Professor Wants to Use Human Cloning to Resurrect Neanderthal
From the UK’s Daily Mail:
Professor George Church of Harvard Medical School believes he can reconstruct Neanderthal DNA and resurrect the species which became extinct 33,000 years ago.
His scheme is reminiscent of Jurassic Park but, while in the film dinosaurs were created in a laboratory, Professor Church’s ambitious plan requires a human volunteer.
He said his analysis of Neanderthal genetic code using samples from bones is complete enough to reconstruct their DNA.
He said: ‘Now I need an adventurous female human.
I can’t think of anything morally valid about this idea. The woman would be treated as a mere brood mare, and who knows what adverse physical consequences could flow from gestating a non human. The Neanderthal, if born, would likely be deformed, as we have seen with animal cloning. The human embryo would be used as a mere thing–again! The Neanderthals were a social species, rational and self-aware, probably possessed of moral agency and a sense of spirituality. A Neanderthal child, even if born without birth defects, would likely suffer from being recreated as an experiment in an act of scientific hubris, and without any others of his or her kind with which to associate.
I suspect the point would be to undermine human exceptionalism–anathema to many within the intellectual elite. For example, Richard Dawkins has yearned for a hybrid species with which to smash HE like a cudgel, writing in The Great Ape Project:
(...) But I can assert without fear of contradiction, that if somebody succeeded in breeding a chimpanzee/human hybrid the news would be earth-shattering. Bishops would bleat, lawyers would gloat in anticipation, conservative politicians would thunder, socialists wouldn’t know where to put the barricades. The scientist that achieved the feat would be drummed out of politically correct common-rooms; denounced in pulpit and gutter press; condemned, perhaps, by an Ayatollah’s fatwa.If not a hybrid, perhaps a Neanderthal would serve Dawkins and his ilk’s desires. We would still be exceptional, of course. But if we ever did such a monstrous thing, we would be less moral.
by Wesley J. Smith | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 1/21/13