Can Neanderthals be brought back from the dead?
January 22, 2013
George Church (credit: Steve Jurvetson/Wikimedia Commons)
In a SPIEGEL interview, synthetic biology expert and Harvard University professor of genetics George Church explains how DNA will become the building material of the future — one that can help create virus-resistant human beings and possibly bring back lost species like the Neanderthal.
In his new book, “Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves,” which he has also encoded as strands of DNA and distributed on small DNA chips, Church sketches out a story of a second, man-made Creation.
SPIEGEL:Mr. Church, you predict that it will soon be possible to clone Neanderthals. What do you mean by “soon”? Will you witness the birth of a Neanderthal baby in your lifetime?
Church: That depends on a hell of a lot of things, but I think so. The reason I would consider it a possibility is that a bunch of technologies are developing faster than ever before.
In particular, reading and writing DNA is now about a million times faster than seven or eight years ago. Another technology that the de-extinction of a Neanderthal would require is human cloning. We can clone all kinds of mammals, so it’s very likely that we could clone a human. Why shouldn’t we be able to do so?
(More)
UPDATE Jan. 23:
Harvard professor blasts Neanderthal clone baby rumor on Web
“Wanted: ‘Adventurous woman’ to give birth to Neanderthal man — Harvard professor seeks mother for cloned cave baby,” Britain’s Daily Mail exulted. “Entirely untrue,” said Church. He blames a mistake in an article he says was written off a mistranslated interview in Der Spiegel.
Comments (37)
by Beatriz Valdes
Another possibility if science manages to clone a branch of our ancestry, like the Neanderdthalers: who says their brains can´t become more functional, given more stimulus? I wouldn´t be so sure sapiens would still be the winner.
by Editor
See UPDATE: Harvard professor blasts Neanderthal clone baby rumor on Web
by Brianne
The last thing this planet needs is for people to start living longer or to bring back species long extinct. The population of the planet is a huge issue. There is a reason for this cycle. I wish man would stop fucking with nature.
by Piman
In the future, we’ll live longer but in-excellent-health; so we’ll be able to work.
Also we’ll continue to produce more food with fewer workers, the trend that’s been accelerating since agriculture was invented.
We’ll have to work to get there, but no worries.
~~~
One thing I agree with you on: We should put more ethical consideration into bringing back intelligent species. (and not be so damn selfish).
by Bruce Wright
I’d have to agree that cloning a Neanderthal would be a very ethically dubious undertaking. Even if it could be done safely for both the Neanderthal and the surrogate mother, what becomes of him or her? Even if they were rather slow mentally in comparison with modern humans (not proven), they were still far above apes like chimpanzees and gorillas, and certainly had a significant degree of self-awareness and likely some form of language – and even if they didn’t, almost certainly they were capable of it; even chimpanzees and gorillas seem to be able to preform simple language tasks. Would they be able to function in society? If so, would human society allow them to do so, or would they be harassed as Gordon describes? Or would they have to live in some kind of institution? What kind of life would you have if you’re the only one of your kind and can never have a mate?
It just seems like an incredibly cruel thing to do to another sentient being, even if they’re not our mental equals.
by eldras
Oh yes they Can!
- and by many methods.
Not only the Neanderthals, but the specific individuals with their entire memories.
https://sites.google.com/site/quantumarchaeology/
by McTruck
Let’s bring them back and get them all registered as Democrats. That’ll show John Boehner!
/s
by Bri
I think it would be irresponsible to create a Neandertal just because we can. I agree with Gordon in essence. They would be treated as freaks or oddities. If we gain the expertise with DNA that we can create Siamese twins, it doesn’t mean we should. Restoring some of the ecosystem that we have destroyed is another matter entirely, but even that will create some interesting conundrums. Not the least of which will be in reestablishing their behaviors and interdependencies.
by melajara
I’m not sure with that. I remember very well when I was introduced for the first time at school with paleontological data having asked the professor about the bigger brain of Neanderthal relatively to modern human beings. His answer was, look at the computers evolution, bigger doesn’t mean more powerful. I was NOT AT ALL convinced by this lousy analogy.
Now I tend to consider that the so ill named Homo Sapiens Sapiens (or even Cro Magnon) were ferocious killers. They could have eliminated a more peaceful and not less able Neanderthal.
But the truth is that the two species intermingled. Neanderthal is somewhat surviving, at least tidbits of his genome, across modern populations.
So, I think the experiment would be very interesting, especially if Neanderthal’s brain is matching ours pound for pound.
Besides, consider that we are heading toward a NeoCambrian explosion of (human directed) new life forms. This experiment would be only one further exploration among many others.
by de Broglie
Only non-African genomes.
by JC
I think they would be treated like rock stars. We are moving to an attention based economy. They would get a lot of attention and therefore be very wealthy.
by The Netocrat
You’ve read Alexander Bard, haven’t you? More people need to.
by Whittaker
Robert J Sawyer’s Hominid trilogy is worth reading (albeit I am skeptic of the “floating car” technology, the notion that it is possible to develop a technical civilization without going through agriculture, and that pole-shift can affect human intelligence).
Fun story about a Neanderthal from a parallel-history Earth in which Sapiens extincted and Neanderthal became the dominant species who travelled into the Sapiens dominated Earth.
by JC
Not yet, but I just downloaded The Body Machines to my kindle. Thanks for the referral!
by egore
Just from these comments, you can see that they will not only bring back anything possible, but in time they will probably populate the Earth, just as we do.
by Whittaker
Let us, the Sapiens (now augmented) and our AI mindchildren, colonize the stars, whileas the peaceful, ancient and wise (according to melajara) Neanderthals inhabit a post-technological Earth.
Sounds like a optimal, win-win scenario (contrary to Hugo de Garis’ pessimic “only one may survive in the Artilect War” belief).
by Piman
Yes, and even if we could re-create their entire natural habitat, just because something was produced by nature *doesn’t mean* that thing is ethical. It just exists because it can.
by Foye Lowe
Read the whole Spiegel interview. The Neanderthal stuff is just an attention-grabber, and the dialogue about the possibilities of manipulating DNA is not only fascinating, but probably critically important.
by Dr.Pratt
It is well established that Neanderthals were stupid. Their spear points did not change in 100,000 years. They were also cannabals. what woman would want to give birth to a troll, that died out when they were suppossed to? Bring back a Cro-Magnon. Despite everyone’s belief that we are cro-magnons, were are not. They at least showed a steady progresion of both art work and improved tools.
by Bruce Wright
It’s not at all clear that Neanderthals were stupid, though that’s the most obvious explanation for their very conservative technological progression – which was not totally stagnant, and was even for a time superior to that of Cro-Magnon or Homo Sapiens. Moreover, they did eventually start using technologies like bone and antler tools – just later than other early hominids.
But perhaps there were other reasons for their conservatism – for example, perhaps they lived in very small communities with little contact with others outside their immediate family, and so didn’t have as much opportunity to share ideas as did other early humans; that would fit in well with being an apex predator, if that’s in fact what they were. Or perhaps their life style meant that their lives were too short to have much time to improve on existing technology; that would fit in well with the fact that so many seem to have been injured and needed to be cared for by the others of their family. Or again, perhaps their status as an apex predator species and their (presumably) larger muscles and resulting need to be constantly hunting meant that they needed a much bigger daily calorie budget than other hominids, and might have needed to spend more time hunting and less time making and improving their tools; that might explain the more primitive artwork and relative paucity of artifacts buried with their dead – maybe that life style simply meant that they were (in effect) poor, not that they were stupid!
We just don’t know enough about their biology to know for sure which reason (or combination of reasons) is correct.
by Whittaker
“their (presumably) larger muscles and resulting need to be constantly hunting meant that they needed a much bigger daily calorie budget than other hominids”
Here we see that having too much muscles is a handicap.
Why don’t these Neanderthals just sit down and focus on improving their spears, instead stuffing themselves?
They can choose to not overbuild their muscles.
I guess that if you have too much muscle, you feel the (burning) need to develop/nurture them even further.
by zainea
For all we know, the Neanderthals were brutish and cruel, and our ancestors wiped them out in self defense.
if they were located steadily in north Europe for hundreds of thousands of years, what kind of self defense the other non Neanderthals ”made”?
by ErikSMeyer
By all accounts I have read, Neanderthal populations were quite sparse (they appear to have lived in small, scattered bands). It is not difficult to imagine Cro-Magnon groups moving into Europe, being sporadically attacked by such creatures, and retaliating.
Given the prior settlement of the territory by Neanderthals, describing such retaliation as self defense might be a bit of a stretch, but it probably would have seemed perfectly appropriate to the Cro-Magnons themselves (who would have, according to this argument, moved into largely empty territory, then responded to attacks).
Imagine walking into a forest with your friends and being set upon by a band of orcs. It probably wouldn’t matter much to you if the orcs had lived in the forest for 150,000 years.
Again, this is all conjecture. We really don’t know anything about Neanderthal interactions with Cro-Magnons or other human groups.
For all I know, the Neanderthals wore flowers in their hair, practiced random acts of kindess and beauty, coexisted, and fantasized, in their wildest, mushroom induced fantasies, about forming an ideal community of stable, harmonious gatherer people, all grunting around the fire in perfect harmony.
That would have been consistent with the humans clubbing them to death for fun, after all.
by bernard
Present day humans are not brutish and cruel? Check out the North Korean gulag. I suspect it vastly outdoes anything the Cromagnons managed.
by GatorALLin
Can’t we figure out how to get the Mammoth back first…we have a few frozen carcasses. In amber we have a few lizards and small reptiles still preserved, it would be interesting if there was enough DNA to bring back just to see if it can be done. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lizard-fossil-inclusion-in-Baltic-amber-/260689970329?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cb2554499
Mammoth http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Mammoth-found-in-Russian-permafrost-3924094.php
So if we have hair from Einstein and a few of his relatives, can we bring him back (or a clone of him)?
Who would you bring back if you could bring back a few past humans? (I think it would be cool to bring back Elvis, just to make all the past sightings suddenly seem more true…./wink ). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YAcoDkj_dI
by ErikSMeyer
Of course, cloning wouldn’t bring a person back, it would create a serial twin (an identical twin born later in time).
by de Broglie
Non-Africans have about 2% Neanderthal DNA in their genome. Thus the Homo Sapiens that migrated out of Africa have a little in common with the Neanderthals. It is thought that Neanderthals may have had larger brains than Homo Sapiens. I don’t think it is a given that the Neanderthals will be brutish. This is just due to Geico commercials and other media depictions. OT, if we do clone Neanderthals, will they be marked as Caucasian on the US census because they are from Europe and Western Asia? Will the Europeans and Near Easterners give them homelands?
by Satan
“The Neanderthals lived happy lives”
They danced and sang in the flowers all day long and never got sick or grew old. They never harmed each other or any other species and knew the wisdom of the universe.
by PWG
LOL.
by Beatriz Valdes
Gorden Russell – Let´s hope sapiens sapiens´s future offsprings will already be globally minded, therefore tolerant, mutually cooperative, etc. and thus be able to assimilate and even welcome a member or several of them, of a distinguished branch of our ancestry: the neanderthalers. As science and technology dramatically change our world, consciously or not, we are also adapting, and learning to dance in step with all these admirable advances.
by Gorden Russell
I can see that you have a rare and beautiful soul, Beatriz, but also, I can see that you weren’t bullied in your 7th grade gym class.
by ErikSMeyer
Actually, the species you are describing is the dodo bird.
I believe humans clubbed them all to death for fun.
The people who are “global minded” “tolerant” “mutually cooperative” and the rest of it (the Eloi) are protected by violent people who are not; any Eloi that wander out into the world by themselves unprotected get snatched and eaten by the Morlochs.
by Gorden Russell
The Neanderthals lived happy lives in Northern Europe for many ten of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of years, before the Sapiens left Africa and came up to drive them to extinction. Why? Maybe Sapiens has a deep, in-bred aversion to Neanderthals. If a cloned Neander-boy is sent to school some day in the future, the other, Sapiens-boys, will mob him in gym class and hang him by his underwear from the shower-heads. If any of the new Neander-people survive to maturity they will be denied equal opportunity of employment and hunted down in the streets by Sapiens with brick-bats.
by Giulio Prisco
Or maybe we can try to do better this time.
by Roger Springfield
The Neanderthals lived happy lives? Source?
by Bri
They had a high rate of broken bones. Many showed cracked rib cages and some were invalids that were cared for by the group. The singing part is particularly interesting. I haven’t heard any Neandertal songs on the radio..
by ErikSMeyer
For all we know, the Neanderthals were brutish and cruel, and our ancestors wiped them out in self defense.