# 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:** 5
**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, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/81 "2013-01-23T19:17:28Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > If _quality of life for the Neanderthal group_ was a priority from the beginning, I’m quite certain it could be provided for. It might be. But it might take having them live separately, away from us. Obviously Neanderthals can function in a tribal band, they did for countless thousands of years. I just worry about forcing them to fit in the world we’ve created. ---
**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, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/82 "2013-01-23T19:19:48Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Yeah, but they wouldn’t be children. They’d be men and women with desires. They might have dreams and ambitions. And instead they must live in a cage. A zoo animal existence. Who is saying they would live in a cage? Implant them in volunteer surrogates (who also want to be their parents), raise them as normal children, and the researchers will periodically visit for non-intrusive observation. That would be it. > [@](#): > > I trust you’ll be volunteering to muck out their living area because they have an inability to understand and utilize toilets? Dude- _cats_ can be toilet trained. I don’t think that neanderthals, who undoubtedly developed a system for not pooping where they sleep or eat, wouldn’t be able to manage. ---
**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, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/83 "2013-01-23T19:21:12Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > Well, your analogy was a “severely autistic or otherwise severely handicapped baby”. Reread. It was in response to someone claiming that since we take care of those people there is no problem. ---
**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, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/84 "2013-01-23T19:21:16Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > I’m glad you’re certain. I trust you’ll be volunteering to muck out their living area because they have an inability to understand and utilize toilets? > > When one of them wants to learn to speak and spends day after day in crying frustration because he can’t form his mouth around our words you’ll be there to hug him. This is all equally applicable to humans with impaired cognition. They can be, and are, provided for as well. I fail to see your point. No, I wouldn’t personally seek employment at the Neanderthal Institute or foster home or what have you. I work in a different industry. We don’t need volunteers and hugs, we’d need funding, a competent staff, and surrogate parents. > [@Lobohan](#): > > Disrupting the brain during gestation doesn’t seem impossible. Unless you’re talking about dissecting a fetus, it’s infanticide. > [@Lobohan](#): > > Mine are based on limiting suffering. No comment. ---
**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, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/85 "2013-01-23T19:23:36Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Yeah, but they wouldn’t be children. They’d be men and women with desires. They might have dreams and ambitions. And instead they must live in a cage. A zoo animal existence. Which is it, are they ignorant brutes or sentient beings? If its the former, they can be provided for. If its the latter, they can see to their own needs, as we all do. > [@DSeid](#): > > Reread. It was in response to someone claiming that since we take care of those people there is no problem. Ok, my mistake. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/86 "2013-01-23T19:24:14Z")
They’d _start_ as children, obviously. Once they reached adulthood, it would indeed be wrong to ‘cage’ them. Any Neanderthal who wished to make his own way in the world should be allowed to do so, with every reasonable provision being made to assist him in getting started, and his equal rights being protected thereafter. What if it turned out that the Neanderthal group decided among themselves that they didn’t _want_ to be ‘released’ into modern society? IMO, it would be our responsibility to give them a sanctuary–that is, appropriate territory–to do as they will, as long as their population endures. ---
**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, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/87 "2013-01-23T19:28:22Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Who is saying they would live in a cage? Implant them in volunteer surrogates (who also want to be their parents), raise them as normal children, and the researchers will periodically visit for non-intrusive observation. That would be it. That would depend on how functional they were. Remember they’re superhumanly strong. What if they’re more aggressive than us? What if they constantly are in a heightened state of anxiety because they have trouble processing our world, language and social systems. They’re intelligent, but not homo sapiens. They might have strong differences in the way they interact with the world. If that’s the case, raising them among civilians might be unwise. > [@](#): > > Dude- _cats_ can be toilet trained. I don’t think that neanderthals, who undoubtedly developed a system for not pooping where they sleep or eat, could manage. True. I’m sure with training they could handle it. But maybe it would freak them out. I’d certainly think that a facility is necessary for at least the first parts of their lives, in order to find out how much they can deal with the 21st century. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/88 "2013-01-23T19:28:36Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > I’m glad you’re certain. I trust you’ll be volunteering to muck out their living area because they have an inability to understand and utilize toilets? > > When one of them wants to learn to speak and spends day after day in crying frustration because he can’t form his mouth around our words you’ll be there to hug him. > > Disrupting the brain during gestation doesn’t seem impossible. > > Mine are based on limiting suffering. They’d be as valuable to the scientific community as the Mona Lisa is to the artistic community - literally priceless, as individuals and a group. Anyone who aimed to intentionally hurt one of them would be met with the same reaction as if you wanted to take a butcher’s knife to the works of Da Vinci. We can teach chimpanzees [sign language](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washoe_%28chimpanzee%29#Confirmed_ASL_signs) for communication and Neanderthals are both genetically closer to us and from archaeology undoubtedly more intelligent than chimpanzees. In any case, if a certain communication attempt was resulting is psychological trauma who would allow it to continue? I’d be mucking them out with gusto. We do the same for horses and they’re of less use to science than a clone of a hominini long extinct. I made the point in the other thread that there’s no reason to assume that they’d be undue suffering (beyond the suffering that comes with all comprehending intelligence). They would without a doubt have a better life than many humans alive today who had the misfortune to be born in some third-world hellhole. Again remember that we’d be starting with babies, our knowledge of them growing as they grow, your arguments seem to assume that we’re plucking one from his time fully adult. If the aim is minimising suffering, I can’t see how rendering one which would otherwise be fully intelligent into a drooling candidate for vivisection accomplishes this goal. It would be inhuman to subject someone so close to us to such treatment. ---
**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, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/89 "2013-01-23T19:33:09Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > This is all equally applicable to humans with impaired cognition. They can be, and are, provided for as well. I fail to see your point. > > No, I wouldn’t personally seek employment at the Neanderthal Institute or foster home or what have you. I work in a different industry. We don’t need volunteers and hugs, we’d need funding, a competent staff, and surrogate parents. We help developmentally disabled humans because they’re here and it would be cruel not to. We don’t generate them on purpose. We don’t spend tens of millions on projects to make more developmentally disabled humans to suffer. > [@](#): > > Unless you’re talking about dissecting a fetus, it’s infanticide. You might want to look up the term _gestation_. If you clone a living body with an inert brain, you can chop it up and serve it as dinner and it’s not hurting anyone. ---
**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, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/90 "2013-01-23T19:34:34Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > That would depend on how functional they were. Remember they’re superhumanly strong. What if they’re more aggressive than us? What if they constantly are in a heightened state of anxiety because they have trouble processing our world, language and social systems. They won’t be superhumanly strong until they’re nearly adults, and by then we’ll know if they’re prone to high aggression. Perhaps the first generation could be all females. And I don’t buy the “heightened anxiety”- a baby (or puppy, kitten, etc) from anywhere raised in Tokyo is going to see Tokyo as the normal state of existence. Not that I don’t think that there aren’t valid concerns- but the ones you’ve raised don’t really worry me so far. > [@](#): > > They’re intelligent, but not homo sapiens. They might have strong differences in the way they interact with the world. If that’s the case, raising them among civilians might be unwise. They’re intelligence is probably quite different then ours. But they’ll be babies first, then children, then adolescents, etc. We’ll learn about their capabilities and characteristics long before they become dangerous to themselves or to us. > [@](#): > > True. I’m sure with training they could handle it. But maybe it would freak them out. I’d certainly think that a facility is necessary for at least the first parts of their lives, in order to find out how much they can deal with the 21st century. These will be brand new people- whatever environment they are raised in will seem normal to them. There’s no way they’re a risk to anyone while they are babies or small children- so I think such a facility could wait. ---
**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, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/91 "2013-01-23T19:37:21Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > Which is it, are they ignorant brutes or sentient beings? If its the former, they can be provided for. If its the latter, they can see to their own needs, as we all do. Sentient doesn’t mean functional in a modern human society. And brutes can be sentient as well. Remember they didn’t make much in the way of art. They may be utterly non iconographic. No phones, no ATMs, no paying bills, perhaps no using money at all. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/92 "2013-01-23T19:43:09Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Who is saying they would live in a cage? Implant them in volunteer surrogates (who also want to be their parents), raise them as normal children, and the researchers will periodically visit for non-intrusive observation. That would be it. Far too dangerous for a first-generation. Agree with **Lobohan** here - they are not homo sapiens sapiens and treating them off the bat as if they were could cause untold problems for them and us. “The populations had been separate for hundreds of thousands of years and I think there would have been significant physical and behavioural differences between them.” > **[BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Neanderthals 'distinct from us'](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7886477.stm)** > > Scientists studying the DNA of Neanderthals say they can find no evidence that this ancient species ever interbred with modern humans. That’s not to say I’m in favour of sticking electrodes in their heads either. But for best care to be provided you would need a specially constructed facility and a number of staff who can first determine and then provide for their needs; medical, dietary, psychological, pedagogically etc. Like I said we have evidence that they mature faster than us, just one aspect of their physiology that would cause problems for a surrogate who treats the first generation just as a stocky human. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/93 "2013-01-23T19:44:54Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Sentient doesn’t mean functional in a modern human society. And brutes can be sentient as well. > > Remember they didn’t make much in the way of art. They may be utterly non iconographic. **No phones, no ATMs, no paying bills, perhaps no using money at all.** You say that almost as if it were a bad thing. Oh, and on the question of unsuppressed aggression, just remember that \*we \*are the ones who are still here. If they cause us any trouble, well, we wiped them out once and can do it again if called for. ---
**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, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/94 "2013-01-23T19:47:46Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > They’d be as valuable to the scientific community as the Mona Lisa is to the artistic community - literally priceless, as individuals and a group. Anyone who aimed to intentionally hurt one of them would be met with the same reaction as if you wanted to take a butcher’s knife to the works of Da Vinci. Don’t get me wrong, not being the only intelligence on Earth is awfully attractive. Again, I’d like to know if we’ll be making a Frankenstein’s Monster whose life is torture, before running one off. > [@](#): > > We can teach chimpanzees [sign language](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washoe_%28chimpanzee%29#Confirmed_ASL_signs) for communication and Neanderthals are both genetically closer to us and from archaeology undoubtedly more intelligent than chimpanzees. In any case, if a certain communication attempt was resulting is psychological trauma who would allow it to continue? True. I’m sure they’d be able to communicate somehow. They hunted after all. > [@](#): > > I’d be mucking them out with gusto. We do the same for horses and they’re of less use to science than a clone of a hominini long extinct. So would I, actually. To be able to interact with a non-homo sapien intelligence is very attractive. > [@](#): > > I made the point in the other thread that there’s no reason to assume that they’d be undue suffering (beyond the suffering that comes with all comprehending intelligence). They would without a doubt have a better life than many humans alive today who had the misfortune to be born in some third-world hellhole. Again remember that we’d be starting with babies, our knowledge of them growing as they grow, your arguments seem to assume that we’re plucking one from his time fully adult. I’m sure a level of acclimation could be had, since we’re raising them. What I worry about is the fact that they might be unable to truly function in our society. That the very wiring of their brains allows them to be fully sentient, but forever apart. > [@](#): > > If the aim is minimising suffering, I can’t see how rendering one which would otherwise be fully intelligent into a drooling candidate for vivisection accomplishes this goal. It would be inhuman to subject someone so close to us to such treatment. I’d rather a biological Neanderthal who is utterly mindless be cut up, than a sentient one be miserable. ---
**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, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/95 "2013-01-23T19:48:17Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > We help developmentally disabled humans because they’re here and it would be cruel not to. We don’t generate them on purpose. We don’t spend tens of millions on projects to make more developmentally disabled humans to suffer. Is there no benefit to a cloning project that you can see that might outweigh the small risk that the Neanderthals would be unhappy? > [@Lobohan](#): > > You might want to look up the term _gestation_. If you clone a living body with an inert brain, you can chop it up and serve it as dinner and it’s not hurting anyone. Ok, our bio-ethics are wildly divergent here; so as to not hijack this thread, let’s agree to disagree on this, alright? > [@Lobohan](#): > > Sentient doesn’t mean functional in a modern human society. And brutes can be sentient as well. > > Remember they didn’t make much in the way of art. They may be utterly non iconographic. No phones, no ATMs, no paying bills, perhaps no using money at all. They need not be functional in a modern human society to have happy lives, while also enriching our understanding, in a mutually beneficial relationship. ---
**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, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/96 "2013-01-23T19:49:32Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > Far too dangerous for a first-generation. Agree with **Lobohan** here - they are not homo sapiens sapiens and treating them off the bat as if they were could cause untold problems for them and us. What could possibly be the danger for the first few years? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/97 "2013-01-23T19:53:03Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Sentient doesn’t mean functional in a modern human society. And brutes can be sentient as well. > > Remember they didn’t make much in the way of art. They may be utterly non iconographic. No phones, no ATMs, no paying bills, perhaps no using money at all. This isn’t true - like humans today we have evidence that they [used feathers for ornamental purposes](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19623929). They also used [red ochre](http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/december-2011/article/neanderthals-used-red-ochre-pigment-250-000-years-ago) for decoration and [buried their dead with flowers.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_behavior#Burial_practices) They were not human, but they were not mindless savages either. The idea of phones, paper money etc wasn’t anywhere in human minds 30,000 years ago either, so I see no reason why a Neanderthal would have too much difficulty when raised from birth with modern teaching. I made the point in the other thread that if you brought an Ancient Egyptian to the modern day he would find it a terrifying and incomprehensible place. Yet we’re biologically identical to how we were 4000 years ago. If you’re saying that they would be physically unable to grasp modern concepts, that’s something you’d need study of the first generation to find out. Given their intelligence, however, I doubt this would be the case. ---
**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, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/98 "2013-01-23T19:55:41Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > You say that almost as if it were a bad thing. > > Oh, and on the question of unsuppressed aggression, just remember that \*we \*are the ones who are still here. If they cause us any trouble, well, we wiped them out once and can do it again if called for. In the jungle no. In a place where you need to engage in transactions for food, that might suck. I like the idea of a million Neanderthals living among us. Working as teachers, dance instructors and au pairs. I’d like my daughter to bring one home from college and to have to deal with my feelings about that. If it turns out that they can only be happy living in a tribal situation, I’d be all for setting aside some space and letting them have it, with as much help as they want. ---
**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, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/99 "2013-01-23T19:57:40Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > Is there no benefit to a cloning project that you can see that might outweigh the small risk that the Neanderthals would be unhappy? There are huge benefits. And to be honest, even though I’m against it unless we know more, I’d still like to know about what they find. > [@](#): > > Ok, our bio-ethics are wildly divergent here; so as to not hijack this thread, let’s agree to disagree on this, alright? \<3 > [@](#): > > They need not be functional in a modern human society to have happy lives, while also enriching our understanding, in a mutually beneficial relationship. True. If we can confidently make them happy I’d support that. ---
**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, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098/100 "2013-01-23T19:59:37Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > What could possibly be the danger for the first few years? I would think mostly that they might hurt other children. They have linebacker necks and stronger grips. They might, even as a toddler, kill or injure another child. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cloning-a-neandertal/648098.md?page=6)