I am writing this from my father's kitchen in Lisbon. I am here because Fianna had a conference in Lisbon and we decided that it would be nice for me to join her and spend the weekend. In the plane I watched a crime series and read the Guardian. I found one of the articles particularly interesting in its demonstration of the absurdities of science. A scientific team based at the Leibniz Institute in Berlin and led by a Professor Hildebrand expect to be able to recreate the Northern White Rhino (NWR) of which at present there are only two specimens left both of which are female (No information was given on their sexual orientation). The procedure is based on a complicated mix of genetics, stem cells, IVF and Southern White Rhino surrogates. The reason I find this absurd is that having eradicated the NWR we are now ploughing significant resources into trying to resurrect it. Wouldn't it have been easier to not hunt them all down in the first place? Considering there are hundreds of species disappearing every year mostly thanks to human activity would it not make more sense to invest in conservation rather than trying to resurrect them ? Surely Jurassic Park and Frankenstein should have convinced us by now that science isn't always the answer.
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