Jurassic Park, more than a movie?

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GregoryDracula

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First I should say I always loved the Jurassic Park series.

But I saw a special or two recently that had said mankind CANNOT bring a dinosaur back to life by using the DNA, but they claim that with effort, and a good chunk of years (under 50), that they can recreate a velociraptor-like dinosaur using certain bird types to “reverse-engineer”.

This is cool. In theory. However, I happen to agree with Ian Malcom from the movie (since I haven’t read the novel), with that (worded in my own words) God chose what should be alive at each point in history, and to bring something into this world that shouldn’t be here, would be a horrible idea.

What do you, the rest of the community, and/or the Church officially feel about this kind of talk? I would imagine as fascinating a subject as it is, that it’s probably better left untouched. Thoughts?
 
I always liked the Jurassic Park movies as well but I do agree that this is something that should be left untouched. Just like cloning humans. **Anything that interferes with God’s plan (which I think cloning of humans and/or animals does) should be left alone. **

Yes it is an interesting possiblity but I think that if (and likely when) something like that could happen, the people who do it are definitely biting off more than they can chew here on earth as well as on the day of judgment.

BTW, you would think that they would learn by watching Jurassic Park what happens if you bring back a dinosaur…😉 😃 😉
 
Why would you want to bring back a Velicoraptor. The movies showed that those things can do and what benefit would they otherwise even bring other than it would be cool to look at them and see them kill stuff.
 
AngelRose81 said:
I always liked the Jurassic Park movies as well but I do agree that this is something that should be left untouched. Just like cloning humans. Anything that interferes with God’s plan (which I think cloning of humans and/or animals does) should be left alone.

Yes it is an interesting possiblity but I think that if (and likely when) something like that could happen, the people who do it are definitely biting off more than they can chew here on earth as well as on the day of judgment.

BTW, you would think that they would learn by watching Jurassic Park what happens if you bring back a dinosaur…😉 😃 😉
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Or in Meet the Robinsons where the bad guy goes back in time and brings along a dinosaur.

“Why aren’t you seizing the boy?”
“I have a big head, and little arms.” 😛
 
I remember the part in the movie when the palentologists, ect had had part of the tour, and they were all sitting around the table and the owner/creator of the park, the older guy(I can’t remember any of the characters names) asked what they thought about it all
And they were mostly negative, but the Jeff Goldblum character spoke up and said"Your arrogance before nature is appalling, the dinosaurs had their shot- and they lost. This isn’t some species that Man has destroyed through over hunting- this is a species that’s had it’s evolutionary chance and lost" I would have substituted God for nature there but it was a great line.
And I think the movie had a good overall message- Don’t mess with nature or play God.
 
Vanny said:
I remember the part in the movie when the palentologists, ect had had part of the tour, and they were all sitting around the table and the owner/creator of the park, the older guy(I can’t remember any of the characters names) asked what they thought about it all
And they were mostly negative, but the Jeff Goldblum character spoke up and said"Your arrogance before nature is appalling, the dinosaurs had their shot- and they lost. This isn’t some species that Man has destroyed through over hunting- this is a species that’s had it’s evolutionary chance and lost" I would have substituted God for nature there but it was a great line.
And I think the movie had a good overall message- Don’t mess with nature or play God.
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Right. That’s what I was thinking when I heard that line too. It really is about “playing God with genetics”.
 
wjp984 said:
Why would you want to bring back a Velicoraptor.
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To learn. That’s a good enough reason to consider it.

If using DNA to bring a once-extinct species back to life would help us learn something about it, I think it ought to be considered seriously. That being said, scientific research should be done carefully and within reason. If they do engage in research like this, they need to be very careful that any species they bring to life ought to be kept under very close guard. It should never be allowed to enter any ecosystem. (A velociraptor would certainly unbalance any ecosystem in which it was introduced.)
 
Vanny said:
And I think the movie had a good overall message- Don’t mess with nature or play God.
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Almost every single person posting in this thread has said something along those lines.

Forgive me; I’m quite sure you see this small problem, but can’t that same reasoning be used to condemn, say, automobiles? Condemn cars because they pollute the atmosphere. Condemn them because they increase our dependence on foreign oil. Condemn them because they look ugly. But it would be really silly to condemn them *because *they increase man’s natural speed limitation.

In other words, man was “designed” to move at a walking pace. If it is immoral to move beyond the boundary of nature, then cars ought to be immoral too, because they increase our normal “speed limit.”
 
Yeah, I have to agree with Exalt. Certainly, this would be a realm in which we should exercise caution, but there would nothing inherently wrong with doing it, if it were possible.
GregoryDracula said:
I happen to agree with Ian Malcom from the movie… [that] God chose what should be alive at each point in history, and to bring something into this world that shouldn’t be here, would be a horrible idea.
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Seems like you’re assuming that “it shouldn’t be here”, no? 😉
Who’s to say that God absolutely hadn’t intended for us to bring that species back?
 
masterjedi747 said:
Seems like you’re assuming that “it shouldn’t be here”, no? 😉
Who’s to say that God absolutely hadn’t intended for us to bring that species back?
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It’s not assuming considering they were wiped out tens of thousands of years before man.
Just because we have or are almost at the point of having an ability, doesn’t mean we should use it. We are getting close to cloning humans; should we do it just becuase we can?
 
Exactly. I thought about the concept that God would have intended us to bring them back as well, but that also goes with what God had given us in the first place. Free will.

It’s not really about the intent in this case, but whether or not it’s right to say yes or no.

Believe me. I’d LOVE to see real dinosaurs. ^^ But… it’s a very, VERY, controversial topic, and one I don’t believe we are ready to make yet.
 
wabrams said:
Just because we have or are almost at the point of having an ability, doesn’t mean we should use it. We are getting close to cloning humans; should we do it just becuase we can?
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The difference I see there is that, when you’re dealing with human persons created in the Image of God, you’ve entered a whole new ball park of moral restrictions. Experiments with irrational animals (such as dinosaurs) simply don’t have the same sort of boundaries, although of course caution and prudence cannot simply be shoved aside.
 
Something like 90% of all species that have ever existed are now extinct. I’m glad they are not all still around. And I’m glad there were no enviromental activists around to lobby for preserving the dinosaurs indefinitely.
 
I’m not in favor of creating dinosaurs. But developing genetic techniques which could restore to life extinct species might be a good thing. The passenger pigeon, the Caribbean monk seal, the Tasmanian wolf are just a few of the thousands of species which deserve another shot at life. And heck, beneficial drugs are sometimes developed from plants. Being able to bring back extinct plants could produce some badly needed medical treatments.
 
I was just browsing around and saw this thread. I saw a show that talked about bringing back the Mammoth elephant. This is how they said it could be done. If I get this right. Assuming they can get enough DNA from the frozen remains or bones. They link this to a regular elephant. Of course this is a problem with the long gestation and maturity of elephants. Then with the birth of the new one they would have to wait and mate it with an offspring of the that one. Or impregnate with more of the same DNA. And then continue to use the new DNA that would start to genetically overpower and become more prominant. It was interesting and I think theoreticallly correct.
Maybe:) Of course they don’t have a dinosaur but maybe they have been able to find the slightest bit of DNA that was in the original dinos, so do they put it in a regular bird?
 
As to how they do the dinosaur, they found that chickens can be engineered while embryos and still in the egg. They are naturally born with dinosaur like teeth, three clawed hands, a long tail, and various other dinosaur attributes. A natural process removes these as it grows, and the chicken is formed as a chicken. By adding more to these enzymes that determine the growth, they can control it to make the chicken resemble a dinosaur. (for it’s size, say… a compy.)

With an emu or ostrich, they determined that they could sue this reverse engineering to create a creature that would resemble a velociraptor. Of course, being that it’s only reverse engineering, not DNA reconstruction, this would probably be a new species of dinosaur that never existed… no matter how close it is.
 
With an emu as I think I have this right, is a red blooded animal meat. And it can’t fly as compared to an ostrich. We have friends that raise the emu. Now chickens are a white meat and eat grain. So do emu but it is different feed. It has something to do with the hoofs too.That must be why they are using the chicken as with the elephants they have a form of the species allready. I think they would do better going towards the lizards or some other old species than the chickens. It all seems pretty ridiculous.
 
Here is a concern I have. If we get to the point of cloning a dino from old remains, what is there to stop us from accidently cloning a virus, or bacteria the animal had? This virus/bacteria could have been extinct too and now its unleashed on the world. You want to talk about uncontrolled chaos.
 
Personally, I think it’d be really cool if we could bring dinosaurs back to life so long as there was a good way to contain them and keep society safe from them. That said, I do not see animal cloning as bad.
 
wabrams said:
It’s not assuming considering they were wiped out tens of thousands of years before man.
Just because we have or are almost at the point of having an ability, doesn’t mean we should use it. We are getting close to cloning humans; should we do it just becuase we can?
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wabrams: You are absolutely right. Jurassic was one of the best morality plays ever staged. It had one overriding lesson to teach and that is; Just because man can do something doesn’t mean he should. Or maybe a corrolary; The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

The interesting thing is briarpatch’s post in asking about the terrible possibility of genetically producing or re producing some terrible virus. They’ve already had one scare in Reston, VA with the ebola virus and rhesus monkeys. Heaven only knows what else is going on out there is some backwoods lab with some out of control scientist and his arrogant disregard for the consequences of his actions.

The question to pose might be, if the world is going to end, might it not be God’s anger, but man’s incredible arrogance that does the trick?
 
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