Re:We Might Soon Resurrect Extinct Species – Is It Worth the...
by mseebach on Monday March 20, 2017 @03:19PM
(#13916887)
I don't think Ship of Theseus really applies here. The thought experiment asks, 'is it the same ship?' - not, 'is it a ship at all?'. It is considering identity, not classification.
If I kill you and then use your DNA to clone you ten years later, have I somehow not killed you? No, for the reasons GP puts forward (OK, philosophers might disagree, but I will leave that to them). But I have undeniably created a human, just not (necessarily) the same human I killed before.
We have a stable definition of "species", and if we create a genetically correct woollen mammoth, it is a mammoth, by definition, even if it's natural habitat is gone. Just like an elephant in a zoo is still uncontroversially an elephant, even if it has no capacity to survive in the wild.
If I kill you and then use your DNA to clone you ten years later, have I somehow not killed you? No, for the reasons GP puts forward (OK, philosophers might disagree, but I will leave that to them). But I have undeniably created a human, just not (necessarily) the same human I killed before.
We have a stable definition of "species", and if we create a genetically correct woollen mammoth, it is a mammoth, by definition, even if it's natural habitat is gone. Just like an elephant in a zoo is still uncontroversially an elephant, even if it has no capacity to survive in the wild.