Did You Know There Is A Real Life Jurassic Park Being Built?
De-Extinction:Lions And Tigers And Dinosaurs, Oh My!
De-Extinction. Now there’s a word I bet you never heard of.
Is It Life Imitating Art Or Was Michael Crichton Just Paying Better Attention Than The Rest Of Us? Did He Predict The Future, Or Cause It To Happen?
Gee grandpa, can we go see the dinosaurs today? Sure kids, I’ll get us tickets to “Pleistocene Park” and we can go see the Crisprsaurus. The minute I saw this, my mind must have gotten a long distance call from Jeff Goldblum’s character in the movie because I will play the skeptic here and say that this is among the worst ideas I have ever heard of. I rank this right up there with pouring gasoline all over yourself and smoking a cigarette. No way anything can possibly go wrong. It’s kind of like when Oppenheimer built the atomic bomb. Just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should do it. There have never been any regrets with that one either.
I will take for granted that all of you have at least heard of the 1993 Steven Spielberg movie “Jurassic Park” written by the phenomenal visionary Michael Crichton. Michael Crichton brought us so many of my favorite movies from “Looker”, to “Congo”, to “Rising Sun”, to “Westworld”, to “Twister” and so many more. For the uninitiated to his works, here is the trailer for said movie.
Most, if not all of you, have probably watched it at least once. If you haven’t watched it, or it’s been a while, I highly recommend re-acquanting yourself with the pros and cons of this possible reality. Jump 30 years into the future and you’ll be getting your tickets soon. This time it won’t be to the movie theater, it will be to the real life “Pleistocene Park” in Siberia. You will have to be nice and quit picking on Vladimir to get to go. LOL.
All brought to you by a little company called Colossal Biosciences. Just another in a long line of companies that have appointed themselves saviors of the planet with their plans for de-extinction aka “resurrection biology” of certain historical species. A quote from their website: “We are the De-Extinction Company. On behalf of humanity, the animal kingdom and the universe at large.” (How did they get in touch with the universe? That’s a phone number I wish I had.) I do recommend checking out every link on their website for a ton of very informative information.
You would think when Hollywood makes a movie that brings up a very scary scenario for the planet, people would at least pay attention and go “Damn, we probably shouldn’t open that door?” Just when you think we can’t do anything to top our past stupidity, we just can’t help ourselves and we dive right in. Here is the recent Joe Rogan interview clip with Forrest Galante (Somebody’s parents were channeling King Arthur.) that inspired this article. It’s following the plot of the movie to a “T”. You get a bunch of rich people with more money than sense and help them play “GOD” with mother nature to stroke their egos and we get one more ecological disaster for mankind.
Just a few things to consider. Is the brain going to develop from the Elephant DNA or the DNA inside that Woolly Mammoth sample? Which set of “Animal Instincts” will we get to deal with? Will the animal’s amount of aggression be one or the other sample or some combination of both? How big will this creature be? Mammoths were 12,000 to 15,000 lbs. About 5,000 lbs more that our Indian elephants. Just like in the movie, how many other species will they be fast tracking once they get the first one made? They already have at least one more in the works. Think of every worst case scenario and I’m pretty sure the phrase “Arrogance & Money Breed Contempt” is the first thought that comes to my mind.
They will be using Crispr Technology. You know that evil technology that brought us the Covid-19 Bioweapon they call a vaccine. Genome editing, a technique of synthetic biology, involves adding or removing specific pieces of DNA in a species’s genome. The discovery of CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats), a naturally occurring enzyme system that edits DNA in certain microorganisms, greatly facilitated the refinement of genome editing for de-extinction.
Slicing and dicing DNA and inserting what they think is the right information to make this a living, viable animal. How many times throughout human history have we tried to control mother nature with disastrous results? From weather modification, to GMO foods, to changing the ecosystems and allowing a dominant plant or animal to destroy everything else, to hunting certain plant and animal species to extinction and so many more bad decisions. Scientists believe that almost 99% of all plant and animal species that ever existed on planet earth have already gone extinct.
We can’t keep screwing around with mother nature without more disastrous consequences. The movie brought up a lot of great points. Humanity isn’t smart enough to play “GOD” and yet here we are proving every reason that statement is true and that we are dumb enough to try.
They keep making movies, we keep paying billions to go see them. They are desensitizing us to the possibilities of this one day becoming a reality. Apparently that day is here. They have made many sequels to the original and every one of them was dealing with the untold consequences of human arrogance and greed. You always have to throw in the money. Someone stands to make a lot of money being the first ones to bring this concept to fruition.
Does anyone think for one minute this company and anyone involved won’t be patenting every move they make during this process? The consequences for the world are enormous. A whole new set of international laws will have to be written to cover every aspect of this venture. What kind of insurance waiver will they come up with if some kind of “Jurassic Park” like disaster happens? Will Colossal own a new species of animal they create or will it just be something in nature? Please refer to my previous article “Who Are You? Your DNA, How Much Is It Worth”. Human DNA, Animal DNA, Plant DNA and any other biological life form on this planet are unique. If you could own the DNA of an extinct dinosaur species how much would that be worth on the stock market if you were the first, or the only, company to possess that genome. There’s nothing to say that these guys will get it right or even be the only company to ever accomplish this feat.
Make your reservations now. Start packing for cold weather. Update that insurance policy and be sure and tell your insurance agent that you will be taking the trip to the “Twilight Zone” and getting ready to to meet very dangerous animals up close and personal that have been dead for millions of years. Hopefully there was enough of their brain DNA left to at least taste human beings and enjoy the meal. Oh wait, elephants are herbivores. I wonder if their distant ancestors were too? hmmm…
Colossal Biosciences has a lot of lofty goals and a great mission statement. I wish them well on this journey. I can’t help but see all of the compromises to that mission statement once all of the other factors like time, money, greed and many other things that drive drive the human condition take precedent. When you think of all of the ecological devastation that will occur in building this compound and “Pleistocene Park”, building all of the roadways and probably a private airstrip for tourists, interrupting the local biosphere in Siberia for this grand experiment and all of the other marketing tools to attract attention, it seems like just another playground for the uber-wealthy super elite and not for the rest of humanity.
Having said everything in this article, some part of me would like to see this reality come to pass. I got to ride an elephant at a zoo when I was 12 years old. It was an awesome experience to my 12 year old psyche. I wouldn’t want to be the first group to go see this park. If they live through it, I will be second in line. It’s like so many things in our lives that would be great in theory, but the practical application usually turns out to be something totally different than what we expected. If you get there before me, please buy me a T-Shirt and send it. I’ll reimburse you for the cost. Thanks in advance.
You knew it was coming. How could I not with a name like that. I sure hope these guys aren’t making a colossal mistake with this project and hopefully someone will be around to de-extinct humanity after we destroy ourselves and our world.
As always,
Namaste
Until Next time, when we will delve into …….
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