Source 1:
On a cold night in January, a Harvard University professor with a billowing white beard stood on stage in a theater in New York City, with an icon of the environmentalist movement beside him. Both men were staring down a problem. How could they convince their counterparts on the stage, along with the 300 people at Hunter College's Kaye Playhouse for a debate, that the world should bring back Velociraptors? Could they sway them to at least bring back an extinct pigeon? The theme song from the 1993 blockbuster "Jurassic Park" was playing in the background, chipping away at their argument before the debate even began. In the film, based on the 1990 Michael Crichton book, dinosaurs are brought back from extinction to fill a theme park. "That film took sides. The experiment blows up. People get hurt," moderator John Donvan told the crowd. "But not before actor Jeff Goldblum declares, 'Scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should.' And then, a dinosaur eats Jeff Goldblum." Actually, a dinosaur does not eat Goldblum's mathematician character, but chaos certainly reigns in the movie and its myriad sequels because of de-extinction. Those images are what George Church, of the billowing white beard, and Stewart Brand would need to overcome to win the debate. Church helped launch the Human Genome Project, and Brand is a founder and editor of the Whole Earth Catalog magazine. The Human Genome Project is a global, long-term research effort to identify and map the estimated 30,000 genes in human DNA. The official motion for the night, "Don't Bring Extinct Creatures Back to Life," was chosen by Intelligence Squared, a nonprofit that turns academic-level debates into popular live events and podcasts. Arguing for the motion were Lynn Rothschild, a scientist with NASA, and Ross MacPhee, a curator at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. The two were also arguing against Church and Brand. Genetic Rescue Brand started by saying controversy around de-extinction is "made up." He wasn't saying they should resurrect meat-eating dinosaurs. Instead, he said, de-extinction could be achieved through hybrids, or animals created from living, endangered species and extinct ones, using CRISPR. The term is an acronym for a tool that has been likened to "playing God" because it allows scientists to remove and replace genes. Eventually, CRISPR could be used to boost agricultural production or to replace wildlife that's slowly disappearing. That is the goal of the Revive & Restore project, a California nonprofit co-founded by Brand that seeks to use new methods of "genetic rescue for endangered and extinct species." The group is working to reintroduce the extinct passenger pigeon into the wild. The process would remove genes from modern band-tailed pigeons and replace them with passenger-pigeon genes. Revive & Restore would like to do something similar with woolly mammoths, editing the extinct creature's genes into those of modern Asian elephants. In that case, the goal is to increase the population of endangered Asian elephants, which has declined because of a virus. "We're not just curing extinction," Brand told the audience. "The technology that de-extinction is leading the way in is now being used by us and by others to prevent extinction." In 2018, Brand and Church traveled to Siberia, where Russian scientists are attempting to re-create the grassland ecosystem where woolly mammoths once lived. As the number of mammoths declined, foliage took over grassland. To restore it, scientists have knocked down trees and shrubs and brought in plant eaters, including elk and moose, to graze and keep back the foliage. Church said mammoth-and-Asian-elephant hybrids could once again inhabit Russia. He also urged everyone to "loosen up" about the prospect of hybrids. There's a lot of hybridization that occurs in mammals, he said. "I am partially Neanderthal," he said, referring to estimates by scientists that about 20 percent of Neanderthal genes are in modern humans. Neanderthals are an extinct species of human. Jack Horner, a Montana State University scientist and adviser on the first "Jurassic Park" film, is also working on a hybrid called "chickenosaurus." No one mentioned this during the debate. A hybrid mammoth, roaming Russia today, raises all sorts of questions, Rothschild and MacPhee said. Would this hybrid be released into a world with no natural predators? How would a mammoth know how to be a mammoth without other mammoths around? "You've got all the problems of not having a mom" and not having other animals to learn from, Rothschild said. These animals "will be suffering for something that we could be solving a different way," she said. Ethics Concerns An audience member asked if someone wealthy could be moving forward with the technology, possibly for commercial purposes, while scientists were debating whether they should. Brand said there was nothing happening in the de-extinction world that had commercial purposes. MacPhee, in response, asked, "You don't think there's a future in having saber-toothed tigers that you can use for hunting purposes?" Rothschild took the argument further, wondering whether someone could attempt to de-extinct a Neanderthal for commerce or simply in the name of science. The idea, Rothschild said, was morally wrong. "We have enough trouble with humanity recognizing that we have roughly equal intellects across the races. And to purposefully re-create a species that we know is going to be inferior in some way is just asking for enormous trouble," she said. In the end, based on the votes tallied before and after the debate, more people came around to MacPhee and Rothschild's side than Church and Brand's. For once, the Jeff Goldblums won.
Source 2:
The last lonely bird of a species that once numbered 3 billion died in 1914. Martha, as she was known, had been the last passenger pigeon since her mate George died in 1910. The last living member of a social species, she lived out her days alone in a cage in the Cincinnati Zoo. Her preserved corpse can now be seen at the Smithsonian Institution. But what if the passenger pigeon could be brought back? After all, specimens of long-dead animals still contain DNA, genetic material that can be thought of as a set of instructions on how to form a particular species. Packets of DNA combine to form genes associated with a particular trait. If enough of those genes can be recreated, perhaps a long-gone species could be brought back to life. That's the idea behind something called de-extinction. It works like this: Take DNA harvested from specimens stuffed in museum drawers, like Martha. Figure out which genes matter and then use genetic engineering to edit the DNA of a closely related species into some version of the extinct species. If all goes well, a copy of the long-lost Martha could be born and, one day, flocks of passenger pigeons could be restored. Getting The Genes To Fit Ben Novak is doing pioneering work to make this exact scenario come true. Novak's effort is focused on acquiring genetic information from stuffed passenger pigeons, while simultaneously studying the genetic makeup of the closely related band-tailed pigeon. So far, 32 passenger pigeon samples have had their genomes sequenced. "Genome" is simply the word for the complete set of genes found in an individual animal, while "sequencing" refers to the process of figuring out the order of the genome's parts — that is, the order of its DNA bases. Just as the words in a sentence need to be in a certain order to make sense, so too do DNA bases need to be ordered in a particular way for genetic information to be conveyed. A unique sequence is what creates an animal's particular genetic profile. All of Novak's passenger pigeon samples come from birds killed between 1860 and 1898. "That's right in the range when the bird was going extinct," he notes. Novak has also been helped by outside efforts, including the nearly complete sequencing of three passenger pigeons. The genes of those three individuals show that passenger pigeons have been through population booms and busts before — their numbers have grown and shrunk at different times. Passenger pigeons have gone through times in their evolutionary history when their numbers were quite small, geneticist Beth Shapiro said. That suggests that scientists are able to create a small population of pigeons that can grow on its own. Birds Of A Feather "All of our birds," Novak adds, "are all very, very similar to each other — like everybody being cousins, essentially — which is the effect of this recent rapid population expansion." Novak and his team are interested in figuring out when that population expansion happened. To figure out when the last boom occurred will require finding DNA from fossil samples thousands of years old. Novak has already begun to examine a few such samples. If the population explosion happened more than 400 years ago, then it is unlikely that the European arrival in North America caused the boom that produced billions of birds, as some have suggested. With ancient samples and those from the 19th century, Novak and others could begin to figure out how the bird lived in the wild. Understanding how the passenger pigeon existed makes it more likely people could bring the bird back and have the species thrive in the woods available today. There is "nothing in the data so far to shout at us to turn back now and not bring back the passenger pigeon," Novak says. Novak's team has not yet completed the band-tailed pigeon sequencing required to begin resurrecting the passenger pigeon. However, experiments with cells from the band-tailed pigeon may begin as soon as next year. The work would be similar to experiments now being done to see if the woolly mammoth can be resurrected, brought back to life, through its still-living relative, the Asian elephant. Early Birds Have To Learn If the de-extinction works, the only remaining challenge would be to teach the new birds how to be passenger pigeons. Doing that would likely be even more challenging than the genetic work itself. To understand the difficulty, look at similar efforts — such as attempts to raise California condors with puppets or to teach cranes to migrate by using ultralight airplanes. Still, if everything goes well, birds that carry the genes of the passenger pigeon could be flapping around by the end of the decade. The project may prove too ambitious, however. Similar efforts that stretch back 30 years have so far failed to produce a quagga, an extinct species of zebra. Likewise, the 2003 experiment that resurrected a bucardo for seven minutes has yet to be repeated. Nevertheless, conservationists are examining how the science used for de-extinction might be used to preserve endangered animals and plants or bring them back if they die out. There are advantages, however, to working with an animal that is already extinct. The scientists don't exactly have to hurry. After all, Martha died 100 years ago. "If we succeed, the world gets a new" kind of bird, Novak says. "If we fail, we learn things that are valuable and the world isn't left with another extinct species."
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De-extinction is the process of bringing back extinct species by using genetic engineering and DNA from closely related species. The goal of de-extinction is to recreate and reintroduce species that have gone extinct, such as the passenger pigeon and woolly mammoth. However, there are debates and ethical concerns surrounding this process.
Source 1 discusses a debate organized by Intelligence Squared, where the motion was "Don't Bring Extinct Creatures Back to Life." The debaters argued for and against de-extinction, with one side advocating for the use of genetic engineering to recreate extinct species and the other highlighting the potential ethical and environmental issues. The founders of the Revive & Restore project, George Church and Stewart Brand, argued in favor of de-extinction and emphasized the potential benefits in preventing extinction and preserving biodiversity.
Source 2 focuses on the work of Ben Novak, who is pioneering efforts to bring back the passenger pigeon. The article explains how DNA from passenger pigeons, as well as the genetic makeup of closely related species like the band-tailed pigeon, are being studied to recreate the extinct species. Novak's team has sequenced the genomes of several passenger pigeons and is working towards resurrecting the species through genetic engineering.
Both sources highlight the potential challenges and risks associated with de-extinction. These include concerns about the impact on ecosystems, the difficulties of teaching reintroduced species how to behave, and the ethical implications of recreating extinct species.
Use this outline for the essay please:
INTRODUCTION Essay Paragraph 1:
HOOK: (grab your reader’s attention) 1-2 sentences
BACKGROUND: (Explain a bit about topic, introduce the conflicting sides of the issue) 1-2 sentences
CLAIM/Thesis: Thesis statement equation= Subject + Directions + 1, 2, 3 Reasons/Points (the “side” you are writing about)
Examples:
Scientists should continue pushing for the de-extinction of species due to…. P1, P2, P3.
Scientists should not continue pushing for the de-extinction of species due to… P1, P2, P3.
Counterargument: (Your opponent’s main/strongest argument that you will attempt to counter/refute)
Essay Paragraph 2 (Body Paragraph/ Reason 1): TPEEEE
POINT/REASON 1: (start with a transition, then state first point/reason from above)
EVIDENCE 1: (Add your QUOTE, and CITE your source!) “quote” (in-text citation)
According to Source 1, “glkjlgdjg”.
According to “Would bringing back extinct animals turn out as it did in "Jurassic Park"? “thdffdgrtk”.
According to Nark, ( author’s last name) “sdkfj”.
“Quote” (Source 1).
ELABORATION 1-EXPLAIN YOUR EVIDENCE: (In your own words, why is this important, how does it support your claim??)
EVIDENCE 2: (Add your QUOTE, and CITE your source!) “quote” (in-text citation)
ELABORATION 2-EXPLAIN YOUR EVIDENCE: (In your own words, why is this important, how does it support your claim??)
Essay Paragraph 3 (Body Paragraph/ Reason # 2): TPEEEE
POINT/REASON 2: (start with a transition, then state second point/ reason from above)
EVIDENCE 1: (Add your QUOTE, and CITE your source!) “quote” (in-text citation)
ELABORATION 1-EXPLAIN YOUR EVIDENCE: (In your own words, why is this important, how does it support your claim??)
EVIDENCE 2: (Add your QUOTE, and CITE your source!) “quote” (in-text citation)
ELABORATION 2-EXPLAIN YOUR EVIDENCE: (In your own words, why is this important, how does it support your claim??)
Essay Paragraph 4 (Body Paragraph/ Reason # 3): TPEEEE
POINT/REASON 3: (start with a transition, then state third point/reason from above)
EVIDENCE 1: (Add your QUOTE, and CITE your source!) “quote” (in-text citation)“
ELABORATION 1-EXPLAIN YOUR EVIDENCE: (In your own words, why is this important, how does it support your claim??)
EVIDENCE 2: (Add your QUOTE, and CITE your source!) “quote” (in-text citation)
ELABORATION 2-EXPLAIN YOUR EVIDENCE: (In your own words, why is this important, how does it support your claim??)
Essay Paragraph 5 (Body Paragraph # 4): COUNTERCLAIM:
COUNTER: start with a counterclaim sentence starter, then state your counterclaim
EVIDENCE 1: (Add your QUOTE, and CITE your source!) “quote” (in-text citation)
ELABORATION 1- EXPLAIN YOUR EVIDENCE/ REFUTE THE OPPONENT
EVIDENCE 2: (Add your QUOTE, and CITE your source!) “quote” (in-text citation)
ELABORATION 2- EXPLAIN YOUR EVIDENCE/REFUTE THE OPPONENT
Essay Paragraph 6- CONCLUSION:
RESTATE CLAIM/THESIS:
SUMMARIZE/PARAPHRASE REASONS:
SO WHAT? (Why is this important, why should the reader agree with you?)
CALL TO ACTION.
Introduction:
Hook: Imagine a world where extinct species, such as the passenger pigeon and the woolly mammoth, roam the Earth once again.
Background: De-extinction, the process of bringing back extinct species through genetic engineering, has sparked debates among scientists and conservationists.
Thesis: Scientists should continue pushing for the de-extinction of species due to the potential benefits it offers in biodiversity preservation and preventing extinction.
Counterargument: Opponents argue that de-extinction raises ethical concerns and may have detrimental environmental impacts.
Body Paragraph 2 (Reason 1):
Point/Reason 1: De-extinction can help preserve biodiversity and prevent extinction.
Evidence 1: According to Source 1, genetic engineering and de-extinction can be used as a tool for genetic rescue and to prevent the loss of endangered and extinct species.
Elaboration 1: By reintroducing species like the passenger pigeon and the woolly mammoth into ecosystems, de-extinction can restore ecological balance and increase biodiversity.
Body Paragraph 3 (Reason 2):
Point/Reason 2: De-extinction can contribute to scientific knowledge and understanding of extinct species.
Evidence 1: Source 2 explains how research on DNA sequencing of extinct species like the passenger pigeon can provide insights into their behavior and evolutionary history.
Elaboration 1: Understanding how extinct species lived in the past can help scientists recreate their habitats and ensure the successful reintroduction of de-extinct species.
Body Paragraph 4 (Reason 3):
Point/Reason 3: De-extinction offers potential economic and ecological benefits.
Evidence 1: According to Source 1, de-extinction technology can be applied to conserve endangered species and address agricultural challenges.
Elaboration 1: By using genetic engineering techniques to address specific genetic traits, de-extinction can improve agriculture and help reverse the decline of endangered species.
Body Paragraph 5 (Counterclaim):
Counter: However, opponents argue that de-extinction raises ethical concerns and may have negative environmental consequences.
Evidence 1: According to Source 1, critics express concern about potential commercial exploitation of de-extinct species.
Elaboration 1: The commercialization of de-extinct species may prioritize profit over ethical considerations and pose risks to ecosystems.
Body Paragraph 6 (Conclusion):
Restate claim/thesis: Considering the potential benefits in biodiversity preservation and preventing extinction, scientists should continue pushing for the de-extinction of species.
Summarize reasons: De-extinction can preserve biodiversity, contribute to scientific knowledge, and offer economic and ecological benefits.
So what? De-extinction provides an opportunity to rectify human-driven extinctions and restore the balance of ecosystems.
Call to action: It is crucial for scientists, policymakers, and society as a whole to engage in ethical discussions and careful regulation to ensure the responsible progress of de-extinction technology.