De-extinction

This article will explore a problem which is related to our moral obligations towards species. Although the re-creation of extinct animals has been discussed to some degree both in lay deliberations as well as by scientists, advocates tend to emphasize the technological and scientific value of such an endeavour, and the "coolness" factor (Sherkow and Greely Science, 340(6128), 32–33, 2013). This article will provide an argument in favour of re-creation based on normative considerations. The environmentalist community generally accepts that it is wrong to exterminate species, for reasons beyond any instrumental value these species may have. It is often also claimed that humanity has a collective responsibility to either preserve or at least to not exterminate species. These two beliefs are here assumed to be correct. The argument presented here departs from and places these two ideas in a deontological framework, from which it is argued that when humanity causes the extinction of a species, this is a moral transgression, entailing a residual obligation. Such an obligation implies a positive duty to mitigate any harm caused by our moral failure. In light of recent scientific progress in the field of genetic engineering, it will be argued that humanity has a prima facie obligation to re-create species whose extinction mankind may have caused, also known as de-extinction.

In their creative and collaborative response to the de-extinction of the Woolly Mammoth, speculative artists are guided by a paleo-imaginary impulse that structures our cultural fascination with reversing the negative impacts of Anthropogenic change. Lisel Shlock’s “Back from the Dead” illustration (commissioned for the cover of the Autumn 2013 issue of Earth Island Journal) imaginatively depicts the reconstruction of the Woolly Mammoth with a series of levers, ladders, scaffolds, cranes, and red rope by lab-coated scientists, while her supporting piece for the issue features a burgeoning petri-dish of extinct species. Both illustrations visualize a controversial set of ethical and political questions that surround de-extinction science, the crux of which appears more explicitly on the April 2013 issue of National Geographic. Bearing the image of a woolly mammoth spilling from a laboratory beaker, the cover contains a caption with an enigmatic question: “We can, but should we?”.
Other images of species revivalism are plentiful. Signalling a politics of consumption, Emma Conley’s “De-extinction Deli” includes a mammoth hashed with a cross-section of meat cuts, while Raul Martin depicts ATV-mounted biologists at Pleistocene Park voyeuristically gazing at mammoths through binoculars. Elsewhere, woolly mammoths are breaking through museum dioramas and through walls of permafrost. Portraying the temporal combustion of the past and future that de-extinction science elicits, these images reconfigure the aesthetics of co-existence that once subtended parietal art (such as the Cave of the hundred mammoths in Rouffignac, France), but which today juxtapose a prehistoric past with an Anthropogenic future.
These images exemplify an aesthetics of speculation that functions to materially graph or “suture” together what Elizabeth Povinelli describes as “various modes of existence” in speculative philosophy (Geontologies 58). Elaborating on Povinelli’s claims about geontopower and biopower in relation to the speculative art and science of de-extinction, I argue that these visual cultures retrace the fault lines of Anthropocene Studies today, which critiques the narrative of human exceptionalism that is at the heart of these debates, and which also perpetuates a cult of “cool” candidates for extinction according to a rubric of flagship species. Drawing on speculative philosophy (Quentin Meillassoux’s arche-fossil, Timothy Morton’s hyperobject, and W.J.T. Mitchell’s palaeontology of the screen), this article examines how collaborations between speculative artists and scientists working in de-extinction science together renegotiate the political and ethical dimensions of an aesthetics of speculation.

Rewilding aims at maintaining or even increasing biodiversity through the restoration of ecological and evolutionary processes using extant keystone species or ecological replacements of extinct keystone species that drive these processes. It is hailed by some as the most exciting and promising conservation strategy to slow down or stop what is considered to be the greatest mass extinction of species since the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
Rewilding has clearly gained the most traction in North America and Europe, which have several key features in common. Both regions have recently experienced a spontaneous return of wildlife. Rewilders on both sides of the Atlantic are, however, aware that this wildlife resurgence is not that impressive, given that we are in the midst of the ‘sixth mass extinction’, that is characterized by the loss of large-bodied animals known as ‘megafauna’. Their common goal is to bring back such megafaunal species because of their importance for maintaining and enhancing biodiversity. Lastly, both North American and European rewilders perceive the extinction crisis through the lens of the ‘island theory’ that shows that the number of species in an area depends on its size and degree of isolation – hence their special attention to the spatial aspects of rewilding.
But rewilding projects on both sides of the Atlantic not only have much in common, they also differ in certain aspects. North American rewilders have adopted the late Pleistocene as reference period and have emphasized the role of predation by large carnivores, while European rewilders have opted for the mid-Holocene and put more focus on naturalistic grazing by large herbivores.

De-extinction technology aims to bring extinct species back into existence, often with the goal of releasing created organisms into natural environments. In this paper, I argue that there are aesthetic reasons to avoid engaging in de-extinction and release projects, even if they pass moral permissibility criteria. The strength of these reasons depends on conclusions regarding species authenticity – a problem that arises at the intersection of de-extinction technology and the ‘species problem’ in the philosophy of biology. Since species authenticity affects the perceived naturalness of ‘natural’ environments, and thus the aesthetic judgments thereof, I contend that there will be negative aesthetic consequences of de-extinction efforts that ought to be further explored before such projects move forward.

Entrenched biases in favour of large, charismatic mammals, towards predators, towards terrestrial animals and towards species that have cultural importance can in uence the selection of candidate species for de-extinction research. Often, the species with the highest existence value will also be the ones that raise the most serious animal welfare concerns.

This article examines the operations of visual representations within discourses advocating deextinction. Images have significant agency within these debates, yet their roles, and the assumptions they naturalise, have not been critiqued. Demonstrating the affective, triumphant and subversive potentials of these representations, this article then turns to the implications of relying on images made by and for humans within the expressly multispecies space of de-extinction. Discourses around de-extinction tend to place undue weight not just on how candidate species look(ed), but on how they appear to human eyes after the mediating processes of representation, and the notion of recreating a nonhuman animal that looks the same as an extinct species is not only limited as an aim of de-extinction technologies, but is problematised when different species’ modes of seeing and optical capacities are taken into account. Furthermore, vision cannot necessarily be assumed to play the same role wi...

In Jurassic Park (1993), Jeff Goldblum’s Dr. Ian Malcolm famously says that “life finds a way,” and the return of dinosaurs in Jurassic Park and its sequels presages a recurring plot device in recent creature feature films in which extinct creatures are returned to life. This recurring narrative shows that de-extinction is something that both fascinates and frightens viewers. “Life finds a way,” but this prospect is double-edged. It promises that extinction need not be final and offers absolution for our role in ongoing extinctions. On the other hand, the threat represented by this narrative is not species loss but the disruption of the supposedly unidirectional and predictable process of extinction, which places us, rather than other species, at risk of extinction and death. These films highlight a significant ambivalence in the culture, showing that even as we worry about species extinction, we simultaneously fear acting on those concerns, whether via large-scale projects of de-extinction or small-scale changes in daily behavior. Watching these films allows viewers a small way to assuage their guilt and also justify their lack of action.

Are the methods of synthetic biology capable of recreating authentic living members of an extinct species? An analogy with the restoration of destroyed natural landscapes suggests not. The restored version of a natural landscape will typically lack much of the aesthetic value of the original landscape because of the different historical processes that created it – processes that involved human intentions and actions, rather than natural forces acting over millennia. By the same token, it would appear that synthetically recreated versions of extinct natural organisms will also be less aesthetically valuable than the originals; that they will be, in some strong sense, ‘inauthentic’, because of their peculiar history and mode of origin. I call this the ‘genesis argument’ against de-extinction. In this article I critically evaluate the genesis argument. I highlight an important disanalogy between living organisms and natural landscapes: viz., it is of the essence of the former, but not ...

We live in the Anthropocene, an era characterized by widespread extinction and landscapes that are less habitable for most large mammals. Over 25 percent of terrestrial mammals are now in decline and 66 percent of top carnivores—creatures with profound ecological roles—are threatened with extinction. As habitat is fragmented and destroyed, wildlife across the world are left with both less and lower quality habitat and lack the resources necessary for survival. De-extinction is an option under consideration as the world undergoes this mass extinction event—the sixth such event in Earth’s history. However, if there is currently no room for the magnificent Bengal Tiger or African Elephant, why are we considering bringing back Woolly Mammoths?

Are the methods of synthetic biology capable of recreating authentic living members of an extinct species? An analogy with the restoration of destroyed natural landscapes suggests not. The restored version of a natural landscape will typically lack much of the aesthetic value of the original landscape because of the different historical processes that created it—processes that involved human intentions and actions, rather than natural forces acting over millennia. By the same token, it would appear that synthetically recreated versions of extinct natural organisms will also be less aesthetically valuable than the originals; that they will be, in some strong sense, ‘inauthentic’, because of their peculiar history and mode of origin. I call this the ‘genesis argument’ against de-extinction. In this article I critically evaluate the genesis argument. I highlight an important disanalogy between living organisms and natural landscapes: viz., it is of the essence of the former, but not of the latter, to regularly reproduce and die. The process of iterated natural reproduction that sustains the continued existence of a species through time obviously does not undermine the authenticity of the species. I argue that the authenticity of a species will likewise be left intact by the kind of artificial copying of genes and traits that a de-extinction project entails. I conclude on this basis that the genesis argument is unsound.