doubleplusundead

February 11, 2010

Um, suppose this actually works...

If this actually happens, what do we do with Gorak and his family? Put them in a zoo?

As scientists come closer to completing a draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome, creating a living person from an ancient DNA sequence is becoming a real possibility, according to Archaeology Magazine.
In 2005, 454 Life Sciences began a project with the Max Planck Institute to sequence the genetic code of a 30,000 year old Neanderthal woman. Now nearly complete, the sequence will let scientists look at the genetic blueprint of humankind's nearest relative, understand its biology and maybe even create a living person.

Yeah, what could possibly go wrong with that?

FIRE BAD!!!!! CATS AND DOGS DOMESTICATED NOW?! "CARS" SCARY!!! WHAT IS LOUD SHINY METAL GIANT BIRD??! SALAD DRESSING TASTE WEIRD!!! WHAT IS "INCOME TAX"??!! GRARRRRGHH!!!!

Posted by: Sean M. at 01:54 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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1 They could always become lawyers.

Posted by: alexthechick at February 11, 2010 08:56 AM (8WZWv)

2 Honestly, some of the stupidest stuff I've seen about this comes from honest to god scientists. "Think of what we could LEARN from them!" We couldn't learn a damned thing. It will be a Neanderthal baby. Someone's gotta raise it. At which point it will be a physically deformed, mentally challenged human. Sure, we'll learn if they had the capacity for language (which is not really in dispute as far as I know), but that would be about it. We'd never learn anything about Neanderthal culture, or how they lived, or if they had religion, or any damned thing about THEM. The stuff we really want to know about them is the kind of stuff that parents would have passed along to their children. And last I checked, they're all dead.

And let's talk about rights. What rights would it have? Is it granted human rights or is it an animal that can be owned (and therefore bought and sold)? And if it's an animal, wouldn't it immediately go on the endangered species list (and therefor be unable to be experimented with)? And if it's given human rights, what if it doesn't want to be studied? Would it really be given its freedom if it asked?

This kind of crap really pisses me off.

Posted by: MikeD at February 11, 2010 09:39 AM (FkL60)

3 There's awful potential here for a less-hirsute Planet of the Apes.

Posted by: leoncaruthers at February 11, 2010 09:47 AM (PH0UW)

4 Why do I get the feeling that if they do decide to clone this Neanderthal, it will just grow up to be a hiker from Colorado who was frozen in the ice just a handful of years ago?

Posted by: conservativeinthecity at February 11, 2010 10:25 AM (i3tSP)

5 I don't like experimenting on people, and besides, if Neanderthals were all that interesting our ancestors wouldn't have killed them off.

Posted by: Veeshir at February 11, 2010 10:31 AM (G93du)

6 They could always become lawyers.

I don't understand your modern world with your flying shiny birds and your honking slave buffalo. I'm just a caveman.

Posted by: Moron Pundit at February 11, 2010 10:35 AM (GC5S2)

7 I miss Phil. He knew how to bring teh funny.

Posted by: Chuck D at February 11, 2010 12:10 PM (0/c8m)

8 One thing is for certain: there is no stopping them; the Neanderthals will soon be here. And I, for one, welcome our new Neanderthal overlords.

Posted by: mthulhu at February 11, 2010 12:48 PM (XkIL8)

I'm guessing that his intelligence would be comparable with ours, and his bone structure and appearance not different enough to draw shocked stares, but his immune system would be less evolved. We would need to inoculate him for diseases that we stopped worrying about ages ago. It would be like the Europeans bringing smallpox to America, only worse.

This is a layman's guess. I don't even play a geneticist on TV.

I think I even mispeled it.

Posted by: Paul Moore at February 11, 2010 10:09 PM (FrIe/)

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