Rebuilt DNA Could Lead to Cloned Neanderthals

reply to post by Lasheic

I agree with you here. However, if they were researched using the same ethical guidelines involved in currently existing human research projects, what would be the harm?

In existing human research projects those human subjects come from a family unit/community. They are volunteers helping science. Imo Neanderthal clones born in a lab would be coming from a very different place. Their sole reason for being would be for an experiment/study. They would be too vulnerable too easy to exploit. Their humanity/rights would have to be addressed. It's not quite the same as breeding lab rats.

Why wouldn't they be a part of our kind? If they are going to be behaviorally and culturally human anyhow, at what critical number of allele variation would they then not be human?

In order to be culturally and behaviorally human they would first have to live within the culture. It would be cruel to raise any child in a lab setting. Raise them in a nurturing family type setting complete with peers, birthday parties, school and all that comes with being a kid and I would feel a little better about it.

While I find the idea of bringing Neanderthal back fascinating it would have to be done with respect and humanity. Imo we would have to accept them as human counterparts not display/lab animals. I don't know if we're up to it.

Here is an interesting question...

Could neanderthals be considered edible?

I actually know a guy that not only looks like a Neanderthal or one of those cavemen in the commercials, but he has similar primitive mannerisms and even had 8 wisdom teeth. I have told him to get checked genetically but he refuses saying that he is just like everyone else.

I personally think he has a strain of Neanderthal DNA in him...

If this could be done for Neanderthals then we could do it for us as well. We could just keep cloning new bodies for ourselves.

Then all we need is a way to transfer our memories from body to body.

I wonder where the cloned neanderthals would be kept... zoos? Homes? Caves?

What will happen to these poor guys and gals when they see that us homo-sapians have cell phones and ipods?

I wonder if they could adapt to our lifestyles...

they might make good politicians.. once they are trained... we got it made... lord knows it could not be much worse than the idiots we got in there right now...

reply to post by Phlynx

If we clone humans we can prove if humans have "souls" or not.

Proves nothing. If you accept this as proof, then you accept that human beings know everything about everything, and have nothing left to figure out about existence.

I'm sure that God would view cloning a violation of His order of things. Given the example recorded for us pertaining to how the second angelic rebellion went and the disposition of judgement given against those angels during a request for readmittance, Folks having the powers of Divine ability should well consider the cost of effect in the likelihood this becomes the case.

Remember, it's a one time thing only...

Can we use the cloning technique on non-living organic matter as well? Like ice cream?

I would LOVE an ice-cream clone!

very interesting.

personaly, im not into the thought of cloning one person from an an anchient race of people, as really the person will just be cloned, brought up with no family and used for experiments its whole life ... not only that it will be the ONLY one of its kind, and i woudl assume that things could get quite lonely for someone being litrely the only one of their kind alive.

i think it would be cruel to take someone into the world, who has no family, no kindered spirits,and no other person that is the same as them.

but mainly, its the whole bringing a person (or anything) into existance just to experiment ...sorry, learn from.

Do we Really need to learn anything from the neanderthals... after all, their are reasons they are extinct and we are not.

This raises interesting and uncomfortable ethical issues. Clearly a Neanderthal would be considered a human being, therefore possessing what we consider to be human rights. But what if we cloned a species further back the evolutionary tree, something somewhere between human and what we now call an ape? Would this being be considered human or animal? What is the difference? What does it say about us that we draw a distinction? What does it say about us that if classified an animal, the being could be caged and tortured to death for science?

Leave my great granny alone you fools!

The Neanderthals were more bred into our group.

What probably killed them off was that they could interbreed with us - barely.

Some ended up contributors to Europeans, and most died of the obstetrical complications of trying to breed with us.

The male line die off for killing their female homo sapiens partners with their ungainly fetuses - big heads, small women. Our males killed off most of their women with their voracious genetics - human-hybrid fetuses and their placentas tended to kill the mothers.

Extinction by obstetrics.

I am still puzzled as to where they would live.

Also, do you think they would be able to adapt to today's world of internet, ipods, take-out chinese and Lady GaGa?

They have much more on the woolly mammoth if they could do anything they would bring back a mammoth first.

Originally posted by Common Good
Making a neanderthal woman could be dangerous. There are a lot of sickos out there that might try to "get at it".
Than a new breed begins..
ack!!

I could say the same for making a man. Why just demonise men?

I bet there would be plenty of women who would like to try a real neanderthal man, instead of pansy humans.

I could have sworn they already started doing this. I usually see at least a few people everyday who look and act like neandertals.

Originally posted by RestingInPieces
I could have sworn they already started doing this. I usually see at least a few people everyday who look and act like neandertals.

How do we know anything about neanderthals culture?

But.... I get the joke.

They wouldn't say if they cloned it or not. My bet is they have already cloned one or three. They are living in a lab right now most likely. You can't just release them and study them unless it is being done secretly. There may be an island of them somewhere but I am still going with the lab. The government would want to suck up all the knowledge they could before they feed them to the incinerator. (Neanderthal! Fire hot, stay still). Yep, sucks to be them.

[edit on 17-5-2010 by ventian]

Not sure if anyone's mentioned this, but while they might clone a neanderthal, because it would be brought up in a world based on modern human ideas and culture it would be neanderthal in genetics only...

Its the same issue with people wanting to clone their dead pets... unless you bring it up exactly like you did the old one, it isnt the same pet, it just looks like it, since experience is what makes you what you are for the most part.

I have no problem with them doing the cloning, since i dont see them ever even getting a viable embryo anyway. But ultimately if they make a mess they've gotta clean it up, so best they be prepared.

Personally to me its the same line as with aliens, we need some thing 'inhuman' (yes I know neanderthals arent really inhuman) in our existence now days just to teach us were all the same, and all the crap we keep doing to each other over petty things like race/religion and culture has gone on far enough.

[edit on 17-5-2010 by BigfootNZ]