That's the lawn guy down at Wilson's Trailer Park.

Hummmmmmmmm ... I was sure this had already happened years ago

.... and many of the offspring were posters here! .... lol

Hummmm.... From a philosophical standpoint, how would we treat them, if our efforts were successful?

As an equal, as a chimp.... somewhere in between? On the surface, it would seem like an easy question, but the answer's not all that clear. Tens of thousands of years ago, there were about five species of human-like creatures [Neanderthals, being one of them] that roamed this planet, and now.....there's only one that survived adapting to the changing environment ... man.

As the article mentioned, Neanderthals could, quite conceivably, be brighter than we are, but.......would we actually allow that to happen? :) Bigger brain, physically stronger, but not as adaptable......and the question still remains.

While this might be technologically feasible some day soon, I do not think it is something we should do. There is a reason that neanderthals went extinct and to bring them back would not make a lot of sense. It would also raise all kinds of ethical questions that no one is prepared to answer. Creating the first might not be too ethically questionable to a lot of people, but to then use the ones created to do further experiments would raise many questions. After all, this would not be some animal we are talking about, this would be in essence a person. To start experimenting on humans in this way is not something we should ever do or even think to allow. It brings back shades of the Nazi scientists and that type of behavior is something we definitely do not want to ever condone.

duuug thank you for making a thinking person's comment. One (a neaderthal) may or may not be less adaptable. All we have is educated guesses as to their adaptability. We're pretty sure, but not 100%.

John B-463946 that may very well be true as pure african ancestry would have no neaderthal genes. Even though the PotUS is what some would say half black (half african ancestry), he would have not as many neanderthal genes. I do not know Shawn-1486781 though, so I cannot say for certain.

There are many reasons they could have died out. Depending on the sociopolitical climate between the different species, they may have been kept to one area. Going by the racism that's still around today, thats a good bet. So a regional disaster could have taken them out. They may have been hunted to extinction. Or changing climate could have done it. If they were forced into the north, lets say, because of war, an ice-age would be hard to survive. And they couldnt migrate into enemy territory. But really, I doubt it was one factor. Probably a combo of several.

As to the question posed in the article. I say go for it. If all involved are volunteering of course. As for ethics. This would be a humanoid creature that is certainly closer to us, than to apes. Maybe more advanced, we dont know. Either way, they would have to be treated as people. You couldn't experiment on them, any more than experimenting on a human clone would be acceptable. I say we should clone everything we can bring back. Including any extinct species we can. Imagine if we could bring back the Dodo bird. A supposedly delicious Ornithoid, that was big like a turkey. We owe it to science to do whatever we can.

I would do it. I just turned 40 but I would try to do it.

Looks like David Axlerod.

The human race is bound for destruction. Altering genetic code, bringing back things that are extinct..

The picture above makes me laugh just seeing it, a very wild imagination of an artist to show that some form of human - neanderthal man sitting there posing.. Good grief.

Man loves to "tinker".... but nature has a tendency to "tinker" back. Cloning (on the surface) seemed pretty successful, but as nature produce "healthy" twins, science only produced "flawed" copies (degenerative disease, eventual organ failure etc.) at the same time "testube" babies, artificial insemination, selective breeding produces "desired" effects without "error". I think we should be careful.. imagine a strain of disease that we fight of naturally but "mutates" and survives in "neans" and then propagates into something that we cannot deal with?.... I this has not (yet) been viable with other creatures I don't think this will be. Not to mention the God factor

Present-day humans are merely a chimpanzee with an intellect they can't fully utilize. The fact that a scientist wants to go backwards genetically instead of finding genetic cures for many diseases and do away with other shortcomings in humans, is proof in enough.

Ahhhh, science...Birthing semi-human play toys....Then they'll lock them up in a cage and abuse it to see what it can handle. Maybe breed them to make them servants to do all the work...that would have been great in the 1860's.

Then we'll re-engineer dinosaurs....Maybe on an island....we can have tourists to visit the park and see living dinosaurs again....

What could go wrong?...Signed Jeff Goldblum.

apower73 - Seriously? You'd really do this? My question, which is asked above by several people, is how would we be treating this thing? I say thing because that's what I would think of it. Not entirely a man, but with the genes of neanderthal that went extinct!? It just doesn't make sense to me.

Plus, you would still be giving birth to a regular child, yet knowing you won't be able to raise said child because it's basically a lab experiment. I don't think I would be able to give up my child like that, regardless of what the scientists did to it.

Also, his point about them possibly being smarter than us... that makes no sense either. We survived to continue to live as human beings - neanderthal went extinct. So who's the smarter one? If they were so smart wouldn't it be thought that they would have prevailed and humans gone extinct instead? I don't know, it's just too weird for me.

Paws93

Funny you should mention Jeff Goldblum. Report is that he fell to his death this morning. Don't know if it's a hoax or not but since there are no other reports yet I'm inclined to believe it is.

http://jeff.goldblum.mediafetcher.com/news/top_stories/actor_new_zealand.php

Why did the artist draw him taking a dump? Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Man is his own worst enemy.

I don't think it would be fair to whoever is unlucky enough to be born as a neanderthal.

I see people figuring their IQ would be low but if born into today's modern society, I would think not.

As for the pic, everyone is saying he looks like this that and the other thing without giving it a thought that it could be a female neanderthals pic.

So sad Larry to hear that right after posting that, your yacht went to the bottom of the seas:

http://larry.2260635.mediafetcher.com/news/top_stories/actor_st_tropez.php

Once again science is all excited about the possibility they COULD do it with very little consideration of whether they SHOULD do it.

Let's consider, for just a moment, that it was possible to create a Neanderthal-like child and that child would look something like the artists conception above. What would happen to that child? This isn't some lab rat or monkey, this is a child.

Will it spend it's life locked away in some lab for observation? Imagine the difficulty of "mainstreaming" this child. What will be his level of intelligence? Will he or she be able to assimilate into society?

I applaud the idea of engineering the genome to fight cancer and other human diseases. But the idea of reverse engineering DNA to produce a non-human, hominid child without considering what will happen to that child, if it lives, is monstrous.

Skip, I agreed with your post until you called the child non-human. Neanderthals were just as human as we are, but in a different way. The very idea of bringing a human being into the world for the sole purpose of scientific experiment is absolutely reprehensible. I hope to God we never stoop that low.

As for why they died out, it's pretty clear that they didn't. Over the centuries during which they and our own ancestors shared territory, they simply were absorbed. The bit of Neanderthal DNA still present in our own genomes proves that.

Just go to a GUN SHOW.....MANY NEANDERTHALS...UGGG & RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!

Quite possibly that "race" could & would, knowing how we hu-mans think, be able to replace all other races, religions, etc. that we so love to look down on. Now that's progress !

Here we go-- scientists thinking they are like Gods.

Just because something could theoretically be done doesn't mean it should be done.

We tried that once it was called the Third Reich.

Too late.

There are plenty of Neaderthals walking around now. Just take a trip to Paskistan, Iraq, Iran, Afganistan...

Larry, I hesitate to call this proof, but I just looked up a blurb from Global Associated News that stated that Goldblum died from a fall in New Zealand on a movie set. I hope this is false, but fear it may be true.

Can somebody please tell me how in anyway shape or form a story about German scientists in Germany has anything to do with US politics.

For once can you please keep on topic and stop (both sides) stooping to such a low.

now onto the actual topic. On a pure scientific level this is interesting, but this is a living human being we are talking about, and they will have their own thoughts and ideas, and CAN NOT be used as a scientific experiment.

Neanderthals have gotten a bad rap. Latest info making its way through popular media is that up to 3% of our DNA is of Neanderthal origin. I had thought that two or three decades ago when I saw a fleshed out skeleton of a male Neanderthal and it was the splitting image of my uncle. Since then I have refrained from name-calling Republicans Neanderthals even though my uncle probably was. (moderate) As a science project, cloning a modern day Neanderthal may sound like a good idea, but from a humanitarian point of view, horrible. Even if the Neanderthal kid were indistinguishable from present day humans and have no health issues in a modern population, it would have no modern day parents or parent. Its nearest genetic connection would be tens of thousands of years old and that may be to only a male or female. In cloning at best you are reproducing an identical twin.

But it is the religious aspect of this notion that would upset the largest organized and vocal groups of people, especially fundamentalists. For most religions a human being has a soul. For many Creationist groups, the world was made less than 10,000 years ago and there is no connection to the animal kingdom and they were put here for our use. Our parents and grandparents had souls, but evolution tells us that we are connected to the animal kingdom. If animals don't have souls and human beings do, somewhere back in time there was a dividing line between a human being and the rest of the animal kingdom, somebodies parents were soulless. This venture to bring back a Neanderthal would supposedly bridge that event. All a bunch of nonsense of course but don't say I didn't warn you.

MoreJustice

There are many reasons they could have died out. Depending on the sociopolitical climate between the different species, they may have been kept to one area. Going by the racism that's still around today, thats a good bet.

The idea that we killed them off somehow has been largly abandoned and was never really based on anything other than this type of speculation to begin with. More recetn evidence suggests that rather than wiping them out we simply bred them out. DNA evidence has confirmed that early human and neadethal interbreding was quite common so it seems safe to assume our two species weren't all that hostile towards one another.

Just because it can be done doesn't mean it should be done.

rkaralius

Skip, I agreed with your post until you called the child non-human. Neanderthals were just as human as we are,

Technically no. We are from the same genus but neanderthals were not "humans".

"Theoretically, it might be possible to create a whole population of neo-Neanderthals and see how they differ from the usual breed of Homo sapiens, Church said."

So is this where we would go with our grand experiment? Or perhaps we would selectively breed them as we do animals, for OUR preferred traits? Remember, it happens with Homo sapiens now, in societies which prefer male progeny over female, for example. To have even one person willing to do that (and I assure you it would be far more than one) . . . ghastly thought.

Who would be the first to begin eradication efforts for the unwanted, whether it be Neo-Neanderthals, or those of "mixed" origin? Or of Homo Sapiens, for that matter? ALL species can and do exhibit desirable and undesirable traits, a process heavily dependent on those who define and establish the criteria for selection. In the lifetimes of many still alive, remember the Nazi/Aryan definition of desirablity, or perhaps more accurately, undesirablity?

Technically no. We are from the same genus but neanderthals were not "humans".

Scientists aren't even so sure about that anymore. Some think that they are the same species as us, but different subspecies. I.e. We are Homo sapiens sapiens, they were Homo sapiens neanderthalensis.

We should be focusing on fixing what is wrong with the human species cause there is a lot to fix.

Then we should realize that we have no business messing around with DNA and "creating" anything.

Our elevated opinion of ourselves is nauseating.

Good grief, im convinced that the efforts spent in the scientific community are often very very misguided.

This is probably one of those cases, because I feel like whatever we learn from this - wont trump the damage that results from this "tinkering".

Too late, my ex mother-in-law has already been there and done that. Yeah, I know, I married him (and divorced him, as well), but he didn't look too bad after the shave and the haircut.

I don't get the ethical uproar here????

"How would we treat them"? How the hell do you think? I'd hope we'd treat them quite well.

My god, have none of you heard of Ambras syndrome? I'm pretty sure we don't stick people with this condition in a cage and shove needles in their ass all day just because they are furry.

Everything contemplative science has been telling us about Neanderthals leads us to believe they're a lot closer to us than we originally thought. The idea we'd somehow treat one like it's a lab rat is just mind-boggling to me.

The more and more we learn about science and our inherent connection with all of life ... I would think we'd also become more and more altruistic in how we condition that relationship, no? I don't understand why we always have to jump to the "bad scenario" when contemplating the expansion of our scientific endeavours.

Pity.

Sorry RK, poor choice of words. I should of said "non-homo sapien" instead of "human". I think you get my over all point. This would be a CHILD, not a chimp, not a lab rat. It would look significantly different from other children, it's learning abilities might be impaired (smaller brain?) and it would have great difficulty assimilating into society. Heaven forbid the child would be kept in in a lab.

First, I would like to congratulate jake for being the first idiot to turn this into a political jab.

Chad:

""How would we treat them"? How the hell do you think? I'd hope we'd treat them quite well."

I'd hope so, too, but I can see why the question was asked. Just over 50 years ago, we wouldn't let people of different skin colors be in the same restrooms. Racism is still alive, I can see some people (not the majority for sure) with the "I'm better than them-I'm human" line of thinking and mistreating them. I believe there are some people who WOULD treat them like lab rats. :/ There are people who will adamantly feel like they shouldn't even exist...or they could bring us all even closer together.

If a girl is born, she will have a hell of a time going through high school.

Jessicalc

I understand your observation ... my point wasn't whether we should or shouldn't ... just that we're moving exponentially (I hope) to a society that puts more value and trust in science.

Science, for me at least, has become an escape into a new realm where my world view is shaped by the understanding that we are all connected. The more I learn, the more that altruism grows and expands, and the more it shapes my understanding of shared human experience. I realize that the "evil scientist in a white lab coat" can sometimes be part of people's primal intuition (I suppose that's human nature). But, I do feel we're changing for the better in this regard.

As in the movie Jurassic park's character Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) states, "...your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."

You think it's difficult adjusting and coping with life when you've come from a broken family? Imagine the difficulty of this baby, this infant, this child, growing up and learning who and what he/she is, learning that you had no parents, there were no others of your kind. Learning that you were not part of a divine creation, but one of divine synthesis: no link to any spiritual past, no hope for any passing on to descendants, the fundamental engine of life. You would ask why? Why is this happening to me? You have no future, no past... no hope.

It is a cruel and under investigated probability which has to be vetted thoroughly before finally coming to the conclusion that it is just socially and ethically unpalatable. But someone will create such a child someday, I fear. And the tragedy then will be owned wholly and completely by the lone and lonely subject through whom arrogant man has chosen to create a person; one whose self-image will be that of a soulless, creatorless image who will futilely spend a lifetime working to acquire both.

Chad:

I think that perhaps you are a bit more optimistic about society than I am. I look around, and see a divisive nation, always ready to fight one another. I see a growing hatred for our fellow man, based on pettiness. I don't have much hope that we would be as accepting as we should be...I mean, just look at all the comments on here; nothing but hate and disgust for anyone not like them.

Rather than jump to a 'pure' neanderthal, if there is such a thing, what if scientists gradually cloned humans with more and more neanderthal DNA. Humans already range from 0 - 4% Neanderthal DNA (I'm personally at 2.7%). If this was gradually increased, it is likely that neanderthals could be reintroduced with little to no notice socially.

Regardless though, it seems to me that we are the ones who would have the most trouble adapting, not the newly introduced neanderthals. It would force us to reevaluate that we possibly are no longer unique as an intelligent species. That could cause some to lash out, as we've done in the past to people who challenge our preconceptions. Yes, it would be more difficult on the first neanderthals than those who followed. But I don't think that any life form would regret the chance to exist, no matter how difficult it's existence is, barring relentless physical or emotional pain.

My first thought was that this is very interesting, scientifically.

But no, we should not create a child just for the purpose of experimenting on it.

I hear Octomom is availiable.

Give birth to something that will live it's life as a laboratory test bunny? I think not.

This is science playing God. Did they ever consider the person that would be born as such? Next thing they'll want to impregnate a woman with a T-Rex or worse!

@ProFreedom-5130956

This is science playing God. Did they ever consider the person that would be born as such? Next thing they'll want to impregnate a woman with a T-Rex or worse!

The only mistake here is to inform a woefully undereducated (in terms of science) society that's also grossly superstitious re: their magic sky-being about issues of science they can't possibly understand. Your comment is living proof, ranking right up there on the Stupidity Scale as, "If evolution werz tru, then how cumb therz still monkeys!"

Yes. That stupid (albeit with better grammar.)

elentir gets it. You don't.

And, for the science 'fails' that we've seen, unlike religion, we correct our wrongs. We continually try to falsify our data. We are looking for real-world applications without the need for tribalism or fantasy. And, the next time you're in the doctor's office, perhaps you'll remember that.

I don't see he harm in trying. It might be interesting.

This whole idea is absurd. Not because it couldn't happen, but because of the ethical violations that are requisite to the project. The first thing they need to find is a woman mentally challenged enough to allow herself to be impregnated by a scientific experiment--in which any number of mistakes could be made.

When the child is born, the scientists have invested money in the birth, so they will want to "inspect" the child. But wait, it isn't homo sapien, so human rights wouldn't apply would they? The child would be a guiney pig for the scientists. We're talking blood tests, behavioral studies, constant developmental IQ tests. Imagine being taken to the lab every day as an infant in order to be monitered and experimented on.

When the child is old enough, do you send it to school? To be harassed and bullied because he's different, but also because his people are inferior enough to go extinct? But if you home school him, then you are denying him the opportunity to live a normal life and to acquire a social network.

What if the child is naturally aggressive and murders someone for flicking his ear--but accidentally because he has six times a human's strength? Do you blame him, or the scientists that put him in an environment outside his element? What if he is also mentally challenged? Do you put him in a cage, or do you put him down like an animal?

The fact that scientists are considering this project shows how unused to thinking of the repercussions they are. Thanks for creating the atomic bomb, anthrax, and now genetic creatures that we can play with--or make slaves out of depending on which country you're from.

there is a neanderthal he makes geico commercials !

I say go for it! It's only a matter of time before the machines take over and ban DNA altogether. Might as well play around with it while we still can. NOMAD...MUST...STERILIZE IMPERFECTIONS! STERILIZE!!!

If it's a boy, I vote for Leander. (Leander-thal?)

Link!!!

Jeff Goldblum

That's an insult to Neanderthals.

We almost did as well. Genetics shows this bottle neck. Why they did, some of the best hypotheses are that it was our culture, shared art that kept distant groups (of humans) connected and that we shared information better (hunting etc) and that gave us an edge. We many never know the exact reasons.

Extinction and survival have nothing to do with intelligence, but rather how efficiently an organism adapts to its environment. Just because they might have been more intelligent than we were doesn't mean they could adapt to a changing environment as effectively as we could. Also, it isn't established that they were more intelligent, only that they had a larger cranial mass than we did, so they COULD have been more intelligent than we.

Intelligence is not an overriding key to evolutionary success. It helps to a point but nature requires a bit of brutality as well. Maybe neanderthals were peace loving, intelligent beings and then we came along.

Perhaps the Neanderthals were a gentle species and wiped out by the more aggressive humans.

Sorry Joseph just read your post, didn't mean to ride your coat tails. So to speak.

Didn't have as many children?

Slower running and intolerant of hot weather conditions?

Weaker immunity system that couldn't deal with African diseases brought into their population?

At least one real Neanderthal at about age 17 looked much better and more like us than the picture at the top of the article. I believe the well preserved skeleton was destroyed in a museum fire in France during one of the World Wars.

Perhaps we should think first about the children produced by such experiments first

Maybe im medically incorrect, but in modern humans - doesnt an abnormally large (for us) cranial size correspond with mental retardation?

Neandertals also buried their dead with flowers. I'd bet that humans tended to be more aggressive if anything, though I do very much support the idea that there was interbreeding.

Perhaps we should think first about the children produced by such experiments first

This is the biggest reason not to perform such an experiment. Scientifically, there isn't a good reason to do this either. From ices and skeletons, we know what they looked like. Their culture won't come back to life in this manner. We have their DNA (which is how such an experiment is even possible.) So what is hoped to be achieved?

-WE- are his closest kin.

That's assuming that he's obviously inferior to us, and he may well not be. And assuming that there would just be one born, I can't imagine that we would stop at just one.

I wonder if he/she is or would be conservative?

His species died out about 25,000 years ago, not 4000 years ago. And we are the closest surviving relatives of Neanderthals.

Mike, they adopted a severe austerity measure and it extincted them.

Maybe they went bankrupt and starved to death waiting for someone to bring them food.

I thought by closest kin that Aleap meant its parents, but that doesn't matter. I've heard that a lot of children with surrogate mothers and sperm donor fathers struggle emotionally with how they were created, and many wish they had not been brought to life. Assuming a neanderthal would have the appropriate awareness, I wonder how it would feel about it. It would be fascinating for us though.

Could be a knock off of the TRUMAN SHOW....Called the NEW-MAN Show. Or...........................

Raised in frigid temperatures or Vegas? BLUE-MAN.

Riddled with infection? GOO-MAN.

Stinky? POO-MAN.

Pale? BOO-MAN.

Bird like? COO-MAN.

Asian descent? FU-MAN.

Owl like? HOO-MAN

Middle Eastern descent? JEW-MAN

British with bowel problems? LOO-MAN.

Bovine like? MOO-MAN.

Filled with regret? RUE-MAN.

Litigious? SUE-MAN.

Ballet dancer? TU-TU MAN.

Good looking? WOO-MAN.

Mirror like? YOU-MAN.

Lastly, what he would really be...ZOO-MAN. That would be cruel so don't do it!!!!

Pa-Dow!!!

He looks like Uncle Rico, when Deb was taking his photo, from the movie Napoleon Dynamite.

Scott - There are a lot of people created the old fashioned way who wish, they too, had never been born.

It has less to do with how you were created, and more to do with how you are raised - your environment, and the social realities that ultimately invade your way of thinking and affect what you've always thought or believed.

A child who realizes by age 10 that their dad cares more about his career than his own children, might very well wish he was never born. Not because society thinks his dad is a loser, no society will think his dad is king...but the boy will know he's not loved, or valued, nearly as much as the money his dad cares most about.

A child who realizes by age 10 that society hates his gay dads, and bullies him and abuses him because of his gay dads, might very well wish he was never born - not because he hates his gay dads, but because he hates how "good christians" and otherwise "normal people" treat him because of how his parents are.

A neanderthal child COULD very well have a good life, despite living under a microscope of the scientists - if we collectively treat this child with love and respect, despite the circumstances that created him/her.

it really, always boils down to US, COLLECTIVE US...and frankly, we collectively suck most times.

we will often choose to beat someone down, so we can get ahead...

we will often choose money over humanity

we will often choose our own beliefs, over someone elses right to live and be happy...

we are the ones that suck, not the children born without choice.

Actually this brings up an interesting point. Who knows what viruses might be lurking in that DNA. And who knows what those viruses might do to humans. Conversely, who knows what our viruses might do to it. We're close enough genetically that it could be a problem.

Who knows what cures may be lurking there too? :)

What do we tell this poor neanderthal kid when he/she becomes an adult?

We tell him that we are his kin, and that we birthed him because he is one of us and we value what he is. So much that some of our best minds labored for decades so that he could be born.

Or didn't you read the article?

Some people think they can play with evolution. this matter was started long ago. Evolution has been going forward not backwards. we have played with crossbreeding in the past and created monsters. should we try it now with mammals and beings, so that the human species as we now know can become extinct, like some animals have? have the sick doctor answer this. Do we know how they will respond, with genes programmed for that time and transport it to this time? Hello.

While we are at this, why not go to a far away planet, pick up some spore and see if we can recreate man, just to go further into evolution. that would also be good, it might be smarter, more advance in technology and in astrophysics too?

What "monsters" have we created through "crossbreeding?" Every dog species, most species of cattle, etc etc?

Yeah I'm with RealWorldProgressive here. Crossbreeding hasn't made many monsters. Rather it's been a boon to humanity. Every staple food, beasts of burden (some of which are sterile), etc.

Ladies and gentlemen we have ourselves a volunteer.

So you're volunteering ?