage Dodo clone: "I never asked to be born again!"

Yeah, arguments like that are meant to sound deep and philosophical, but are really just silly. After all no animal asked to have evolved in the first place much less to have been driven into extinction by world-galloping psycho-chimps.

[RJDiogenes]

Ooh, World-Galloping Psycho-Chimps. I like that.

[Lupine]

^It does sound like a grunge band.

[RJDiogenes]

It sounds like they're on tour.

[scottydog]

But I did get a kick out of the idea that extinct species never asked to be brought back. I can just imagine a teenage Dodo clone: "I never asked to be born again!"

Yeah, arguments like that are meant to sound deep and philosophical, but are really just silly. After all no animal asked to have evolved in the first place much less to have been driven into extinction by world-galloping psycho-chimps.

[Lupine]

^

Meanwhile in the annuls of scientific illiteracy

[RJDiogenes]

Face reality, gang: The world is flat, the Moon is hollow, and planets are spaceships.

[Lupine]

A little late, but here's a video about the current AI panic.

[RJDiogenes]

How dare she be all rational and stuff?

Although that description of the Chatbot as a lossy jpeg-- taking all the info, dumping it together, mixing it up, and misremembering it-- does sound suspiciously like the human brain.

[Lupine]

^We're probably going to end up creating artificial sentience purely by accident.

[scottydog]

A little late, but here's a video about the current AI panic.

That's a good video. It reinforces the idea that we're the biggest threat to ourselves, not AI.

Here's an article with an alarmist headline but also raises some interesting points about the arrangement of our planets in our solar system.