Hastings Cent Rep. 2017 Jul;47 Suppl 2:S60-S64. doi: 10.1002/hast.754.
The emergence of de-extinction is a study in technological optimism. What has already been accomplished in recovering ancient genomes, recreating them, and reproducing animals with engineered genomes is amazing but also has a long ways to go to achieve "de-extinction" as most people would understand that term. Still, with some caveats in place, creating a functional replacement for an extinct species may sometimes be doable, and given the right goals, might sometimes make sense. The International Union for Conservation of Nature guidelines for de-extinction do a reasonable job of keeping the caveats in place and clarifying the goals. In fact, given the right caveats about what de-extinction can accomplish, we should pay a lot of attention to the technology and should think carefully about the goals. Not only has the technology been advancing, but our environmental standards have been getting looser and more flexible, providing less guidance for implementing the technology. The guiding ideals for conservation are often explained as a choice between John Muir, founder of The Sierra Club, and Gifford Pinchot, who helped create the U.S. Forest Service. Muir argued for preserving some places in the world in their natural state because of their great value and beauty. Pinchot, by contrast, was bluntly utilitarian. He argued for trying to keep some natural places more or less undamaged so that we could use them later. There has long been dissatisfaction with this choice, and in the last couple of decades, a number of prominent voices have proposed a "gardening ethic" as a new standard that combines elements of Muir and Pinchot. A gardening ethic is supposed to both celebrate the land and declare that it must now be managed. But what would good gardening mean when it comes to de-extinction?
物种复育的出现是技术乐观主义的一个研究课题。在从已灭绝物种中回收古老基因组、重新构建它们，以及用工程化基因组来繁殖动物方面，已经取得的成就令人惊叹，但要实现大多数人所理解的“复育”还有很长的路要走。尽管如此，只要存在一些警告，创造一个已灭绝物种的功能性替代品有时是可行的，而且在正确的目标下，有时可能是有意义的。国际自然保护联盟的物种复育准则在设置警告和澄清目标方面做得相当不错。事实上，考虑到物种复育可以实现的目标所存在的警告，我们应该高度关注这项技术，并仔细考虑其目标。不仅技术在不断进步，而且我们的环境标准也越来越宽松和灵活，为实施这项技术提供的指导越来越少。保护的指导理念通常可以解释为在塞拉俱乐部的创始人约翰·缪尔和帮助创建美国林务局的吉福德·平肖之间做出选择。缪尔认为，由于其巨大的价值和美丽，世界上的一些地方应该保持自然状态。相比之下，平肖则直言不讳地强调功利主义。他认为，应该努力保持一些自然栖息地或多或少不受破坏，以便我们以后可以加以利用。长期以来，人们对这种选择一直不满意，在过去的几十年里，一些知名人士提出了一种“园艺伦理”作为一种新的标准，结合了缪尔和平肖的元素。园艺伦理应该既能赞美土地，又能宣称它必须得到管理。但是，在物种复育方面，良好的园艺意味着什么呢？
