From: jjh00@outs.ccc.amdahl.com (Joel J. Hanes)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Worse case scenario
Summary: Claim biotech unable to recreate extinct species
Keywords: hubris
Date: 8 Apr 92 19:41:48 GMT
Reply-To: jjh00@OUTS.ccc.amdahl.com (Joel J. Hanes)
Followup-To: talk.environment
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA

>  alanm@hpindda.cup.hp.com (Alan McGowen) writes:
>>
>> ... I'm not saying that biotechnology
>> will have a very limited application. I'm saying that it depends upon
>> biological information which has been produced by evolution. That information
>> represents an immense free and irreplaceable resource, and it is because
>> of that resource that biotechnology has huge potential. If we had to invent
>> all biological information de novo before it could be transferred into 
>> an organism, biotechnology would have very little practical potential.


bkottmann@falcon.aamrl.wpafb.af.mil (Brett Kottmann) writes:
>
>	I think that as long as we have the building blocks (amino acids,etc.)
>technology will find a way to (re)create and extend biodiversity.  Not that it
>would be easy, or that would let us destroy what we have.  Merely that I see
>the building blocks of life as a parallel to the DNA building blocks.  We can
>resequence those to bring about new combinations.  It is only a matter of time
>before that ability grows/matures into the ability to bring back extinct forms
>of life using the present day cousins.


Aarrrrggghhh!

In other words:

  Brett, this is the least sensible assertion I've ever seen you make.

  Let's try some inadequate analogies:

      * As long as the Latin alphabet exists, technology will find a
        way to recreate and extend the works of any European
        author.  Not that it would be easy ... it is only a matter
        of time before that ability grows/matures into the ability to
        bring back lost works of literature using the surviving
        texts.

      * As long as the Etruscan characters are known, technology will
        find a way to recreate any work from the lost corpus of
        Etruscan literature.  Not that it would be easy ...

      * As long as we have the basic phonemes (vowel and consonant
        sounds, etc), technology will find a way to (re)create and
        extend any campaign speech made this year.
        Not that it would be easy ...

  It scares me to learn that you think we can recreate extinct
  species from organic chemicals.  Perhaps, someday, when the
  entire Drosophila genome has been sequenced and characterized
  for population variation for every allele, we *might* be able
  raise us up some fruit flies _de_novo_.  Escheria coli seems
  even more possible.  But an *extinct* *species*!?  Organisms
  for which we will never know much besides gross morphology,
  a little rough ecological guessing, and maybe some ideas
  about ancestry?

  I can't share your optimism.  I can't even call it optimism,
  really -- the only word is hubris, and hubris on a scale
  Ozymandias never dreamed.

  I know that this posting contains only opinion; there's no
  science content to speak of, and I'm arguing by analogy
  and on the basis of personal incredulity ("I can't imagine
  a way, therefore no way can exist"), so I've addressed
  followups to talk.environment.

---
Joel Hanes