Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Sign of the times: Playing God and gaming Darwin

A story from Popular Science about how a contagious cancer-like disease is wiping out the Tasmanian Devil. So researchers are trying to find a way to preserve the TD genome for possible resurrection if they do go extinct. But isn't this what evolution is all about? And if the TD can't overcome this disease naturally and dies out then that is the Darwinian principle of natural selection at work and should it not be respected? A moral conundrum, eh?