Rise of the Necrofauna

The earth is in an another extinction period, and humans blame ourselves.

So we have the motive (guilt) to de-extinct what were once living organisms, like the passenger pigeon, Tasmanian tigers, and dodo bird. It turns out we also have the means: selective breeding, cellular cloning, CRISPR/Fanzor for specific genetic modifications.

All we needed was opportunity, and we have that now, too, in well-funded labs that can justify spending huge amounts of money on cloning a mammoth. But wiser men than I have raised an important question. What are the risks? This is why Britt Wray’s Rise of the Necrofauna… show more.

Thankfully, people are starting to chew over the tangled ethics of fiddling with animal genetics, and Britt Wray does it well. Though focused mostly on de-extinction, her forays into morals and philosophy apply to many applications, including using this technology on people. If bioengineering makes you uneasy—and who doesn’t it?—Wray helps dissect the source of that unease and distinguishes the main practical and ethical arguments for and against genetic tinkering.   

You have heard of extinction for sure - people are on the streets protesting about it. But what about de-extinction?  Maybe. But perhaps not in sufficient detail to really understand what the issues are, ranging from ethical to environmental, through to the sheer joy at the prospect of actually being able to go and see something that looks pretty much like a wooly mammoth. Britt Wray does a tremendous job of tiptoeing through the ideas and potential pitfalls of bringing extinct species back to life, justifying its inclusion as one of the best books of the year (2019) by The… show more.