• Question: do you think frome our dna you could creat a neandathal

    Asked by beth456kelly to Amelia, Jim, Liz on 23 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Jim Caryl

      Jim Caryl answered on 23 Jun 2011:

      In theory it could be possible one day. We know most of the genome of Neanderthals, and at least experimentally, it is feasible that we could be able to clone humans some day soon, but often the question that good scientists should ask, is not whether they *CAN* do something, but whether they *SHOULD* do something.

      I’m not a fan of creating a human life for the purposes of studying it, which is what would happen, and as I would consider a Neanderthal a human life, it is not something I would like to see created. It is also for this reason that there are ethical decisions to be made when it does in fact become possible to safely clone a human being like us.

    • Photo: Amelia Markey

      Amelia Markey answered on 23 Jun 2011:

      Well you would have to know which bits of the DNA to change to make a Neanderthal first. But Jim is right a lot of the time it’s not a matter of “could we” it’s “should we”.

      It would be an interesting experiment but is it ethically right to do so? What benefits would it give us and what costs?

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