Scientists Engaged In Misguided Effort To Bring Back The Woolly Mammoth

 

Why are scientists working so diligently to bring back the woolly mammoth? (They have also worked to “reincarnate” other things from ancient societies, including the precise properties of Egyptian beer at the time of the Pharaohs, etc.) Why is this the priority? Private biotech firms are working to reincarnate the mammoths by 2027 or soon thereafter. If successful, this would be the world’s first De-extinction Event.

I say just go back two or three hundred years and try to bring back the Founders. That would be immeasurably better for society, especially ours. Wouldn’t it be easier to capture DNA, and, if necessary, edit genes from those of our own species who were alive a relatively short time ago?

What are we going to do with giant beasts with 12-foot-long tusks that can weigh over 200 pounds apiece? Where would we put them? They are not going to want to be put in zoos just to be ogled. Are we going to try to do this just to prove we can? It would be a far greater feat to see if we could bring back George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, or Ben Franklin, for example. Or even to go back just 161 years and see if we can reanimate Abraham Lincoln. Seems like we could use him about now.

But back to the mammoths. On second thought, I can think of one possible benefit of bringing them back. We could use them to pay back China and its Asian neighbors for giving us so many invasive species. (Species that destroy our native flora and fauna-- and that are a plague upon our lands. Species like the “murder” Hornet, Asian “needle” ant, Eurasian milfoil, purple loosestrife—and silver, bighead, and grass carp, etc., etc., etc.) We could load these ancient behemoths into large landing crafts and pull up to a desolate Chinese beach somewhere and let them loose. What fun!

The plan is to reintroduce the woolly mammoth to the same ecosystem in which it once lived, in an effort to fight climate change, according to a years-old Medium post. But I thought the earth was rapidly warming, quite close to spontaneously igniting. Do we really want to bring back large, cold-resistant elephants to make them miserable? And isn’t rapid global warming what caused them to go extinct in the first place, roughly 12,000 years ago? Rapid global warming, it should be noted, that was decidedly not man caused. Or has man caused global warming been an extended, elaborate hoax, and scientists are actually anticipating rapid global cooling in the near future?

Again, I have nothing against woolly mammoths. They are cool creatures. (See what I did there?!) But, for the love of God, we are not desperately in need of them. But we are, in fact, desperately in need of sanity, reason, integrity, intelligence, and courage. We are desperately in need of a Washington, Adams, or Madison. That is the elephant in the room.

Wouldn’t be any different if it was a woolly mammoth.