That entire article just sounds like a collection of every naysayer argument they could find, compiled into an authoritative-sounding essay on why doing nothing is better than doing some very cool proof-of-concept genetic editing tech. Are they just reflexively against tech these days? Because when the arguments they bring are so scattered and miscellaneous, it sure sounds like they're justifying a preexisting opposition to the idea.
Collosal would face less pushback if they were upfront about the fact that they aren't a serious attempt at solving any ecological issues but that maybe they could push the tech forward enough that someone else could use it to solve real problems.
There's nothing wrong with building cool proof-of-concept tech as a prestige project that might actually lead to real solutions some day, but Collosal's dire wolf lookalike and mammoth lookalike and whatever else lookalike aren't a serious solution to a problem nor a direct path towards a solution, so they get valid criticism for pretending that they are.
I suspect the environmental pushback is from a vocal minority which dislikes the cynical lip-service companies have found it necessary/expedient to give.
"nor a direct path" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there - I see no reason to push back against a company that is figuring out how to run back the extinction process. If you're claiming that their attempts yet a solution, then your point is as useless as expecting them to solve the entire problem on the first go. If you're claiming that their attempts aren't even going in the right direction, and aren't how you find a solution, then that would require much more evidence towards a negative proof than has yet been raised here - enough to say that they should definitely give up now.
In fact, insofar as we care about extinction, their success is likely our best shot at long-term preservation. I'd like to see them keep trying.
> a company that is figuring out how to run back the extinction process
Are they, though? This isn't a dire wolf, it's a wolf with a few genes tweaked to make it look more like a dire wolf. I see no evidence that they have any intention of pursuing the far more arduous task of actually preserving an endangered species or restoring one with all of its actual DNA, and I don't see a compelling reason to believe that introducing a lookalike in the wild will do anything to fill the gap left by the real thing.
> introducing a lookalike in the wild will do anything to fill the gap left by the real thing
The dire wolf may not fill a valuable niche, but I believe it's at least plausible that herds of engineered woolly mammoths would have a positive environmental impact.
I personally don't care if they "really" restore an extinct animal or not (perfect clone vs. hairy elephants). Their creations are cool proofs of concept for the genetic engineering tooling that they're creating and captures public/investor imagination much more than more mundane (but monetizable) aspects of the work, like working with massive amounts of data, gene editing tools, etc.
> The dire wolf may not fill a valuable niche, but I believe it's at least plausible that herds of engineered woolly mammoths would have a positive environmental impact.
In a world that's rapidly getting warmer and more inhospitable to currently existing life, why do you think a wooly mammoth will 1) succeed at anything, and 2) have any sort of positive impact.
The idea is that cold-resistant elephants / woolly mammoth - like creatures would restore arctic steppe grasslands and promote carbon sequestration. It's difficult to sum up in a sentence but there are quite a number of articles out there on it, and it doesn't seem like the most bonkers idea I've ever heard.
And, at the end of the day, the bespoke critters are visually compelling proofs of concept for tooling & technology that they can spin off and sell for more mundane purposes.
