Would it be possible to bring back the dinosaurs?

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The Flintstones goes beyond Jurassic Park and shows that humans not only can, but actually DID share the planet with dinosaurs. And the famous Creation Museum in Tennesee agrees with the Flintstones.

^^^

We DO share the planet with dinosaurs. Look outside and see the birds flying about. The dinosaurs never left. They changed and adapted.

ruveyn

Jurassic Park wasnt about birds.

what is a velociraptor. It is a bird on steroids.

ruveyn

As the great Dr. Ian Malcolm once said, "You were so busy wondering if you COULD do it that you didn't stop and think whether you SHOULD!"

I certainly wouldn't want to see dinosaurs recreated, but I DO think it would be interesting to go about extracting DNA (dino and otherwise) from mosquitoes in fossilized amber. (Well, if that hasn't been attempted already. I know very little about paleontology research.) I think it would be cool to deeply analyze the evolution of the pathogens of mosquito-borne disease, like the malaria parasite, Plasmodium. I've read before that Plasmodium was around back with the dinos, but I don't know any details as far as whether fossil DNA samples have been rigorously studied for this sort of thing.

This is more feasible.

And whats feasible is more interesting to me than hollywood sensational special effect depictions of what isnt feasible.

Cloning a mosquito or a fly from say 30 million years ago ( younger than the dinos but far older than mammoths or humans) and comparing it to living mosquitoes would be awesome enough for me.

And yes- you might find the malaria germ in them as well- and be able to analyze that as well.

30 million years is not that different from 65 million years - as compared to 10,000 years for mammoths.

And bringing back malaria or mosquitoes is every bit as dangerous as dinosaurs. They could be different enough strains that they may make a really bad impact on us. They could make sick animals that are resistant to current strains, or they could be adapted to cooler places so as to extend the current opportunity to cause disease. They might be more aggressive. You cannot assume that if they were superseded they must be inferior to modern bugs because evolution responds to changes in the conditions the organism is subjected to, not necessarily tougher conditions.
At the very least, they will add to the gene pool of moderns organisms giving them more ability to adapt to whatever we throw at them.

And if you say 'keep them in the laboratory', then you could do that to dinosaurs to, as long as you select little ones. We don't HAVE to choose tyrannosaurs or velociraptors, (assuming that ANY of this is even possible).

I still think genes contain an evolutionary road map, and it will eventually be possible to reconstruct ancestor species from modern day ones. I think we are a long way from doing this now, and possibly few people even have the imagination to see this possibility at the moment, but I see it. I will need solid proof that it is absolutely impossible before I change my mind.

I didn't mean bring back Plasmodium strains. I just meant take blood samples from fossils and observe them under microscope for comparison to today's strains. And something tells me that old Plasmodium strains, no matter how dangerous, would be more dangerous than P. falciparum.

I wouldn't necessarily say road map, but I do agree that with a great deal more research into the topic it could be possible. Genetic code is basically like building blocks for an organism, so just imagine that you have a couple billion legos laying on the floor and want to construct a particular species...and only a handful in the wrong place could mean the difference between success or failure. Obviously a trial/error approach wouldn't exactly be feasible, so you have to know exactly what each lego does and where it fits in the overall picture of things (hope that was a good metaphor lol). I'm certainly no expert in the field, but I have had quite a few courses in genetics and DNA sequencing.