The answer lies in two forms “Can We?” and “If we can, should we?” I will try and answer both these questions as quickly as possible in under 1000 words. For me to answer these we have to look into the most up-to date theories by scientists that has changed the way we think about Dinosaurs.
Let us skip to Extinction theory first. Scientists now believe that Dinosaurs were NOT wiped off the planet, only a handful of species were wiped off the face of the earth that day 65 million years ago. It was in-fact that a lot of dinosaurs adapted to the harsh aftermath, and became smaller, more agile, grew thicker feathers and gained the ability to fly in most cases. Yes dinosaurs still live amongst us as birds, no they didn’t die out at all, today we are feeding, hunting, and killing dinosaurs. They’ve just changed slightly over the last 65 million years.
Now how do we know that dinosaurs are birds? First of all the skeletal structure is far more bird like, even the skeleton had air holes inside the bones which made dinosaurs like tyrannosaurs run faster. More recently it has been found that most dinosaurs at least by a certain period of time were covered in downy fuzz. Yes dinosaurs were fuzzy, not scaly. This may indicate that Dinosaurs had evolved a warm-blooded system quite early on.
The fearsome, yet fuzzy Dilophosaurus
These proto-feathers may have disappeared on some of the larger species, leaving just a few bits of small hair like structures, such as elephant hair. We now also come to more modern evidence. If you kill a turkey and boil away its feathers and flesh you wi
ll see that apart from a few tiny differences the skeletal structure of that turkey is almost identical to that of viloceraptor; Almost undisputed evidence that some dinosaurs still survive today.
The family resemblance, you must be twins: A Velociraptor (above) and a Turkey (below)
Dinosaurs were not giant birds though, they were reptilian too: In fact Tyrannosaurs soft tissue was uncovered in March 2005 including red blood cells. What was found was that T-Rex share similar ancestor not just to ostriches, but with alligators too. This shows the missing link and shared recent ancestor between Birds and Reptiles.
So we’ve explored what the closest relatives are, lets look more into that soft tissue discovered in March 2005. Well there was blood vessels, and red blood cells, and maybe a few proteins. But any DNA was way too broken to get anything. You see even if there was a decent amount in tact (which is highly, highly improbable), you have to remember that there is only a 1% difference between us and dolphins, less that 1% with us and chimps. So finding a unique strand of DNA which would be useful in bio-engineering a dinosaur like the way they did it in the novel and film “Jurassic Park” would be near enough impossible.
However there is a fly in the ointment of impossibility. Scientist have been screwing around a lot recently with DNA, now they’re making half human half animal hybrids for medical purposes, something morally I think is just fucked up. However it means we have the power to map, and alter DNA strands and grow new animals. Which means that in the future we will have the technology to map out a species DNA, and tinker with it virtually, and get a 3D model of what kind of creature you’ll get on the other side, in which you could produce in a lab.
BUT there are many spanners in the works of mad-science. We don’t know enough about genetics to find out what genes control every animal’s behaviour, if they are omnivores, carnivores or herbivores, what their vocal chords will develop to etc.
Even if we did would scientists mess around with the genetics to build an accurate model, would they tinker with things, and how would the scientists truly know the behaviour and sounds and noises etc of these great creatures? Would T-Rex be a hunter of a scavenger (something which still makes some scientists angry). Would they clone a raptor and teach it to hunt and kill, or would they train it to sit, and play with the ball?
All these things have to be addressed. Then the huge question is, is it right to bring back a species back though the evolutionary stage to a time where it was not meant to survive? Would recreating a dinosaur for science be ok, but banned for commercial use? What would we learn? That we can be absolute douchbags when it comes to nature? Would this be our downfall? Would this mean some mad-scientist would start engineering Bio-organic Weapons or Xenomorphs or even giant crabs?! Where would it end?
Can the human fascination with these lumbering creatures ever be quashed, or is this technology on the horizon too tempting for one scientist? Because that’s all it takes: One scientist!
We’re already creating foetuses that are half human half animal, what is stopping us from taking the step into bio-engineering crazy creatures, maybe ones that resemble dinosaurs?
BUT let us say that we
- Got a turkey
- Got a super computer DNA sequencer from the future
- Got all the DNA facts down to a T, and after hundreds of dead raptors who “gobbled” like a turkey, or has some sort of horrid disability (like not being able to walk, because its eyeballs were on its feet).
- Made sure we bought it up as much as possible as far away from human nurture to behave like the killing machine it’s supposed to be
Ok we have a live velociraptor. We still have problems.
- Adaptability to our colder climate
- Adaptability to different meats
- Behavioural problems, this species hunted in packs, it needs brother and sisters that it wouldn’t try to eat or attack.
- We have moral dilemmas discussed before, and now we have a new species, do we give it the right to breed? If so how do we provide enough genetic differences for it not to inter-breed. Or do we deliberately cause inter-breeding? How would we control that species? We’ve not actually created a creature YET that could breed, but if we did, you see there are far too many things to address when you bioengineer a dinosaur, or any other creature for that matter.
The trouble is that everyone wants to see a dinosaur, without any of the consequences, and I’m afraid that there are consequences not just to that species, but to every species on the planet.
I’m afraid we’ll have to stick with Walking with Dinosaurs.
"You spent so much time wondering whether you could. You never considered whether you should."
-Dr.Ian Malcolm (Jurassic Park)
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