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Intelligence Squared

Monday, February 25 at 2:00 pm

Don't Bring Extinct Creatures Back To Life

De-extinction describes the process of creating an organism which is a member of, or closely resembles, an extinct species. While this process was once a sci-fi fantasy explored in films like “Jurassic Park,” recent biological and technological breakthroughs indicate that reviving extinct creatures, like the passenger pigeon and the woolly mammoth, could become a reality. De-extinction’s proponents argue that the benefits are many, including correcting mistakes of the past by bringing back extinct ecosystems and organisms and helping to curb climate change. They remind us that all scientific breakthroughs are initially met with skepticism and concern, most of which we now take for granted. But others aren’t so sure de-extinction is ethical, or even feasible, since each creature poses its own unique challenge: Recreating a bird is a very different process from recreating a mammal. And beyond that, some say that the resources and funds necessary for de-extinction would compete with current and vital conservation efforts. After all, they argue, with over 16,000 endangered species on Earth, shouldn’t humans focus on saving them from extinction rather than “playing God?”

The Debaters:
Dr. Ross MacPhee
Curator, Department of Mammalogy, Division of Vertebrate Zoology, American Museum of Natural History
Dr. Ross MacPhee is the former chairman of the Department of Mammalogy at the American Museum of Natural History, where he has been curator since 1988. Known for his paleomammalogical research on island extinctions, he has focused his most recent work on extinctions occurring during the past 50,000 years, or "Near Time." He is the author of the new book "End of the Megafauna: The Fate of the World's Hugest, Fiercest, and Strangest Animals" (Norton, 2019). Dr. MacPhee has also collaborated with geneticists and molecular biologists to develop the new tool of "ancient DNA" for studying the ultimate collapse of Pleistocene mammals.

Dr. Lynn J. Rothschild
Evolutionary Biologist & Astrobiologist
Dr. Lynn Rothschild is an evolutionary biologist and astrobiologist who focuses on the origin and evolution of life on Earth, while at the same time pioneering the use of synthetic biology to enable space exploration. She is an adjunct professor of molecular biology, cell biology, and biochemistry at Brown University. Since 2011, Rothschild has been the faculty adviser of the award-winning Stanford-Brown iGEM team, which has pioneered the use of synthetic biology to accomplish NASA’s missions, including the human settlement of Mars.

Stewart Brand
Co-Founder, Revive & Restore & Founder, Whole Earth Catalog
Stewart Brand is a futurist, environmentalist, and proponent of de-extinction who promotes the use of science to preserve the planet. He is the co-founder of Revive & Restore, which facilitates extinct species revival, and the Long Now Foundation, of which he is co-chair and president. He was the founder and editor of the award-winning Whole Earth Catalog and is the author of several books, including “Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto.” In 2013, Brand organized the TEDxDeExtinction conference in partnership with the National Geographic Society.

Dr. George Church
Professor of Genetics, Harvard and MIT & Founder, Personal Genome Project
Dr. George Church is a geneticist and molecular engineer who is working to revive the extinct woolly mammoth. He is the Robert Winthrop professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School and professor of health sciences and technology at Harvard and MIT. Dr. Church developed methods used for the first genome sequence and founded the Personal Genome Project. He has earned dozens of awards and honors, including Time’s “100 Most Influential People,” and is the author of 490 papers, 130 patent publications, and the book “Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves.”

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