Picture from Wikimedia Commons
Many people now hunt mammoth tusks from thawing ice in Yakutia, Russia and sell this material on the black market. This means that ancient DNA is available.
In Russia, there are “cryobanks,” which are secure storage for genetic material for the purpose of genetic conservation. This also may not just be for extinct animals, but also for endangered animals in case of the “Sixth Great Extinction,” a possibility according to experts.
There are potential concerns about attempting to bring back or revive endangered species. It just seems so close to resurrection and to creating life from nothing. This could be both a religious and ethical concern. Maybe that’s why it feels so unnatural and upsetting to us. For example, even if you are not a religious person, Dr. Frankenstein actually creating life in Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), still seems wrong. Nothing comes from nothing, so maybe that is why creating life from a few DNA strands seems so wrong. Maybe that’s why we feel like that can of worms should remain closed. Pandora wasn’t supposed to open the box for a reason. Perhaps, there is a reason for the consistent narrative in science fiction – humans try to take too much control and things just don’t go right. Ian Malcolm’s character touches on Chaos Theory in Jurassic Park, which basically states the unpredictability of what were once predictable systems.
Resurrecting Dinosaurs
The technology in Jurassic Park could be available within the next twenty years. Cloning dinosaurs from DNA found in mosquitoes found in fossilized tree sap was never entirely fiction. The idea was based on an actual, seemingly far-fetched theory from a professor at Berkeley (Pellegrino). This article also talks about the use of science fiction as a bridge between the scientific community and the public. Michael Crichton wrote Jurassic Park in an extremely accessible way that made this complex theory actually seem plausible.