A review by karingforbooks
Rise of the Necrofauna: A Provocative Look at the Science, Ethics, and Risks of De-Extinction by Britt Wray, George Church

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.