Half Century Hangout
We are Half Century Hangout where different perspectives make for better discussions.! John, Luke and Chuck are three guys who grew up differently but became good friends with a lot to talk about. On this show three unique perspectives are brought to the table where we dive into everything from current events to life's big questions. We might not always see eye to eye... But that's exactly why we're here. So grab a seat and join us for honest conversation, unexpected insights, and a few friendly arguments.
Half Century Hangout
Jurassic Bark: The Ethics of Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life
Imagine looking across an open field and spotting something that shouldn't exist—a dire wolf, extinct for 10,000 years, running wild again. This isn't science fiction anymore. Scientists have successfully created wolf pups carrying DNA from the extinct dire wolf species, opening a Pandora's box of questions about the ethics and implications of bringing extinct species back to life.
The conversation begins with a lighthearted reminiscence about baseball and papal elections before diving into the fascinating world of de-extinction. The guys explore how Colossal, a private company dedicated to resurrecting extinct species, has combined ancient dire wolf DNA with modern gray wolf genetics to create something that hasn't existed for millennia. These massive predators once stood four feet tall at the shoulder—substantially larger than any wolf you might encounter today.
But the heart of the discussion centers on a profound question: Just because we can resurrect extinct species, should we? The team examines this from multiple angles—scientific, ethical, environmental, and even spiritual. They question whether species that went extinct through natural processes or cataclysmic events like asteroid impacts should be brought back into a world that has dramatically changed since they disappeared. Would these creatures even be able to survive in today's environment? What unintended consequences might follow their reintroduction?
This leads to broader considerations about genetic manipulation technology and its applications. While de-extinction of charismatic creatures like dire wolves and woolly mammoths captures public imagination (and investor dollars), the same technology could potentially be directed toward medical breakthroughs or preventing currently endangered species from disappearing. Is creating predators from the past the best use of these scientific capabilities?
The conversation concludes with a thought-provoking question that we will let you discover for yourselves. As we develop the power to bring species back from oblivion, this question takes on new weight and meaning.
Share your thoughts with us! Leave a comment on our Facebook page or in the podcast review section, and we'll send you some Half Century Hangout swag!
Welcome back to Half Century Hangout. And we're here in Luke's garage again. And what's been going on here, gentlemen?
Speaker 2:Gentlemen, I haven't been called a gentleman since you told me I look like that guy from yeah, from the Gentleman on Netflix.
Speaker 3:Oh, that was. That was something. It took me a while to figure that out. The Half Century part really came to play. Sure did, really came to play. I'm like Chuck, you're killing me, I cannot remember who you look like, but that's what it was.
Speaker 2:You guys may or may not know this about me. Oh boy, I used to do baseball sort of fantasy league, when I was a kid and you'd have to record everything from the newspaper. It's like all the hits from your players and stuff that you chose, all those types of things. You'd have to record them from the newspaper and all the hits from your players and stuff that you chose, all those types of things. You'd have to record them from the newspaper and figure out everything like by writing it down they didn't have anything else to do in ohio they didn't.
Speaker 2:And here's what happened I got super butt hurt whenever that's funny, oh, that is funny when was the strike? In 98 or 99? Uh, whenever the strike was I'm not a big baseball. I'm done either I'm done with with baseball and I didn't really watch it until maybe 2018, 2019 really you didn't watch mcguire and sosa no, well, that was in the 90s, before that was before the strike, before the yeah, yeah that was.
Speaker 1:There was a strike before that, then too.
Speaker 2:Not like the one in 98 where they didn't have a World Series. I only think they had a season. Wow, yeah, I was not a happy camper.
Speaker 1:I've always been a Pittsburgh Pirates fan, but it's because I like the Steelers.
Speaker 2:Big red machine. Go all the way, absolutely Cincinnati. Go all the way, absolutely Cincinnati yeah.
Speaker 1:Cincinnati.
Speaker 2:Reds Tigers.
Speaker 1:Tigers Detroit. Gotta love that, you know 68 was a great year. Chuck.
Speaker 3:Lots of influential people and very historical things happened in 1968.
Speaker 1:And who was born in 1968?.
Speaker 3:Yours truly. Hey, isn't that? Hey, hey, hey.
Speaker 1:Tigers won the World Series, that would be Luke and the roar of 84.
Speaker 3:Is that what that's? When they won again when Gibby was on the team and all those guys Roar of 84. Beat the Padres.
Speaker 2:What year was it where the St Louis Cardinals and the Kansas City Royals were in the World Series and they called?
Speaker 1:it. I was just the I-35.
Speaker 2:No I-44. No.
Speaker 1:I-70. I-70. Yeah, i-70 Series, that's right, was that 86?
Speaker 2:I thought it was yeah.
Speaker 1:Somewhere in there. I think I was. I might have been in college.
Speaker 3:Who's the baseball team from St Louis? I might have been in college. Who's the baseball team from St Louis, the Cardinals, cardinals. Are they inviting them to vote for the new Pope?
Speaker 1:Those Cardinals? Oh no, it's only anybody under 80.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm not sure there might be.
Speaker 1:Arizona Cardinals too. They probably started a little bit before they might be. I think it would be fun if mcguire shows up in his cardinal uniform.
Speaker 3:yeah, you know that'd be cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm a cardinal do they know who uh like is who's in the running for the? How's that even work?
Speaker 1:they don't campaign. Yeah, yeah, you know the uh the draft kings it not, it probably could be.
Speaker 3:I mean, I'd imagine I'd throw a number down on it. Why not?
Speaker 1:But you know, the Cardinals all vote and, yes, they somewhat, but they are brought together in the Sistine Chapel and they Is there alcohol involved and they I don't, I've never, is there alcohol involved and they I don't. I've never been there.
Speaker 3:I'm not a cardinal so I don't know. I think if there isn't, we should institute that idea. Here's the deal.
Speaker 2:It's super secretive. It is, and if you get caught, like disseminating the secrets of the activities.
Speaker 3:Is there like a?
Speaker 2:smoke thing that goes with it, yep. Or the activities of what's going on. Isn't there like a smoke thing that goes with it, yep. But if you get caught talking about what's going on inside the Sistine Chapel at the time whenever they're going through all this, it's like you're done.
Speaker 1:So they burn the ballots and the smoke comes out.
Speaker 3:And that's when you know that White.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:If they've reached a decision. And it's black If they still have to talk about it. I think that's it. How do they color the smoke? Well, they have cartridges.
Speaker 1:I would imagine there's something in there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I read about this yesterday. They actually have cartridges that they put in there. Interesting, yeah.
Speaker 3:But that whole process is fascinating. Well, francis was the one who took the top off the Popemobile. I saw that. Yeah, he was the one that instituted that because it was closed in there for a while. Now it was back open for him. We'll see what the new guy does. I was driving the other day, coming back from a little town a little north of us, and I could have sworn. I saw a dire wolf running across the field. Dire wolf, whoa those things have not been around in decades.
Speaker 2:Years, no, like centuries millennia yeah, long time.
Speaker 3:I think we should chat about this. Let's go. So what's?
Speaker 1:going on with the dire wolf.
Speaker 2:Well, let's explain first what the dire wolf is. Well, that's what I'm going to say. Is that?
Speaker 3:what I want to say is that, by looking through it and seeing what has been done, I'm going to call it a gray wolf with dire wolf characteristics.
Speaker 4:Yeah, okay, because they had.
Speaker 3:you know when you I mean, we could do this deep dive and I could, you know, look at my phone and pull up all sorts of fancy words and stuff but basically there's a percentage of DNA that you would need to genetically create something. And I hate to use that word create because that's a whole other issue.
Speaker 1:sometimes You've got to have live DNA, right?
Speaker 3:But they had quite a bit. There was a percentage that was there and there's so many helixes that they need or such a percentage of things that they need. So they then used what they they used as the gray wolf that was the main genotype that they used used the other dna that they went through from the fossils that they have and the things that they have the teeth and the bones and the things that they have.
Speaker 3:I think it was a tooth I think it was a tooth and they used that to then implement some of those other characteristics. Took those, what do we want to call them embryos? We can take those and they planted them into two dogs, more or less. We can take those and they planted them into two dogs, more or less. So I don't know if you guys probably everybody has seen the videos at some point of those dire wolves howling. Okay, my viewpoint is is that, as I look at it, and they're calling it the de-extinction.
Speaker 4:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 3:Which, again, we're going to touch on that a little bit, because that word scares me a little bit. Okay, we can get the obvious out. We've all seen Jurassic Park, we've all seen these things right, and I don't know that we're at that level. But I think that when you, when you go through this and you look at it, where do they go from here? Yeah, and what is the purpose of the idea? And I have, I have an answer for that, but I want you guys to think about that what's the purpose of the de-extinction? What's the name of the company? Again, I forgot the name of the colossal. Colossal is the name of the company that did it. Okay, so let's throw the government thing out of it for a minute, because it's not government funded, it's not something.
Speaker 2:No, it's all private, it's private.
Speaker 3:But what's your thought on it? On just the process of the we'll call it the de-extinction of species.
Speaker 1:Well, it's kind of like asking the question if we can right, Should we? And de-extinction, bringing animals back into the biome, the earth, how does that affect where we are? If we got dire wolves and we bring them back and we put them into the environment, how does that affect the environment? Is that a good thing? Is that a bad thing? Yeah, Woolly mammoths is another thing that they're looking at Right now they're at the mouse level.
Speaker 3:From what I've read, the woolly mouse.
Speaker 2:From what I read, they're looking at maybe 28 attempting that de-extinction. But to your point, I think it's interesting concept to kind of try to wrap your heads around and I would say I would be for the de-extinction of these different things, simply because we don't know what they are going to do. We don't know what I mean, we've never experienced them.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure that we are ready, able, and you know, these animals went extinct for a reason.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was just going to say that. You just took the words right out of my mouth, John. That's great.
Speaker 1:And you change because of the environment that you're in. You can think about history, okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, in history that science looks at in history that maybe that you have a mix of religion and science, history changes, right? People look at it a little bit differently. Obviously, the millions and billions of years thing comes into different things and you think about things in a little bit different manner. But, like John said, there's a reason somehow. Now, sometimes it's man-made, sometimes these species went extinct because of man, which I get Okay, but there's others that, according to what science would tell us, went extinct before man was really their enemy or whatever you want to call it, this dire wolf, and you said why. You know, just because we can, should we right? The idea is that this company Colossal places these dire wolf pups on the thing of Game of Thrones. There's a reason that the company would do this. I mean it's money. They're trying to promote what they're going to do, not only just now but in the future. I mean they're building their brand or whatever you want to say right, but the dire wolf.
Speaker 3:I want you to think about this. I don't know if you know, do you know how big these things were? They're like they're. They're four foot at the shoulder.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a, that's a big wolf, I'm just saying, I mean like you see wolves or you see coyotes now you see things like you know, they're not nearly that big, obviously and the idea that you're de-extincting predators and, like you said and you said this and I was so glad you said it we don't know what they'll do that to me is a little bit of a red flag, that you know what, we don't know what they'll do. We have no idea. And how do we know? If we got them to the point that they were able to, let's just say, replicate, reproduce, whatever it was, how do we know we would be able to contain it? How do we know that we would? How do we know?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you really don't. You really don't. But to like the whole idea that they're extinct for a reason, I don't know that that's necessarily true. We don't know why they went extinct. Some people think it could have been because of a cataclysmic event asteroid hitting the earth, so it wasn't like they weren't able to survive, or the survival of the fittest, or anything like that. It could have been that there was an event that happened that took them out right, and the other species weren't affected by that particular cataclysmic event because it didn't happen in their part of the world. I'm not sure, but I don't know that it's definitive to say that they are extinct for a particular reason.
Speaker 3:Well, but in your thing it would be that cataclysmic event, whatever that is caused, their demise, their extinction, that's still the reason that they were okay.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 3:Now, the reason might have been something else. Maybe it was disease. Maybe it was something else might have been something else Maybe it was disease. Maybe it was something else. I mean, we don't know that, but this is where, when we look at these things, what other influence was there for those species to go extinct? What other influence can we talk about? I mean, we can talk about a lot of things of what the possible influence could have been.
Speaker 2:So I have an axolotl in my office right. His name is Jeff.
Speaker 1:I thought it was Axel Foley. No, that's the guitar player.
Speaker 2:The axolotl in the wild is actually an endangered species, because they're pretty stupid. Really they're not very smart.
Speaker 3:Wait till I tell Jeff this tomorrow. I know, don't tell him that.
Speaker 2:But they're not a very smart species, but within captivity they've thrived because people breed them and there's no threat against them, right? So all that to say that I think there are certain species even today that are going extinct or that are on the endangered species because they were either overhunted or Well, there's definitely, there's a human.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and there's definitely obviously there's species that couldn't survive, whatever it happened to be whether it was another predator or whether it was the ability for the land that they were on to survive.
Speaker 1:Or to sustain there.
Speaker 3:And you know, we can go into biblical right. I mean, there was a flood right. There was a gigantic cataclysmic event that occurred and from what we've read, from what we know, that was a pretty large thing. Right, and somebody made the decision that there was some that would survive and some that wouldn't. Right, and somebody made the decision that there was some that would survive and some that wouldn't right.
Speaker 3:So I think that when we look at it, like we're talking about this in the broad form of genetic manipulation right, genetic manipulation has done a lot of great things as far as medicine goes, as far as treatments for other things for humans and different stuff, with even genetic manipulation is in our plants and farms use it. You know all sorts of different things on different forms of genetic manipulation, right? So I think there's real positive things that we can do with it. My concern is is that what are we actually using it for? And, like you said, even though you didn't mean to say it this way, are we ready for the result? Because maybe you're tapping into something that we're not ready for, like we don't know that we're ready.
Speaker 2:Could you imagine going hunting for a T-Rex?
Speaker 4:No no, I haven't had enough time finding a deer.
Speaker 3:I think a T-Rex no.
Speaker 4:No.
Speaker 3:They haven't had enough time finding a deer.
Speaker 4:I think a T-Rex would be hunting you. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of I don't want velociraptors running around. It's like literally, it's like what?
Speaker 1:is our end game with it.
Speaker 3:What do we? What do we? We've seen the movie.
Speaker 1:The guy was on the crapper Really.
Speaker 3:I mean, that's what I'm saying and I know it's funny and I know it's like. You know it's Hollywood and they play things, but you know what? They came up with ideas for a reason right Like to get people's you know, yeah, I mean literally, and it is.
Speaker 4:It's a very curious subject.
Speaker 3:It's a very curious subject, no matter what, but I think that part of it goes to so many different things that are happening right now, like I mean, I'll just throw it out there, like AI or even chat, gpt, for that matter, like these things that are happening, that I think we have to be careful with how we're using it and why.
Speaker 3:If it's just a money gram, like if that's really what it is like if it's just colossal, saying hey, we can do this and we're going to do it because it's cool, yeah, the problem with that is they might achieve their goal of being infinitely wealthy and for their investors and whoever else, but it affects the rest of us one way or the other, some way it's going to, the way it could affect us is you're putting something into the environment that isn't in the environment now and maybe isn't supposed to be in the environment.
Speaker 1:And why are you doing it? Because you're curious, because there's scientific ability to do it, or because you want to conserve the endangered species?
Speaker 3:Why are you doing it? Think of it this way. Think of it this way. Do we have the ability, scientifically, okay, do we have the ability to build and grow better athletes? Do we have the ability? How? Steroids, oh, human growth hormone, sure, but have we stopped it? We've tried and we put limits on it.
Speaker 3:yeah, we haven't for certain things but we've done, and we know, and we realize that it's like, at some point, the health of those individuals that we would be building is going to be compromised.
Speaker 3:Sure, okay, and one of the things that I've looked at with those species when they thrived, whenever that was thousands of years ago okay, I'm not going down the millions road Thousands of years ago, what did they eat, what did they live on, what did they survive on, or what didn't they? So we're actually possibly introducing something at some point that we would put into the environment that we can't even support. Goodness knows, right now, our environment's a heck of a lot different than what it was then. Right, okay, no matter how long ago that was. So are we doing a disservice to not only that, I'm just going to call it a fake species, that fake species? Are we doing them a disservice by possibly, at some point, introducing them to something? We don't know what they ate, but we know that the dogs that they came out of eat cow or whatever they do they eat cows?
Speaker 3:right, they eat everything whatever they eat, right, you know. So the idea is is that I just my concern level rises with the same thing that you just said, John. Was that why? It's the why of, like there's so many other things that we could use the science for and they have. I'm not saying they haven't done that, but I think that we're still far away from so many things that we could use that science for something better.
Speaker 2:I think that full disclosure. I don't want a T-Rex walking in my front yard. I don't think that's a good idea at all. I don't think it's neat or anything. Chuck lies, he told me he had dreams about it last night. But I think the ethics around this genetic manipulation and being able to recreate or de what do you call it?
Speaker 3:De-extinction.
Speaker 2:De-extinction of these different species or animal lines. It's got me a bit curious. But I just wonder, if there is a positive spin on some of this genetic manipulation, what good can come from it?
Speaker 3:And I do think that there is, and I think that, at least when I think of it initially in my head, what I think of is the ability to develop, whether we call it medications, whether we call it nutrition, whether we call it something that would help certain people with ailments that they have.
Speaker 3:I can't really generalize it any more than that, and I think that that is an important thing, especially considering how big pharma has money beyond what we can even fathom. Right, yeah, huge amount, and I think that and I'm not saying that this wouldn't be huge money, because it obviously would be, but I think that there are at least potentially helpful ways and positive ways that you could use the technology. That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 3:I guess that's what I'm getting at is that I don't know that bringing back dire wolf pups is the idea to do it.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I would agree what do we need a woolly mammoth for? I mean, like, literally, is it cool to look at? Okay, yeah, it's cool. Now, the thing about the woolly mammoth that's funny they have a lot more DNA of a woolly mammoth than they had of the dire wolf, because they have almost an entire I don't want to say an entire, but a very large portion of a carcass of a woolly mammoth. Oh, wow, Like they have a lot that was frozen. Yeah, yeah, like they have a ton more than they had for the dire wolf. Okay, so the ability to genotype and do that is, you know, like you said, I don't know if I want a T-Rex walking through my front yard. It's like, well, what are we going to do with that?
Speaker 2:That's a good question.
Speaker 3:I mean literally, does it just go in a zoo? So now we've got all these other things right, and I'm not saying the people are wrong, but that people that aren't particularly happy about animals in captivity, which I understand that too. What are you going to do with it? What are you going to do? Just let the dire wolves out and run around through Missouri and Iowa and killing cattle and doing stuff? Whatever they're doing, I don't know what they do. Who knows what they do? We weren't around when they were around.
Speaker 2:How old is the dire wolf? How old is that dire wolf? How old is that species?
Speaker 3:it's been oh it's thousands, I mean they're, I don't even know. Sometimes those years chuck they. They don't, I don't guess at it yeah, they wouldn't say they're guessing at it, but I I struggle with that. Yeah, I struggle with the time of even carbon dating.
Speaker 2:sometimes I struggle with that Is there a value to life question when you think about extinction. So, like when you think about current species that are on the endangered list, what is our concern with? Preserving their existence in the first place, which is kind of the opposite side of this de-extinction right?
Speaker 3:And I think that there's something to that, especially when their extinction, or the possibility of it, is because of something that man has done, or that man has created buildings or cities or whatever it is. If we are trying to preserve certain species and we can use that science to help with that, I think it's. I think it's a good idea, I mean, especially if we're the ones that displaced them you know what I mean I mean, I guess that's the way I look.
Speaker 3:I mean, every time that I drive by, I love farm fields and I love open country and I love mountains and I love these things but it's like every time I drive by, I love farm fields and I love open country and I love mountains and I love these things but it's like every time I drive by and I see a for sale sign up on one of them, I'm like, oh yeah, because you just have a feeling and I'm not. You know, if you're a developer, don't take this the wrong way. It's. It's just the idea that we're replacing something that has inherent life in it, and the possibility is that we're killing stuff off when we do it.
Speaker 4:You know what?
Speaker 2:I mean yeah, and that bothers me. Yeah, john, you've been pretty quiet. What's your thoughts?
Speaker 1:I agree that you know we should try to be conservative with our resources and keep things around if they are supposed to be around. But there's a natural order to things, are a bit of an invasive species that we have created spaces for ourselves and taken spaces from animals that uh, maybe aren't, are not able to live in our. You look at, look at bears. Bears are becoming more and more prevalent in urban areas because we've invaded in their space. And not a bad thing, I guess. But we just have to be careful with the resources we have here, and that includes our animals and those kinds of things. I I don't think bringing a dire wolf back or bringing something back that has gone extinct when the world was a different place is a good idea. And just to answer your question, about 10,000 years ago, the last ice age is when dire wolves were around. That's a different time in our world. Our world is just different from where it was. So I think we have better uses for that technology. I think that just because we can doesn't mean we should.
Speaker 3:It's kind of like this. I don't know if there was this movie you ever saw. It was called Never Cry Wolf. It was a Disney movie back in the day, but it was about a guy who went up and did a study because the caribou were being depleted, okay. And he went up and everybody thought it was because of the wolves, all right. So he did a study on it. He was going through and the idea was is that the wolves weren't extincting them? The wolves were taking down the weak ones, oh sure, and there were hunters that were actually doing the rest, but they just didn't know about it. It was up in Alaska, they didn't know. So it was an interesting take on the idea that you know part of it's us for some of that extinction. I mean recently, obviously, but quote-wise, you know, finding a quote about genetics, challenging you know there a quote about genetics.
Speaker 2:A little challenging.
Speaker 3:You know there's a lot, but there was a quote that I found that I thought was interesting and it was by Mary Claire King. She's an American geneticist who's still alive today, but she did a lot of work with genetic research, with breast cancer, okay, and the quote is we are not just our genes, but we are the product of our genes and our environment. We use that in a lot of different ways. You know we use that in education. We do that all the time. That is about is it just born or bred? Right right, I mean literally. You know that's a discussion all in and of itself.
Speaker 4:Or nurture.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean that's cool when you think about it that way, because I think it opens the whole realm of ideas to say, hey, you know, this is possible, this is possible, this is possible, but again, do we need to go there? I just think that it deserves talk, it deserves consideration, if you want to careful.
Speaker 3:And here's the other part. I'm gonna, I'm gonna drop this dime at the end. I'm just dropping this one at the end. All right, let's go. All right, do, did whatever animals all, no matter what they were dire wolves or Tyrannosaurus rex, do they have a soul?
Speaker 4:Hmm, hmm.
Speaker 1:Hmm, interesting, interesting question. We'll leave that one in the air because we're coming to the end of this episode.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we do want to know what you think. 100%, man. If you want to get back with us, leave a comment on our Facebook or leave a comment in the message section of the podcast review.
Speaker 3:Send us a messenger on Facebook.
Speaker 2:It doesn't matter, we will send you some swag.
Speaker 1:We'd love to get some listener feedback. Do you think animals have a soul? Does your pet have a soul?
Speaker 2:All right, chomp chomp Sounds. Good guys, peace out fellas.
Speaker 1:Hey have a great one. Thanks for hanging out with us here at half century. Hang out, see you be good.
