The paradox of de-extinction

An alien species made humans extinct, but soon you find yourself all alone in a cage filled with aliens. This is reality now; but we are the aliens. Over the years we have tried, and oh we have tried, to reduce the extinction of species. Yet we are still living in a period of mass extinction. But there has also been introduced new technology that could bring back animals from the dead. But the limited money we have should be spent on solving the cause of extinction, instead of bringing extinct animals back to life.

At a Wednesday afternoon I came across quite a controversial topic. Should we bring dead animals back to life? It appears that the answer to this question is simply yes, but when you dig deep, you find that it is rather a no. We live in a world that is currently experiencing the highest rate of extinction ever.[1] But using biotech to bring animals back to life is not the answer.

Let us imagine the best scenario where we brought a lot of species to life again. Then the next step is keeping them alive and how do we do that? We avoid the causes of their death like humans shooting the animals for monetary gain[2]. Here comes the big problem: we are not treating the cause of the problem; we are merely treating the symptoms[3]. So, there is a high chance while we spent millions upon millions on making animals de-extinct, many more would go extinct in the meantime. That is why we should focus the budget on keeping animals alive. If we had unlimited resources for sure this would be a great technology to spend millions on; but we do sadly not live in that world. That is also why this is a paradox hence the more we use on de-extinction the more animals go extinct; the opposite of what it is made to do. Yet the Harvard geneticist, who is planning to bring dodos back to life[4], got 75 million dollars in funding.[5] This is not to be taken as you should be against the great research the Harvard geneticist made on de-extinction. On the opposite it’s great that we have the option to de-extinct animals. This should just be kept at that.

I get it; you want to do both. There are also some good arguments for this, like when we need to introduce genetic diversity into a species going extinct. This was indeed also done successfully with the black-footed ferret[6]. But here is the problem again. The money we used to introduce genetic diversity might help this species a lot, but we could have used that money on keeping more species alive by scaring hunters away. Yes, like any technology, this is likely going to get cheaper, but it will not be as cheap as Mother Nature creating the animals. Furthermore, it will be expensive to keep the animals alive and where is that needed money going to instead? It is going to make a couple more animals go de-extinct instead of keeping hundreds alive.

Another big part of this debate is the morals. Some might even argue we have a moral obligation to bring animals back to life because we killed them. Just like the dodo. That is not the case though. I have never heard someone argue for why a tiger has a moral obligation to bring back its prey; that is just merely natural selection. But if we have any moral obligation, it should be to keep the extinct animals dead. You might even personally have felt the loneliness from my opening statement in this essay “An alien species made humans extinct, but soon you find yourself all alone in a cage filled with aliens”. But we simply expect animals to be okay with this. Would you be okay if you were the only human on the planet? I would not and I am sure the same is the case for you or the animals, hence we both have an amygdala, which controls such emotions. Many would not even accept being with 2-3 other humans since we are still not truly free, and in a world filled with danger that would make it hard to survive.

So, for those unemphatic fellows who still do not believe me, I am going to make it simple by using a metaphor.

You are controlling a train. The train is right now on the path to kill one person. But you have the option to switch the track and kill ten but make one live again hence one of the ten is an organ donor. Would you willingly choose to switch and kill more just to help one person in the hospital? I would not and most would not either. This is an easy trolley problem to decide on. So, make the right choice.

Yes, the technology of the century is indeed here and yes it might be very cool and might even help. But it’s not a question about how cool it is or if it could help. It is a question of whether we should use it instead of other strategies. Here the answer is a clear no, both economically and morally. So, if I would summarize all my arguments into one simple sentence. It would be that the problem of extinction doesn’t lie in the past but in the future. In general, it is common advice to not dwell on the past, so don’t begin doing it now.

[1] “How to Bring an Extinct Animal Back to Life” (00:48-01:04)

[2] ”How to Bring an Extinct Animal Back to Life” (00:55-00:59)

[3] ”How to Bring an Extinct Animal Back to Life” (00:54-01:05)

[4]  “Scientists Launch Project to 'De-Extinct' the Dodo, Reintroduce to Natural Habitat” (ll. 3-5)

[5]  ” The Guardian view on de-extinction: Jurassic Park may be becoming reality” (l. 14)

[6] ” The Guardian view on de-extinction: Jurassic Park may be becoming reality” (ll. 37-41)