Why Katz is Wrong: A Lab-Created Creature Can Still Have an Ancient Evolutionary History. Issue 2 (4th May 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Campbell, Douglas Ian
• Is Part Of: Ethics, policy & environment. Volume 25:Issue 2(2022)
• Page Start: 109
• Page End: 112
• Publication Date: 2022-05-04
• Subjects: De-extinction -- authenticity -- evolution -- species; Environmental ethics -- Periodicals; Environmental policy -- Periodicals; 179.1
• DOI: 10.1080/21550085.2022.2071555
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2155-0085

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Katz denies that organisms created in a lab as part of a de-extinction attempt will be authentic members of the extinct species, on the basis that they will lack the original species' defining biological and evolutionary history. Against Katz, I note that an evolutionary lineage is conferred on an organism though its inheriting genes from forebears already possessed of such a lineage, and that de-extinction amounts to a delayed, human-assisted reproductive process, in which genes are inherited from forebears long dead. My conclusion is that de-extinct organisms can perfectly well have an ancient evolutionary history, contrary to Katz's assumption.