Thread: Neanderthal Cloning and Neanderthal Rights

It now sounds like it is possible to clone a Neanderthal, and create a real, live, living Neanderthal.

Obviously, there are ethical issues.

Should this be done? Will this ever be done?

Print|Email
Neanderthal Rights

The morality of resurrecting our closest evolutionary cousins

Ronald Bailey | February 17, 2009
The ancestral lines of Neanderthals and modern humans split about 800,000 years ago, making them our closest relatives on the hominid family tree. Neanderthals inhabited ice age Europe and parts of the Middle East before going extinct 30,000 years ago. A team of researchers led by geneticist Svante Pääbo at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany announced last week that they had completed a draft sequence of the genome of Neanderthal humans. Eager evolutionary biologists believe that comparing the Neanderthal genome with our own will throw considerable light on the genetic changes that gave us our big brains, language, and the ability to create culture.


Once the Neanderthal genome is complete, could it then be used to clone an actual Neanderthal? Harvard University biologist George Church thinks so. He told The New York Times that a Neanderthal could be brought to life using present technology for about $30 million. How? Church would modify a modern human genome so that its DNA matches the Neanderthal version. To avoid ethical problems, Church tells the Times, this Neanderthal genome would not be inserted into a human cell but instead into a chimpanzee cell. This chimp cell would be reprogrammed to an embryonic state, and then introduced into a chimpanzee's womb where it would develop into a Neanderthal infant.

But does this avoid ethical problems? Hardly.


Assuming that cloning is safe, would it be ethical to clone a human being? The short answer is yes. Clones are basically delayed twins—and there is nothing inherently immoral about twins. Recent polls, however, show that most Americans still oppose the use of cloning to create human babies. In addition, some religious traditions believe that human cloning is immoral. So I suspect that the proposal to use chimpanzee cells to clone a Neanderthal is an attempt to do a kind of ethical end-run around this "yuck factor" reaction to human cloning. In this case, researchers could argue that they are cloning a different species, not a human being.


But there is another problem with Church's plan to use chimpanzee cells: Neanderthals are human beings, too. The ancestral lineage that led to both Neanderthals and modern humans diverged from the chimpanzee line nearly 6 million years ago. If it is possible to clone Neanderthals using chimpanzee cells, it would also be possible to clone humans the same way. One would insert a human genome taken from, say, a skin cell, into an enucleated chimpanzee egg and then install that egg in a chimpanzee's womb where it would develop.



The only genetic difference from a normal human would be that the clone's mitochondria (tiny intracellular power plants that have their own small genomes) would be chimp rather than human. Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA has around 200 differences from human mitochondrial genomes whereas chimpanzee mitochondrial DNA has about 1500 differences. I fear that using chimpanzee cells to clone Neanderthals would likely be taken as an indication from the outset that they are in some sense subhuman, and thus less worthy of moral respect.


But let's set that worry aside and assume that scientists are able to produce healthy Neanderthal clones. What rights would they have? One way to approach the question is to ask if Neanderthals would be able to make and keep moral commitments.


One significant clue that they might have this ability is the fact their genomes have the same version of the FOXP2 gene that we do. Our variant of that gene is necessary for articulate speech. The human (both modern and Neanderthal) FOXP2 gene differs from that found in chimps and most other primates by two changes in its genetic sequence. The fact that Neanderthals carried the same version means that it is possible that they could talk and might have been able to make and keep promises. If Neanderthals had this ability it strongly suggests that they would merit the same moral consideration that we give to our fellow human beings. If they can speak, there's a good chance that they can also demand rights.

Link & Entire: Neanderthal Rights - Reason Magazine

It now sounds like it is possible to clone a Neanderthal, and create a real, live, living Neanderthal.

Same was said about Jesus.

I really hope this never happens. There are enough issues in the wold today, we don't need to create more things to devide people on religios and moral issues. If it happened would we be creating a slave race? Would cross breeding be possible? Hopefully not but if so then what?

fairly fanciful at this stage.

Worth a discussion before it becomes possible.

Originally Posted by Deris

I really hope this never happens. There are enough issues in the wold today,

Plus there's already abos... So what's the point?

Originally Posted by kingwilly

fairly fanciful at this stage.

Worth a discussion before it becomes possible.

Going to be quite a while yet.

Remember the same hysteria after Jurasic Park was released.

Still though, discuss away, you pro or con humans acting God in our typical arrogant, yet infinetly doltish manner?

that a Neanderthal could be brought to life using present technology for about $30 million.

the girls of pattaya bring many a neanderthal to life for far less than that.

Just because it's possible why would you WANT to?

I think it's a bad idea. But I do believe, someone will do it, (a group of researchers will do it, secretly) then announce after it'd been done.

Same with "Dolly" the sheep. It got the ball rolling.

Scientists can only debate, whether or not Neanderthals, had language.

Originally Posted by Milkman

It now sounds like it is possible to clone a Neanderthal, and create a real, live, living Neanderthal.

Obviously, there are ethical issues.

Should this be done? Will this ever be done?

Already done: ray and hatter. Thought they wanted to do various species. Not a good idea, IMO. If something has died out, there was good reason -- no balancing ecology to sustain it. Bring back prehistoric, there goes man.

Originally Posted by Dug

Just because it's possible why would you WANT to?

Because we can is a good enough reason for many things. That's what makes us human.

By that I don't say that an individual who has another opinion is less than human. But if we as a race lose that drive we would be less than human. Please don't ask me for a link. It is strictly my opinion but strongly felt.

For recrating a Neanderthal it would not be a good enough reason imo though. Too many implications with a different intelligent race. As proof we can do it a Mammoth or a Saber Tooth would be good enough. But I am fairly certain that capability is a long way off.

From Dolly to Neanderthal would be as going from the steam engine to a flight to Mars. And we are barely managing functioning steam engines yet.

Originally Posted by Milkman

It now sounds like it is possible to clone a Neanderthal, and create a real, live, living Neanderthal.

Obviously, there are ethical issues.

Should this be done? Will this ever be done?

Why not? Wasn't it already done a while back? Doesn't this explain Scampy?

Should this be done? Will this ever be done?

NO . High probability

Welcome to the Planet of the Apes. Geneticly altered ape men, 5 times as strong as homosapiens and none of the moral restrictions. Hmmmm.. good time, good times....

Are they going to create a man or a women or both??

Absolutely fascinating. Could you image how much we could learn about evolution by having a living specimen like this.

Originally Posted by crippen

Are they going to create a man or a women or both??

My guess would be, if this ever actually happens, a woman. They would assume she would be gentler and more doscile. I'm sure it wouldn't have anything to do with seeing neander-titties....

Originally Posted by Deris

Originally Posted by crippen

Are they going to create a man or a women or both??

My guess would be, if this ever actually happens, a woman. They would assume she would be gentler and more doscile. I'm sure it wouldn't have anything to do with seeing neander-titties....

Would have quite a hairy box I'd imagine

Neanderthal men could blend in quite well into homo sapiens society.

Michael Shanks Neanderthals ’sang and danced’

Sometimes I wonder if Neanderthals were peaceful and we just killed them off for their land\caves. Just like every other part of our history, hey thanks for holding our land till we got here.

Originally Posted by Deris

Sometimes I wonder if Neanderthals were peaceful and we just killed them off for their land\caves. Just like every other part of our history, hey thanks for holding our land till we got here.

Probably just hairy Abbos.

We need to clone this Encino Man just for this reason.

Originally Posted by Deris

Geneticly altered ape men, 5 times as strong as homosapiens and none of the moral restrictions.

Given our success in the area of "moral" restrictions, would be a big improvement.

Originally Posted by Norton

Originally Posted by Deris

Geneticly altered ape men, 5 times as strong as homosapiens and none of the moral restrictions.

Given our success in the area of "moral" restrictions, would be a big improvement.

Hmm I wonder if its going to become "So easy a cave man could do it"?
But hey then the Geico caveman wouldnt be alone huh...

Given some of the people I've met I reckon Neanderthals and homo-sapiens interbred and their descendants walk the earth today.

Originally Posted by Dug

Given some of the people I've met I reckon Neanderthals and homo-sapiens interbred and their descendants walk the earth today.

I wonder if that was possible? Cross breeding animals like tighers and lions create an animal called a Liger but I belive it is sterile, much like a horse and donkey producing a mule. If HomoSapians and Neanderthal mated and did produce offspring would they too have been sterile?