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tonstantweader's review against another edition
4.0
Move over Jurassic Park, there are real scientists exploring ways to bring back species that have become extinct, species like the passenger pigeon, the auroch, and the wooly mammoth. The prospect is exciting to people who believe we should restore what we have destroyed but others are less sanguine about the idea. In Rise of the Necrofauna: The Science, Ethics, and Risks of De-Extinction, Britt Wray seeks to answer the many questions that should be considered before the first critter is made unextinct.
Wray organizes her examination of de-extinction around eight questions that make up the chapter titles. How is de-extinction done and why is it important? Who are the contenders? Why create the wooly mammoth? Can we bring back billions of passenger pigeons and should we? How could we regulate this? Can the things we learn from de-extinction be used to save endangered species? Is some knowledge too dangerous? This touches on the whole fear that as soon as we know how to do something, someone is bound to go and do it. These fears are only exacerbated by He Jankui’s reckless intervention in editing the genes of twins in China. Seeing his actions defended so nonchalantly by George Church who is one of the leading scientists in de-extinction adds to the unease I feel about this.
Wray examines each question carefully and answers them all with room for readers to agree or disagree with her own thoughts. She is not a dogmatic writer, sharing her own ambivalence and uncertainty.
I enjoyed reading Rise of the Necrofauna. I found it particularly interesting reading it so soon after reading The Re-Origin of Species by Torill Kornfeldt. Both books are about de-extinction. Kornfeldt’s is more personal in its approach while Wray’s is more focused on organizing her research and interview around specific questions. One of the fascinating things is how different scientists seem very different in how they interacted with the writers. For example, the man behind the ambitious Pleistocene Park seemed more of a gonzo scientist in Wray’s book and more serious in Kornfeldt’s book.
While it’s clear the de-extinction is not just around the corner, it’s around the next corner after that. We need to think about the implications and possible consequences now, before it happens. This book is a thoughtful introduction to the questions we must answer soon.
I received a copy of Rise of the Necrofauna: The Science, Ethics, and Risks of De-Extinction for review from the publisher.
Rise of the Necrofauna: The Science, Ethics, and Risks of De-Extinction at Greystone Books
Britt Wray author site
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2019/01/08/rise-of-the-necrofauna-by-britt-wray/
Wray organizes her examination of de-extinction around eight questions that make up the chapter titles. How is de-extinction done and why is it important? Who are the contenders? Why create the wooly mammoth? Can we bring back billions of passenger pigeons and should we? How could we regulate this? Can the things we learn from de-extinction be used to save endangered species? Is some knowledge too dangerous? This touches on the whole fear that as soon as we know how to do something, someone is bound to go and do it. These fears are only exacerbated by He Jankui’s reckless intervention in editing the genes of twins in China. Seeing his actions defended so nonchalantly by George Church who is one of the leading scientists in de-extinction adds to the unease I feel about this.
Wray examines each question carefully and answers them all with room for readers to agree or disagree with her own thoughts. She is not a dogmatic writer, sharing her own ambivalence and uncertainty.
I enjoyed reading Rise of the Necrofauna. I found it particularly interesting reading it so soon after reading The Re-Origin of Species by Torill Kornfeldt. Both books are about de-extinction. Kornfeldt’s is more personal in its approach while Wray’s is more focused on organizing her research and interview around specific questions. One of the fascinating things is how different scientists seem very different in how they interacted with the writers. For example, the man behind the ambitious Pleistocene Park seemed more of a gonzo scientist in Wray’s book and more serious in Kornfeldt’s book.
While it’s clear the de-extinction is not just around the corner, it’s around the next corner after that. We need to think about the implications and possible consequences now, before it happens. This book is a thoughtful introduction to the questions we must answer soon.
I received a copy of Rise of the Necrofauna: The Science, Ethics, and Risks of De-Extinction for review from the publisher.
Rise of the Necrofauna: The Science, Ethics, and Risks of De-Extinction at Greystone Books
Britt Wray author site
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2019/01/08/rise-of-the-necrofauna-by-britt-wray/
karingforbooks's review against another edition
4.0
4.5. She does a great job simplifying and explaining the science behind de-extinction. The beginning was a little rough if all you've taken is seventh grade (13 years old) biology, like me, but it's manageable. It reads well, and she's a good writer, who throws sarcasm and modern references in which make it entertaining and light. She weaves Jurassic Park throughout the entire book, which makes sense because it's the de-extinction pinnacle, so to speak, which she also discusses. She organized the book well, thematically, and has a lot of sources for her topics. It does sometimes feel a little lacking, but as she says, that's because it's still a fringe topic in science, though it's becoming more known. She focuses on woolly mammoths and passenger pigeons because they're the two biggest attempts/research topics, as far as I understand it. That was fascinating, and I liked the way she distinguished between them and explained the similarities and differences between un-extincting both of them. She also looks at the ethical ramifications of bringing back extinct species, such as whether we're playing God, like Frankenstein, or whether we have a duty to bring back species we made extinct, and what that would look like. She does look at the legal ramifications, briefly, but that was lacking for me. However, I recognize that there's not any law out there on this subject yet, because nobody has successfully brought a species back yet. So that makes sense, even if I was left wanting more on the law. Her discussions on the different ramifications and the science and how they interact, depending on species, and even the brief section on class and culture, were fascinating and really made me think about what this could mean, and what morals really are and how they play a role in extinction. There was talk of why humans feel we need to save species that are endangered, and how people don't know how to explain the why of that question, it's just a feeling, but how morals can't be 100% emotional or 100% logical, because then there's no balance. It was a fascinating book and highly applicable in the modern world of climate change and global warming, which she also discusses. It's not quite a five star read for me simply because sometimes it was hard to keep track of all the science since she explains the cells at the start of the book, but then the types come up throughout the book. However, that's probably a personal, non-scientific person problem, rather than a broad problem. It just made it a little harder for me to become engrossed in the book sometimes.