When is a Tasmanian Tiger like a mouse? Well, never. But scientists from Australia and America have got close. They’ve brought back to life a gene from the extinct Tasmanian Tiger after implanting it in a mouse.
This world’s first is being applauded by science. But it scares the hell out of me. The Holy Grail of biology is being muted again – can we bring back a dinosaur? Now, do they really think, if they did, it would stay in a cage?
Whenever you introduce new life into an ecosystem, it rebalances itself. We know this. So the simple existence of that gene in a mouse will do the same. It may not be noticeable, but theoretically, it WILL occur.
And now it’s been done once, it will be repeated over and over again. And every time it’s done, our planetary ecosystem shifts in ways we have no idea. They say science and creationism cannot co-exist.
Wanna bet?

(c) Anthony North, May 2008