In the interview, Church discussed the technical challenges scientists would face if they tried to clone a Neanderthal, though neither he nor the Der Spiegel article, which was presented as a question and answer exchange, said he intended to do so.
[,,,]
Still, the readiness of bloggers, journalists and readers to believe he was preparing an attempt to clone a Neanderthal, a species closely related to modern humans that went extinct some 30,000 years ago, led Church to ponder scientific literacy.
[,,,]
In the Der Spiegel article, which Church said reported his words accurately, and his recent book "Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves," Church theorized that studying cloned Neanderthals could help scientists better understand how the human mind works. Scientists have already extracted DNA from Neanderthal bones.
But such experiments would pose a host of ethical concerns - including how many Neanderthals would be created and whether they would be treated as mere study subjects or as beings with their own rights, Church said.
Neanderthal cloning chatter highlights scientific illiteracy | Reuters
No comments:
Post a Comment