# Cloning a Neandertal **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 23, 2013, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098 "2013-01-23T13:29:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/21 "2013-01-23T15:59:27Z")
> [@oldbag](#): > > Hey Cro Magnon, > Who cloned you? How do you feel about it? (Most people I’ve met are Homo sapiens sapiens) Cro-Magnons were _homo sapiens sapiens_. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/22 "2013-01-23T16:00:52Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > The courts would first have to decide if it was legal. Cloning a human is illegal, but if the courts don’t decide it’s illegal to clone a Neanderthal, then how can it be considered “human”? I think there’s a good chance that it would actually happen before the courts step in. Once the surrogates are pregnant, there’s nothing that could be done (short of forced abortion) to prevent them from being born. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/23 "2013-01-23T16:02:26Z")
Cro Magnons were _Homo sapiens sapiens_. They were anatomically and behaviorally modern humans. As for the Neandertal being a ward of the state, first we’d have to establish that the Neandertal wasn’t capable of living independently. But even so, why wouldn’t the Neandertal’s parents be their guardian? Every baby created by modern fertility techniques has a legal father and a legal mother, even if the baby is created by different sperm, different eggs, or gestates in a different womb. So if a Neandertal baby is created it would have to have legal parents. If some unethical researcher created a Neandertal baby as a lab rat, then the state should treat that baby like any other orphan or foundling or child with unfit parents, put the baby in foster care, and find adoptive parents for them. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/24 "2013-01-23T16:04:34Z")
I think the only problem would be what would happen if the Neandertal wanted to start a family with a human. Since they were apparently able to breed with humans in at least some cases, the result would presumably be fertile offspring. And while we apparently have some Neandertal DNA already, I’m not sure anyone would know the effects of adding more. On the other hand, it’d almost certainly be a civil rights violation to forbid the Neandertal to breed or forcibly steralize him/her. > [@iiandyiii](#): > > I think there’s a good chance that it would actually happen before the courts step in. Once the surrogates are pregnant, there’s nothing that could be done (short of forced abortion) to prevent them from being born. Or just do it overseas. I think the most recent person floating the idea was based in Oxford. Dunno if the UK has any anti-cloning laws. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/25 "2013-01-23T16:10:44Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > I think you’re way off base, here. A “huge” outcry, demanding the enslavement of cloned Neanderthals? No chance. Okay, perhaps I exaggerate slightly. But people currently claim they’re persecuted because they can’t deny rights to other humans like they used to. Things are improving because we’ve finally started to convince people blacks/gays/etc are human. Bring another whole species on the scene and it’s a blank slate ready to pile the oppression on. Maybe slavery won’t be on the table, but I can assure you a whole lot of outdated concepts will be. Can you imagine suburban soccer moms allowing their little sweetums to go to school alongside those uncivilized brow-ridged beasts? Lots of people would be wary of drinking out of the same water fountains as neanderthals. And the politicians wouldn’t be happy about letting them vote. It will be ugly. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/26 "2013-01-23T16:16:26Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > Okay, perhaps I exaggerate slightly. But people currently claim they’re persecuted because they can’t deny rights to other humans like they used to. Things are improving because we’ve finally started to convince people blacks/gays/etc are human. > > Bring another whole species on the scene and it’s a blank slate ready to pile the oppression on. Maybe slavery won’t be on the table, but I can assure you a whole lot of outdated concepts will be. Can you imagine suburban soccer moms allowing their little sweetums to go to school alongside those uncivilized brow-ridged beasts? Lots of people would be wary of drinking out of the same water fountains as neanderthals. And the politicians wouldn’t be happy about letting them vote. It will be ugly. I think keeping the ID’s private could mitigate a lot of this. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/27 "2013-01-23T16:19:17Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > Okay, perhaps I exaggerate slightly. But people currently claim they’re persecuted because they can’t deny rights to other humans like they used to. Things are improving because we’ve finally started to convince people blacks/gays/etc are human. > > Bring another whole species on the scene and it’s a blank slate ready to pile the oppression on. Maybe slavery won’t be on the table, but I can assure you a whole lot of outdated concepts will be. Can you imagine suburban soccer moms allowing their little sweetums to go to school alongside those uncivilized brow-ridged beasts? Lots of people would be wary of drinking out of the same water fountains as neanderthals. And the politicians wouldn’t be happy about letting them vote. It will be ugly. That assumes we end up with a large population of Neadertals. Its kind of hard to see how that would happen, once one or two had been created and studied, the scientific return on making more falls off pretty quickly. As I said in my second post, I’d worry a little about having a population of people descended from the cloned Neadnertal, and they might suffer prejudice. But I’d think by the time that population expanded to be large enough to attract prejudice, the actual Neandertal component in their DNA would’ve diluted to the point that they wouldn’t be distinguishable from their human peers. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/28 "2013-01-23T16:19:49Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > Bring another whole species on the scene How many clones would be made? Surely not enough to enslave or otherwise persecute. We’re not talking clone wars here. 🙂 Ninjaed by seconds, dang it! ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/29 "2013-01-23T16:26:33Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > I think the only problem would be what would happen if the Neandertal wanted to start a family with a human. Since they were apparently able to breed with humans in at least some cases, the result would presumably be fertile offspring. And while we apparently have some Neandertal DNA already, I’m not sure anyone would know the effects of adding more. On the other hand, it’d almost certainly be a civil rights violation to forbid the Neandertal to breed or forcibly steralize him/her. Unless we cloned millions, that would be pissing in the ocean. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/30 "2013-01-23T16:34:40Z")
I am not so sure about the ethics of cloning Homo sapiens, let alone another human species. One of the big questions is “why?” Certainly not just to have a child. Is it ethical to bring a human of any species into the world, to face a future with greater unknowns than others need to face at the least, exclusively to satisfy the intellectual/scientific curiosity of others? No. The only ethical argument for could be this: we conclude that we, Homo sapiens sapiens, comitted genocide against the Neandertals and feel that we should bring them back and make reperations. And I don’t that argument would get very far. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/31 "2013-01-23T16:35:39Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > That assumes we end up with a large population of Neadertals. Fair enough. Perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself. Before the population is large enough to persecute, we’ll get a lot of outrage over scientists “playing God” and whether it should be legal to clone anything at all. Just like after Dolly. ---
**Author:** ![Freakenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b782af/32.png) [@Freakenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freakenstein)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/32 "2013-01-23T16:37:58Z")
If You have a chance to give a life to someone, depriving that chance would be sort of murdering? Now that can’t be ethical. > [@DrCube](#): > > And the politicians wouldn’t be happy about letting them vote. I’m sure they could pay taxes anyway. > [@](#): > > It will be ugly. Don’t be so negative. And that’s he/she. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/33 "2013-01-23T16:40:31Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > I am not so sure about the ethics of cloning Homo sapiens, let alone another human species. > > One of the big questions is “why?” It’s just another reproductive technique. A better question is “why not”? What is it about a cloned person that is “bad”? Happens IRL all the time. People were deathly afraid of the stigma a test tube baby would have to endure, but no one bats an eye now. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/34 "2013-01-23T16:41:24Z")
As an exercise to see if it can be done and then raise them to adult-hood as a lab experiment, most emphatically NO. However (joke answer), we should totally raise a clone army of Neandertals to use as soldiers, then act surprised when they revolt and overthrow us. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/35 "2013-01-23T16:43:47Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > As an exercise to see if it can be done and then raise them to adult-hood as a lab experiment, most emphatically NO. Why not? ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/36 "2013-01-23T16:47:42Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > Why not? Well if their whole life is a lab experiment, that would be unethical. If the experiment is just getting them born, plus maybe some voluntary observation periodically throughout their life while otherwise letting them live like normal humans, I don’t see a problem. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/37 "2013-01-23T16:50:44Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > Why not? The sane reason it would be unethical to do that to _H. sapiens_. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/38 "2013-01-23T16:55:42Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > The sane reason it would be unethical to do that to _H. sapiens_. Do what, exactly, though? Create them “as an exercise to see if it can be done and then raise them to adult-hood as a lab experiment”? What’s the experiment, them being born, then observed to compare their development to ours? There’s nothing wrong with that, unless you also have a problem with the [_Up_ series](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_Series). > [@DrCube](#): > > Well if their whole life is a lab experiment, that would be unethical. If the experiment is just getting them born, plus maybe some voluntary observation periodically throughout their life while otherwise letting them live like normal humans, I don’t see a problem. In other words, what **DrCube** said. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/39 "2013-01-23T16:59:07Z")
The trouble is a Neanderthal might be fairly inept by human standards. What if they can’t deal with modern human language or learn how to read? What if they have huge impulse control problems by modern human standards? They aren’t physically the same as us, and a male might be superhumanly strong. I don’t think you can promise that he or she would be able to function in modern human society. Which would mean warehousing for life. I don’t think that’s ethical. It might be more ethical if you create a breeding population and put them on an island somewhere. Raise them with humans for the first generation and then leave them be. Maybe come back a hundred years later and see what’s what. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/40 "2013-01-23T17:00:27Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > Do what, exactly, though? Create them “as an exercise to see if it can be done and then raise them to adult-hood as a lab experiment”? What’s the experiment, them being born, then observed to compare their development to ours? There’s nothing wrong with that, unless you also have a problem with the [_Up_ series](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_Series). Perhaps I read too much into “lab experiment”, but I envisioned the creature kept in “the lab”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098.md?page=3)