A mammoth circus of macabre fantasy and moral bankruptcy. I got my views on mammoths down. Enjoy. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre... - ThreadSky

adamrutherford.bsky.social • 3 days ago

A mammoth circus of macabre fantasy and moral bankruptcy.
I got my views on mammoths down. Enjoy.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/06/woolly-mammoth-us-scientists-unethical-government

Comments

tiny-grass.bsky.social•2 days ago

"...like tears in rain" 🤓
I like it!

karlstanley.bsky.social•2 days ago

I came here to comment on how apt it is that an article about genetic engineering quotes a replicant.

lsideris.bsky.social•1 day ago

Great essay, hitting all the right points. This environmental ethicist agrees. https://publish.iupress.indiana.edu/read/extinction-and-religion/section/e69eff12-8b12-4940-84ee-5a19cab77556

tessakendall.bsky.social•3 days ago

Yes, let's save the eco system by creating mammoths rather than, say, getting rid of fossil fuels - that's just boring.

grouchymarx57.bsky.social•2 days ago

Surely the aim is to achieve a sort of circular sustainability, by raising species out of extinction at roughly the same rate we push existing ones into it. Bye-bye elephants, welcome back mammoths. Say hello to the Retrocene

abracostadani.bsky.social•10 hours ago

Working as an embryologist, it can be exciting to dream about works like these. It‘s like Colosal is setting this impossible goal and seeing how far they can come, developing new tech along the way. But their resources would probably be better spent helping the species that are actually extant now.

recliningpair.bsky.social•2 days ago

Can we at least have a hairy elephant then?

specialkneespete.bsky.social•1 day ago

Thank you. I read your posts on this with interest and enjoyed the expanded explanation in the article.

igorspp.bsky.social•3 days ago

It made me so angry that @nature.com, @science.org and others are doing free PR for these lunatics. What Colossal is doing is not science and should not be given a voice in scientific discussions, especially NOT on how to solve climate change…

themattmyth.bsky.social•3 days ago

Absolutely right… they should be focussing on bringing back the megatherium instead 😬

profsimonfisher.bsky.social•3 days ago

Now do Neanderthals, Adam, you know you want to!

filbertwang.bsky.social•3 days ago

Can I ask did you listen to the Ben Lamm discussion with Sam Harris a few months ago? It sounds like there are applications beyond bringing back extinct animals (artificial wombs etc.) that are possibly the big money drivers, which I have read amount to billions, behind this.

drpardi.bsky.social•2 days ago

Then they can stop working this particular nonsense angle and be honest about the applications.

bdbdbd1.bsky.social•3 days ago

Could we bring back the dodo instead? Apparently they were delicious.

cirruslynow.bsky.social•3 days ago

“ like tears in rain.” Nice

drkrebs.bsky.social•3 days ago

Brilliant article. Thank you. Completely agree let's focus on the organisms that we still have and maintain biodiversity

moleymole.bsky.social•3 days ago

“The only species to have gone extinct twice” hit the spot!

n-gons.bsky.social•3 days ago

I don't understand how Colossal are making $ from this bs...

drpardi.bsky.social•2 days ago

Venture capitalists and rich tech bros

n-gons.bsky.social•2 days ago

yeah, but somewhere in their empty insides they want to make more money... I just don't see the use. Maybe it is like nft:s...

rebeccarideal.bsky.social•3 days ago

Good piece. I remember being sent to film scientists at Penn State who were planning to resurrect the mammoth 15 years ago. The overused Jurassic Park quote seems pertinent “scientists* were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should”

*colossal

stunathan.bsky.social•3 days ago

Although in this case, they couldn't either, as @adamrutherford.bsky.social explained.

rebeccarideal.bsky.social•3 days ago

They definitely couldn’t, obviously. I can’t recall now which animal DNA they were hoping to use.

briw74.bsky.social•3 days ago

I keep thinking of the mega Oxen that Goering brought back. Is that an entirely different thing?

stunathan.bsky.social•3 days ago

Very different. The Nazis were trying to bring back aurochs, they did it by selective breeding, and the result (Heck cattle) aren't much like aurochs. There have been some attempts to GM them, but longhorn cattle and Bison do much the same job in managing woodland and exist.

briw74.bsky.social•3 days ago

Thank you.

brunosferatu.bsky.social•2 days ago

📌

arboviral.bsky.social•3 days ago

Agree there are huge issues with the work Colossal is doing, but I thought you picked some odd choices here? Yes the result would be a hybrid at best, but the timescale over which these species have been separate (6MY) is similar to horses and donkeys (>mules) or lions and tigers (>ligers/tigons).

arboviral.bsky.social•3 days ago

And you imply the project would be exceptionally unethical because the elephant didn't consent to artificial insemination, in which case I have bad news for you about farming.

It's a waste of time and money better spent on conservation and the science is misrepresented by Colossal though, agreed.

dottyloug.bsky.social•3 days ago

I'm also astonished how the media (BBC) would just parrot the company's "findings" (I don't recall hearing a mention of it being non-peer-reviewed).

drpardi.bsky.social•2 days ago

The attention they get from major media outlets is exactly why they have decided to continue this ridiculous, but flashy, farce. It's all PR with little substance.

dottyloug.bsky.social•3 days ago

"Perhaps in the meantime we could direct our scientific excitement and energies towards real problems, things on which millions of lives depend, rather than on this mammoth circus of macabre fantasy and moral bankruptcy." BOOM!!

boredaardvark.bsky.social•18 hours ago

Reminds me of that joke - What do you get if you cross a duck with a kangaroo? A stern rebuke from the ethics committee and immediate cessation of function.

I’ll get me coat.

drpardi.bsky.social•2 days ago

I'm a paleontologist and work on ice age megafauna and I applaud this piece, thank you for writing it. I am thoroughly annoyed with this company and the way they have been framing the technology they are working on and the harm it is causing.

catrinj.bsky.social•3 days ago

Shame. Quite fancied having a pet mammoth.

drpardi.bsky.social•2 days ago

If they hadn't gone extinct I suspect we probably would have tried to domesticate them, I mean those smaller island forms are total cuties.

matteomics.bsky.social•3 days ago

If they'd just put the hair gene into a kangaroo instead of a mouse at least they'd be half way to a Christmas cracker joke.

arqueoscheinsohn.bsky.social•3 days ago

"most of which is lost in time, like tears in rain..."quote to the Roy Batty monologue of Blade Runner?

drpardi.bsky.social•2 days ago

::chef's kiss::

papworthdave.bsky.social•2 days ago

I created an account on Bluesky yesterday, and of course you were one of the first accounts I followed (along with Alice Roberts, Hannah Fry, David Olusoga...). I am glad to see you are continuing your take downs of rogue science!

judeet44.bsky.social•3 days ago

Two words, hyphenated: attention-seeking. That's what this lab is doing, probably for money and certainly for publicity.

jacquelyngill.bsky.social•2 days ago

As a paleoecologist who works on woolly mammoth impacts, behavior, and ecology, and who has advocated for Pleistocene rewilding, I wholeheartedly agree. Thank you for writing this.

jacquelyngill.bsky.social•2 days ago

I wrote something along these lines back in 2011, too: https://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/guest-blog/cloning-woolly-mammoths-its-the-ecology-stupid/

perahlberg.bsky.social•2 days ago

What's your view on more-or-less-recreation of aurochs by selective breeding? It seems like a more sensible idea, given that a) domestic cattle are direct aurochs descendants, and b) ecologically suitable settings are available. Still something of a vanity project, but quite interesting.

jacquelyngill.bsky.social•2 days ago

This is closer to what I would call useful, definitely. I’m not against ecological surrogates being used where native species are no longer present.

perahlberg.bsky.social•2 days ago

Agreed, and it's also refreshing that the people developing these projects acknowledge that they are not really recreating the extinct aurochs. Come to think of it, I'm not sure that it would be such a great idea: by all accounts it was fast, bad-tempered and altogether very dangerous.

timeveleigh.bsky.social•3 days ago

"Mice are a crucial part of the story of genetics, not least because" they are a three-dimensional projection of hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional creatures and also the most intelligent species on Earth.

deliciouslegacy.bsky.social•3 days ago

No T-Rex then either? DAMN!

peterkdearden.bsky.social•3 days ago

Awesome, and about time some one said it

shroommuse.bsky.social•2 days ago

What's the point?!!!🤷🏼‍♀️ Even if it could be done, where would they put them? People are already losing their shit at the idea of a few lynx & beaver being released back into the wild. They'll go fucking Tonto if they wake up one morning to find a hairy elephant eating the roses!

greedyrunner.bsky.social•3 days ago

Great piece, thank you.

bglazebrook26.bsky.social•3 days ago

They think that a gigantic herbivore, adapted to living in an ice age, would be good for the climate? They may know genetics, but they don't know shit about environmental science.

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