Maybe Extinction Isn't Forever. Is That a Good Thing?

Have you heard about the big eventNational Geographic is hosting with TEDx this week, the one about restoring species? No, not endangered species--but ones that are already extinct, like the woolly mammoth. I have mixed feelings about the idea. In the abstract, I think it's pretty cool. The prospect of regaining lost pieces of our evolutionary heritage is exciting, as I wrote in a 2006 Audubon magazine review of a book that argued for "reversing prehistoric extinctions when we have the chance." Ecologists and conservationists seem divided, though. A group of them expressed their enthusiasm in a 2005 commentary in Nature; others, such as the prominent conservation biologist Stuart Pimm, argue forcefully against the "de-extinction" proposal. In a piece this week at the National Geographic site, he discusses a host of likely problems that cannot be ignored. In a world of finite resources and attention, I'm inclined to side with Pimm, who writes: