"Should We Clone Neanderthals?"

According to author Zecharia Sitchin (Earth Chronicles Series), and his interpretation of clay tablets found in the library of Ashurbanipal (Hittite) in the ancient city of Ninevah, a story long old in those days told of the god Ea, and his mother creating the 'Adamas' by mixing the 'image' of 'the man of the field' with their own [already perfected] 'image' [DNA], and thereby producing workers for the gold mines in south africa. (implanted into 'birth goddesses') These workers were hybrids and unable to reproduce. (this was all in response to a revolt by the lesser gods about poor working conditions in the mines. all our notions of Hell come from this 'eternal labour in the lower world')

After the goddesses revolted due to overwhelming demand for workers (Bible:"there were Giants in the earth in those days"), the same pair took dna from the rib of the adam, and produced a mate, forming a self replicating pair. (Adam & Eve) The rest is history.

It doesn't say what happened to the neanderthal, but I do suspect they were hunted and/or wiped out in the great flood. (not saved by Noah & family)

Also he says that before the flood, the descendents of adam lived nearly 1000 years, but after the 'divine pregnancy' of Noah's wife, mankind has only had a lifetime of 120 years max.

I would suggest that research find the DNA clock, and other errors in our own dna, and fix that before trying to ressurect extinct species.

I would enjoy living 1000 years.

Chris

"Should We Clone Neanderthals?"

Yes, we should.

We shouldn't clone Neanderthals. There are enough idiots in the world now!

Go right ahead. More variety at the singles bar....

I guess I wasn't thinking past the first one. Good catch!

I'd not really be for cloning Neanderthals, as if would seem as if it were a sort of cruel thing to do.

Somehow it seems different from breeding dogs, or cloning sheep, or cows.

Some say that Chimpanzees deserve human rights.

I'd sort of hate to somehow create a being more flawed than myself.

There is the suspicion that Neanderthals weren't quite as smart as we are, though competitive.

The furthest I've ever gone has been to suggest that if "We" really want to populate the solar system, we might ethically genetically engineer a creature made from us, made to live on Mars, for we sure aren't made to live there, and it seems a horror to doom people to be entirely dependent on space suits and space ships for life.

Of course you are likely to not be so great at making a creature specifically able to live on Mars naked, and also live on Earth comfortably naked, so a conundrum is created should you actually genetically engineer your species to live on another planet.

And what if you were compelled to make yourself, your species smarter as compensation for making the new you?

The new you, is then a threat to the old yous.

No wonder it is more comfortable in the end to leave such things to God.

Clones created from a genome that is more than 30,000 years old will not have immunity to a wide variety of diseases, some of which would likely be fatal. They will be lactose intolerant, have difficulty metabolizing alcohol, be prone to developing Alzheimer's disease, and maybe most importantly, will have brains different from modern people's.

I'm lactose intolerant...does that mean...

I doubt that statement of lactose intolerance is valid. its very suspect.

not that you aren't.. but the logic is not proper...

and if they are stronger and more agressive than 'us', we may be the ones at risk..

They were much more in tune with nature and nature's diet than us, and are likely to be just as unhealthy as us if they eat out diet and overload their brains with televised reality drama crap.

Chris

I read somewhere else a while back that the gene that switches off the production of the enzyme lactase which breaks down the sugar lactose was traced back to the Stone Age.

Most adult cats are lactose intolerant unless you continue to give them cow's milk regularly after they're weaned. The same is probably true for most mammals - how many adults cows drink milk?

If you think about it, it's quite logical. Milk is what infant mammals eat/drink. Juvenile and adult mammals have no need of it, as they're eating other things. If the diet is balanced and full of green vegetables, then you get the calcium you need from your diet.

The "institutionalised" drinking of milk by all of society and its "magical" calcium bearing properties importance came about during the insutrial revolution when two things happened:

1. Refridgeration allowed milk to be kept longer and transported into towns more easily
2. A better understanding of ability to implement hygene standards came about
3. The poor diet of most industrial workers needed addressing (cf rickets)

Prior to that, only "stupid" country folk drank the milk from cows regularly: most was churned to butter or treated to become yoghurt and cheese*. It was this distinction that allowed Jenner to make the connection bewteen cowpox and smallpox that ultimately led to the latter's elimination.

Going further back, drinking milk wasn't a generally accepted social "thing". And if you were of the part of society that didn't regularly drink milk, chances are you reacted against it (i.e. were ill) when you did, so the "don't drink the milk" taboo continued. In addition, the ability to store milk safely was limited, which is why it was made into cheese, which was eaten widely. I'm not sure that butter was particularly widely eaten in the middle ages (but that may have been a function of storage and therefore cost).

So it's quite reasonable to postulate that the lack of an off switch in the lactase producing gene is a pretty recent change.

*See reason 1

see that!

next time someone is looking for a research project, I'm pointing to this one. GA

Chris

(for sure the Milk people push push push milk... my gf swears by it. not me. don't believe milk transports its calcium to us very well either)

Is it a recent change? My daughter is 31y.o. and is lactose intolerant. She was weaned from the breast onto goats milk, which was absolutely no problem. When we stopped keeping goats she reacted badly to cows milk nd still does. This, I suppose, ties in with your comment about cats.

If you tried drinking human breast milk would you be equally intolerant? (Serious question) i.e. are you allergic to the bovine protein in the milk rather than the lactose which I suppose is present in all milk?

The change would be to not being lactose intolerant, where the off switch is over-ridden. The cat example shows that it's possible to "fool" the gene anyway - perhaps the change is that if you fool it in enough people over a long enough period, and they reproduce together, the off switch mutates and so doesn't function. If we're in the middle/early stages of this mutation, then there will be lots for whom the switch works as "intended"** or we might just be "fooling" each individual switch and there are other factors in some which switches it off anyway. The other thing is that an individual's response will be subject to both genetic and environment factors.*

I was weaned onto and brought up drinking cows' milk, but can't loterate it...the symptoms got progressively worse over a number of years.

Can't answer the other question - never had an opportunity to investigate (not sure I want to). I have heard, however, that it tastes revolting to adults - far to thick and sweet. Intriguing, from an analytical POV.

*All conjecture - I'm not a geneticist!

**this is not an indication of intelligent design, so let's not go down that argument today

Why clone what already exists? You apparently haven't met the middle management at my company yet (quasi government agency - with no bottom line).

...why not? somebody, somewhere, could always use another politician.

And, as politicians are widely recognized as an important source of protein, I completely agree.

Why not... family reunions are always welcome.

Given some of the postings in CR4 lately, it's quite possible that someone already has....

A well written argument for the right thing. Others on this thread have also said this, the ethical side was also covered in the main article.

I don't think you can say it too often though.

Well said. GA.