Jurassic Park Effect
DE-EXTINCTION
Since the birth of the field in the early 1980s, the search for DNA from fossils has been inextricably linked to the idea of resurrecting extinct species, dinosaurs in particular. This connection, forged by scientists (as well as media reporters), was more firmly established and then reinforced by the continued public interest in the developing discipline thanks to the global success of the Jurassic Park franchise in the 1990s. During this decade, a number of scientists perpetuated the rhetoric of resurrection to generate media attention, even if the idea of bringing extinct creatures back to life was a far-fetched one.
Today, Jurassic Park’s legacy is ongoing, and scientists who have any association with the search for DNA from fossils are repeatedly asked the answer to this one question: Can we bring back a dinosaur? Interestingly, the majority of ancient DNA researchers have very little to do with the science of species resurrection—also known as de-extinction—mainly because the recovery and application of ancient DNA data is only one plausible point in a series of steps necessary to achieve such a grand task. However, many ancient DNA researchers certainly have opinions about whether bringing extinct creatures back to life could, or should, be done.
In the ancient DNA community, attitudes toward de-extinction are highly varied. Many interviewees argued that the task still requires incredible technological and biological improvements, as well as philosophical, environmental, and ethical considerations. Some even argued that de-extinction is all sensation and no science. Consequently, they actively avoid any association with it (Interviewees 2, 48). Others outright opposed the idea. One described de-extinction as a “freak idea” (Interviewee 37). Another called it “ludicrous” (Interviewee 2). Others referred to researchers involved in de-extinction efforts as “weird,” “crazy,” or “mad” (Interviewees 30, 18, 5). Additionally, some researchers were wholly oblivious to the de-extinction movement simply because it was in no way related to their own work (Interviewees 1, 14, 21). However, there were some scientists who were not so quick to dismiss the idea of bringing extinct creatures back to life, mainly because they were much more informed about the most recent advancements that could make such an arcane idea a reality (Interviewees 6, 15). Indeed, new technologies and techniques—as well as significant organizational initiatives—over the last five to ten years have made a number of ancient DNA researchers reconsider resurrection as a legitimate prospect.
In 2013, for example, the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C., held the first public conference on the science and ethics of “De-Extinction.” During this one-day event, more than twenty people of varying expertise across the world addressed the scientific, technological, political, and ethical implications of bringing back extinct species. Co-hosted by National Geographic Society, TED, and Revive & Restore (a nonprofit founded by Stewart Brand and Ryan Phelan for studying biodiversity and reviving endangered or extinct species), the meeting marked the first time the topic of de-extinction was openly and seriously discussed.1
The conference, called TEDxDeExtinction, included scientists in fields ranging from paleontology and genetics to conservation biology, ecology, and synthetic biology. Some scientists from the ancient DNA community were present too. Hendrik Poinar from McMaster University in Ontario, and Beth Shapiro at the University of California, Santa Cruz, both spoke on the possibilities but extreme difficulties of mammoth de-extinction.2 Both Poinar and Shapiro—former students of Alan Cooper at Oxford—had since earned respectable reputations as leaders in the field of ancient DNA research. Although they entertained the idea of de-extinction, they were much more reserved, and to some extent critical, about its implications. Ben Novak, a former student of Poinar’s and now a collaborator with Shapiro, also presented his project, sponsored by Revive & Restore, to resurrect the passenger pigeon.3 In stark contrast to Poinar’s and Shapiro’s talks, Novak eagerly and confidently argued that de-extinction will indeed be possible and have a positive impact on the environment. Indeed, achieving such a huge task has become his personal research mission. Regardless of their outlooks on the future of de-extinction, these practitioners realized that the idea of species resurrection could no longer be dismissed out of hand. As such, it had to be addressed upfront.
Cover of National Geographic featuring the TEDxDeExtinction conference with an article by Carl Zimmer, “Bringing Them Back to Life” (April 2013). The article’s subtitle reads, “The revival of extinct species is no longer a fantasy. But is it a good idea?” (Reprinted by permission from National Geographic)
Recently, de-extinction has evolved from an idea into an actual research endeavor thanks to technology like NGS and CRISPR/Cas9, a technique allowing researchers to edit genomes by cutting out specific DNA sequences and inserting other sequences of interest. “In the good old days, you could conveniently say, ‘You can’t clone a mammoth.’ And that was the end of it,” remarked an interviewee. “But with NGS, it’s got a bit difficult now” (Interviewee 2). The newfound ability to sequence whole genomes coupled with CRISPR—the 2015 “breakthrough” of the year according to Science—was the technical impetus that caused practitioners to reconsider species resurrection.4 Highly accomplished, respected scientists such as George Church, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School, take de-extinction seriously, talking about it publicly and even heading efforts to investigate its viability. One researcher recalled, “George Church is what took it away from being crazy . . . to credible. Whenever he says anything everyone listens because he really knows what he’s talking about.” In many ways, de-extinction demanded a genuine reevaluation. “It’s dangerous to say that the de-extinction people are crazy people. It used to be crazy people,” explained this same scientist. “The reason I got interested is because I suddenly saw serious people in it. So, there are certainly crazy de-extinction people, but there appear to be very credible de-extinction people” (Interviewee 6).
Today there are multiple approaches that scientists suggest for bringing extinct creatures back to life, from back-breeding and cloning to genetic engineering.5 The South African taxidermist Reinhold Rau’s project to resurrect the quagga is one example of back-breeding, an approach that implements selective breeding processes with living zebras to recreate the quagga’s unique striping pattern. Rau died in 2006, but before his death he witnessed the birth of Henry, the result of three generations of back-breeding and the first phenotypically representative relative of the quagga in over a century.6 In addition to back-breeding, cloning offers another option for resurrection research. In 2000, the Pyrenean ibex, commonly called the bucardo, went extinct. In 2009, a team tried to bring it back via cloning, and out of hundreds of embryos, one baby bucardo was born but died ten minutes later because of developmental lung deficiencies.7 Additionally, Revive & Restore has ongoing opportunities using genetic engineering to make extant organisms more like extinct ones, such as Novak’s and Shapiro’s efforts to bring back the passenger pigeon.8 A second study headed by Church at Harvard is also experimenting with genetic engineering through genome editing to resurrect the woolly mammoth.9 Other scientists, like paleontologist Jack Horner, have set out to make the world’s first “chicken-o-saurus,” via experiments with reverse genetic engineering research to make a dinosaur-look-a-like out of a chicken.10
However, scientists’ use of technologies also depends on biological and philosophical considerations. For example, the question of what makes a species a “species” is a long debated one in the history and philosophy of biology.11 De-extinction raises this question again but from a very different view. In 2013, Stanford Law School hosted a meeting titled “De-Extinction: Ethics, Law, and Politics.” At this gathering, experts from lawyer Hank Greely to Steward Brand of Revive & Restore “defined true de-extinction” as “when a complete organism from an extinct species is brought back to life.” The definition was far from perfect as it begged the question of species continuity or authenticity.12 For example, interviewees say epigenetics, the external and environmental factors that play a part in organism development, are incredibly important to consider. One researcher remarked, “If you were to recreate a mammoth, and you were to release a mammoth—from an elephant—then it may not have any of the mammoth epigenetic changes because it’s coming out of an elephant, and that could be massively important because we know epigenetics are so important now” (Interviewee 6). Others say these biological complications have philosophical implications regarding the difference between a mammoth and what one interviewee referred to as a “pseudo-mammoth.”13 A second scientist commented, “You can mammoth-ize it” but “it will never become the mammoth” (Interviewee 37). A leading ancient DNA researcher echoed this point: “It’s not a de-extinction” but “a sort of ‘frankensteinization’ of life” (Interviewee 8).
In contrast, a postdoctoral researcher maintained that defining de-extinction requires a much more nuanced perspective: “It’s a very interesting problem to start with, and again it comes down to semantics. How do you define a passenger pigeon? Is it once you’ve changed enough genes? Do you need to change everything so that you have a completely identical genome to the bird that you got the genome from?” According to this interviewee, “Even if it’s genetically identical to a passenger pigeon it’s probably not going to be environmentally and ecologically [the same]” (Interviewee 52). Another scientist argued that in the case of the passenger pigeon project, authenticity would be determined by functionality: “We don’t necessarily want to duplicate a passenger pigeon, but we want to duplicate its ecology. We’re just focused on the traits that make passenger pigeon ecology, not necessarily what makes the organism 100% ‘it’ ” (Interviewee 45). Revive & Restore, home to the passenger pigeon project, says the same for their project to bring back the mammoth.
Crucially, there are also arguments for de-extinction’s scientific significance, as several scientists in the ancient DNA community are taking the time to educate themselves about its potential. In How to Clone a Mammoth, Beth Shapiro presents the first comprehensive account of the science and science fiction of de-extinction.14 She explores the feasibility of de-extinction by outlining the series of steps and obstacles to overcome to make it a reality. She also considers the possible payoff of de-extinction, arguing that the ultimate goal is not necessarily the resurrection of a long-lost species. Rather, the goal is the revitalization and stabilization of ecosystems. For example, reviving the mammoth, or an elephant with mammoth-like traits, and restoring it to colder climates could reintroduce the growth of the grasslands that were once an essential element of the tundra ecosystem before the mammoth’s extinction. A journalist reporting for Newsweek explained it in these terms: “For all its charisma, the mammoth is just part of a grand new strategy to restore long-gone megafauna. Scientists call it rewilding. The idea goes hand in hand with new thinking about the relationship between humans and nature—namely, that even the earliest civilizations had what we might think of as an unnatural impact on the natural world around them.”15 In these terms, de-extinction can be understood as part of a holistic effort under the name of conservation biology.
One of the grandest rewilding attempts is being pursued by two Russian scientists, Sergey Zimov and Nikita Zimov. At the turn of the century, they announced the founding of Pleistocene Park, a nature reserve in northeastern Siberia dedicated to the regrowth of the subarctic grassland ecosystem that could one day be home to the woolly mammoth, which thrived tens of thousands of years ago.16 Newsweek called it “A Real-Life Jurassic Park.”17 Despite this rebranding of resurrection as conservation biology with a twist, the idea of reviving extinct species and recreating the environment in which they once lived is still a mix of science combined with a big dose of spectacle.
SCIENCE AND SPECTACLE
For a number of ancient DNA researchers, de-extinction was a moral issue and one that needed to be rectified. Paleontologist Michael Archer, the director of the Australian Museum in Sydney, for example, was a primary champion of this view, arguing that we have a moral obligation to bring back extinct species such as the thylacine because we—through human population and predation increase—were the cause of their demise more than a century ago.18 Indeed, Archer was the mastermind behind the “Thylacine Cloning Project”—a bold and pioneering effort to resurrect the thylacine by extracting and sequencing DNA from a hundred-year-old pup pickled and preserved in a jar on the shelf of the museum. In 2000, at the height of the hype but also of skepticism for the search for DNA from fossils, the Australian Museum broadcasted the Thylacine Cloning Project and promised to meet its goal within the next twenty years.19 Naturally, the project’s debut made national and international news.20
Although Archer and the Thylacine Cloning Project were the subject of much enthusiasm and media interest, they were also the target of criticism from colleagues. Unsurprisingly, fellow scientists were less than amused, protesting the project on grounds that it was more spectacle than science. One argued it was nothing more than a strategy to attract press and public attention. “I’ve just said bollocks all the way through,” fumed one senior researcher. “I get very upset. I could talk myself into a bit of a frenzy over it because I think it’s so misguided. It isn’t going to happen, in my opinion. It’s cheap and sleazy in terms of the way that it attracts media attention and the public.” As far as critical colleagues were concerned, the technological and biological hurdles were much too high, but they also took issue with the way the project was presented because, as they argued, the project was all hype and premature publicity with little to no technological or scientific evidence to support its feasibility. “The thylacine is a perfect example. ‘We’re doing it! It’s almost there! It’s going to be here in a year or two!’ It’s a fucking snake oil salesman” (Interviewee 32).
As science studies scholar Amy Lynn Fletcher perceptively notes, the debate around the thylacine’s resurrection was chiefly a controversy over control for how the project should be framed and interpreted, as either science or spectacle, across mass media. “When it launched the thylacine project,” argues Fletcher, “the Australian Museum walked out on the unstable precipice of ‘paleogenomics as science’ versus ‘paleogenomics as spectacle.’ ”21 Researchers used the media spotlight to promote the project, but in doing so, as they realized, it became a source of destabilization. According to Fletcher, the museum and its proponents found it difficult to control the story. While they touted it as a scientific and technological innovation, opponents accused it of being nothing more than a spectacle.
In addition to Archer’s thylacine cloning project, there have been a host of other resurrection efforts that captured public interest and generated professional criticism. Today, the rhetoric of resurrection is still closely connected to the search for ancient DNA, but there has been a subtle shift in focus. Questions are less about dinosaur resurrection and more about mammoth de-extinction. In 2006, for example, scientists sequenced 13 million base-pairs of DNA from a 28,000-year-old woolly mammoth, demonstrating the powerful potential of NGS as applied to fossils. According to the press, this was a step closer to generating whole genomes, which also meant a step closer to bringing long-lost creatures, such as the mammoth, back to life. Newsweek reported this research, explaining, “The scientists, in other words, had managed to assemble half the woolly-mammoth genome; they claimed that in three years they could finish the job. That would put scientists within striking distance of an even greater feat: repopulating the earth with creatures that vanished ages ago.”22
Two years later, in 2008, another lab sequenced the nuclear genome of the woolly mammoth.23 The New York Times announced, “Scientists are talking for the first time about the old idea of resurrecting extinct species as if this staple of science fiction is a realistic possibility, saying that a living mammoth could perhaps be regenerated for as little as $10 million.” Reporter Nicholas Wade explained that the feat was not so simple, but one practitioner, Stephen Schuster at Pennsylvania State University, made it seem within reach. According to Wade’s reporting, “There is no present way to synthesize a genome-size chunk of mammoth DNA, let alone to develop it into a whole animal. But Dr. Schuster said a shortcut would be to modify the genome of an elephant’s cell at the 400,000 or more sites necessary to make it resemble a mammoth’s genome. The cell could be converted into an embryo and brought to term by an elephant, a project he estimated would cost some $10 million.” Wade further quoted Schuster, “ ‘This is something that could work, though it will be tedious and expensive.’ ”24 One researcher recalled this comment and noted how it appealed to the press: “The first mammoth genome . . . Stephen Schuster . . . provided one of those quotes to the media that they love. He said something like, ‘Give me a few million euros or dollars and I will recreate the mammoth for you’ ” (Interviewee 37). Even if this were possible, sooner or later, it was a slippery slope in determining just how far de-extinction could, or should, go. “By the way, if we could ‘de-extinct-ify’ a mammoth, we could ‘de-extinct-ify’ a Neanderthal,” commented a paleobiologist. “And then you could multiply the ethical issues by a matter of ten-fold” (Interviewee 3).
Far more controversial than practitioners’ attempts to resurrect a thylacine or a mammoth were other conjectures that scientists could, in theory, one day resurrect a Neanderthal. In 2013, this exact prospect made international news. In “Can Neanderthals Be Brought Back from the Dead?” Der Spiegel quoted Church as suggesting it could be technically possible to bring back a Neanderthal.25 The news went viral. The MIT Technology Review wrote, “Wanted: Surrogate for Neanderthal Baby.”26 The London Daily Mail announced, “Wanted: ‘Adventurous woman’ to give birth to Neanderthal man—Harvard professor seeks mother for cloned cave baby.”27 The Huffington Post in Canada covered the news too: “Dream of giving birth to a bouncing Neanderthal baby? One of the world’s leading geneticists believes he can make it happen. George Church, a professor at Harvard Medical School, told Der Spiegel we have the technology to not only reconstruct the DNA of our long-extinct relative, but actually resurrect the species.”28 Church’s colleagues reacted immediately and critically. Svante Pääbo, for example, wrote a piece for the New York Times condemning Church’s claim as both technically impossible and ethically inappropriate.29 Another interviewee shared similar sentiments: “George Church and his suggestion that you can clone a Neanderthal is just idiotic. First of all, the technology—and you never want to say never—but the technology is nowhere near it. And secondly, why would you want to? Just to see it?” (Interviewee 18). Church, however, felt his message was gravely misinterpreted by media outlets. In response, Der Spiegel tried to clear up the confusion by publishing another piece titled “Surrogate Mother (Not Yet) Sought for Neanderthal.”30 Nonetheless, this controversy highlighted the ethics of research responsibility and that scientists have something to say about the bioethics of de-extinction in particular.
There were a number of reasons why practitioners questioned the motivations for resurrecting extinct species. Some wanted to be clear on the scientific purpose, potential, and payoff. “What’s the point of doing it?” asked one evolutionary geneticist. “Is it worth it?” (Interviewee 38). “But why the hell are we doing it?” questioned another researcher much more bluntly (Interviewee 24). “There’s no scientific question that could possibly benefit us,” remarked yet another. “You don’t do science unless it’s hypothesis-driven,” said a paleontologist. “You want to bring back a dinosaur? What are the questions?” (Interviewee 39). Indeed, a number of interviewees in the field of ancient DNA research opposed bringing back extinct creatures because they think these projects prioritize the sensation of de-extinction over the scientific significance of it.
Additionally, other interviewees argued that de-extinction—regardless of the scientific question motivating it—is an inappropriate use of research or resources. They claimed it is morally wrong to resurrect a mammoth or any other animal for entertainment: “Some people clearly just want to have zoos. . . . All they want to do is put a mammoth in a zoo or a wildlife park,” said one molecular biologist. “Are you doing that to make money or are you doing that to inspire people to love nature?” (Interviewee 6). Even if inspiring people to care for or conserve nature is the motivation, others think conservation efforts are better invested in preserving the current environment instead of resurrecting what is already lost: “If you’re going to spend the money, it is morally wrong to focus on bringing back an animal that is extinct to the exclusion of an animal that isn’t extinct but will be extinct.” This same scientist said that if “aliens landed and looked around, . . . they’d be pretty surprised to see that we decided to piss the last of our resources on trying to bring back the mammoth” (Interviewee 2).
Struggles to define de-extinction more generally as science or spectacle was a consequence of the Jurassic Park narrative and its influence on the search for DNA from fossils. This legacy sometimes made scientists question the motivations behind de-extinction. Indeed, there were interviewees that viewed resurrection as a gimmick to lure media attention. “It’s more hype than science,” said a molecular archeologist (Interviewee 35). “It’s cheap, it’s sleazy, it’s the Sunday news. And that’s very rarely right, in fact, meaning always wrong,” explained a senior scientist (Interviewee 32). “The only reason to do this is to get an article in National Geographic” (Interviewee 14). “The only reason to do it is to create a kind of splash and get attention. And that’s not a good reason to do science” (Interviewee 47). For interviewees, research significance mattered. Consequently, they viewed practitioners whose projects appeared to prioritize publicity with suspicion. Noting the professional and popular shift in attention from bringing back dinosaurs to mammoth revival, one researcher remarked, “I see the reel being replayed now with . . . how we’re going to resurrect mammoths. . . . I know this sounds cynical, but they’re exploiting the journalists—the media—for attention” (Interviewee 17). Motivation matters, at least according to interviewees, and when it comes to de-extinction, entertainment potential should never supersede the research question behind it.
Ancient DNA practitioners’ opposition to de-extinction, as clearly expressed through these derogatory interpretations of it, might seem difficult to reconcile with the generally positive influence that celebrity—specifically as it related to Jurassic Park—had on the field. The intense press and public interest that existed around and affected the search for DNA from fossils mattered at each phase of the discipline’s development. Even as scientists rejected the conclusions or the implications of the Jurassic Park narrative, they drew on the popularity of the book and movie to emphasize the importance of the technical enterprise in which they were engaged. However, as the concept of resurrecting extinct species evolved from more than a mere speculative idea into a viable endeavor thanks to technological innovations, those within and outside the field of ancient DNA research felt a more urgent need to address it. Ancient DNA researchers’ opinions, and chiefly their criticisms, of de-extinction echoed the very same worries that Michael Crichton conveyed in his science-fiction scenario of bringing dinosaurs back to life. Ian Malcolm, the fictional mathematician played by Jeff Goldblum in Steven Spielberg’s cinematic adaption of Jurassic Park, captured these concerns best with his famous line accusing scientists of being so preoccupied with whether they could that they failed to stop to think about whether they should.
NEWSWORTHINESS
In light of the fact that most in the field of ancient DNA research have little to nothing to do with current de-extinction efforts, why does the idea of resurrecting extinct creatures remain so closely linked to it? And why do a select number of ancient DNA researchers align their research with it, especially given the potential for criticism? According to interviewees, the prospect of resurrecting extinct species is an easy and effortless way to engage with the media. Indeed, in the minds of the broader public, Jurassic Park is the ultimate illustration of what ancient DNA researchers may one day accomplish. “I would say probably at least 50% of the time whenever I’m talking to anyone in the media they always ask that question: ‘Can we bring thylacines or dodos or mammoths or whatever back to life again?’ ” (Interviewee 25). Practitioners’ ability to travel back in time genetically speaking, coupled with the prospect that extinction might not be forever, was a perfect recipe for newsworthiness. Consequently, the media returned to ancient DNA’s connection to de-extinction repeatedly: “The media love ancient DNA. They love it. They absolutely love it. Usually, the key question is about cloning. They just can’t get enough of it” (Interviewee 3). Even students working in the field nearly thirty years after Jurassic Park’s debut get this question too. “It’s the first question people ask you,” remarked a doctoral researcher. “Honestly, I’ve been asked that so many times” (Interviewee 53). A second student echoed this experience, giving the phenomenon a name—the “Jurassic Park Effect” (Interviewee 54).
Over the past few centuries, media reports have tended to focus on science that is timely, novel, and controversial. Dorothy Nelkin, a science communication scholar, explained that while these sources seek to educate, they also strive to entertain, so science and technology more often become “a source of entertainment than of information.”31 In the early 1900s, for example, Edwin Scripps founded the Science Service, the first official forum for science writing in the United States. Edwin Slosson, the first editor of the service, summarized science in the media as being all about “the fastest or the slowest, the hottest or the coldest, the biggest or the smallest, and in any case, the newest thing in the world.”32 Sharon Dunwoody, another science communication scholar, expands on this, explaining: “Science journalism, again in ways typical of other types of journalism, seeks to hang stories on traditional news pegs, characteristics of real-world processes that are proven audience attention-getters.”33 In fact, much remains the same today in the world of science reporting. The search for ancient DNA, especially the first or the oldest DNA, and the controversial potential to bring extinct creatures back to life hit headlines for this very reason.
Ancient DNA practitioners were aware of, even accustomed to, the newsworthiness of their research. “It just gives you access to what you might intuitively think is unreachable, unknown, and mysterious,” said one evolutionary geneticist (Interviewee 1). A molecular biologist presented this perspective: “No one really wants to read about the peptidoglycan in bacteria cell walls. It might be very important—probably much more important . . . —but . . . your average person is not going to read that. But you can always write a good story about a king or a mammoth or whatever.” Consequently, “We always have journalists ringing us and saying . . ., ‘I need a story for something. What have you got?’ ” (Interviewee 6). Another scientist added, “If you’re working on particle physics . . . and you . . . try to . . . explain it to the general public a lot of them might just fall asleep or say, ‘Why the hell are we funding this?’ ” On the other hand, “Ancient DNA is a very easy thing to talk to both the media and the general public about. . . . It’s an easy sell for the media to talk about. It’s an easy sell for scientists who are in that area to talk to the media about” (Interviewee 25). One geneticist put it this way: “People have tastes and it’s a flavor they love” (Interviewee 44).
Ancient DNA’s newsworthiness was not just advantageous to media reporters. Its practitioners benefited too. One senior researcher explained, “You’ve got to separate the ancient DNA research’s need for the press, and the press’s need for ancient DNA research.” According to this interviewee, “The press loves ancient DNA because it’s often on stories that are very attractive to the general public. . . . Whenever they’ve got nothing, they come to us because they know it’ll be something interesting, right? We work on history. We work on anthropology and archeology. We work on weird shit, dinosaurs, whatever. But the ancient DNA researchers, . . . that’s how they justify getting their money, right?” As this interviewee further explained, there are a number of ancient DNA researchers who often take center stage in the public spotlight. Eske Willerslev, a frontrunner in the field, and among the public thanks to the work coming out of his lab, offered an example of this. “That’s how Eske gets his money because the Danish government wants to show that Danish science is world class. How better to do that [than] to have Science report it, or National Geographic or Discovery Channel or Scientific American.” For this scientist, the process of science and science communication is part of one big complex system. “So, Eske gets that press, the government is happy, give Eske more money” (Interviewee 6). Within this system, professional scientific research journals had an important, if not primary, role to play.
For practitioners across every discipline, publishing in top-tier research journals such as Nature, Science, and PNAS is both a mark of professional prestige and a guaranteed in with the media to publicize their research and its impact. Indeed, the potential to simultaneously achieve both professional and popular renown is a strong draw for many. One interviewee, for example, shared this story to make the point: “I was collaborating on a really nice ancient DNA project—good project, good results. They said, ‘We’re sending this to Nature.’ I said, ‘It’s not a Nature paper. You’re wasting your time.’ I said, ‘Send it to such-and-such journal.’ ‘Nope! No!’ It went to Nature: rejected. Then they tried, I think, PNAS (‘previously submitted to Nature and Science’): rejected. [Smiles] And eventually it ended up in the journal I’d first recommended. [Laughs]” As this interviewee explained, “The top journals . . . are almost the link to the popular media. If you look at Nature, it is more than a science journal. . . . Although they do publish high-level science, they also like a damn good story. They do. You know, short papers with a punchy headline.” This scientist summarized the situation: “So, I think the attempt to get their work into these top journals, repeatedly (with a lot of success I might add in some cases), to some extent colors people looking for what you might call ‘sound-bite-research.’ ‘Let’s sequence that hominid.’ You know that’s going to be a Nature paper if that’s got DNA in it” (Interviewee 3). The technical literature had a commercial component, and researchers tried to play to both these expectations accordingly.
Indeed, the process of science and science communication is very much a collective enterprise. As science studies scholar Martina Franzen notes, the prestigious research journals such as Nature and Science, because of their links to mass media, tend to favor spectacular or surprising results.34 Both of these scientific journals have historically catered to both professional and popular audiences such that news value has affected, and continues to affect, their publishing process as well as the science reporting process.35 According to sociologist Peter Weingart, “The link of top journals such as Science and Nature to the mass media by way of pre-publication press releases and related promotional activities that play to the news values of novelty and sensation has an impact on the communication process.”36 Ancient DNA researchers recognize this too. “On the one hand, it makes it very high-profile,” said one senior scientist. “It is presumably very much in the mind of Nature and Science editors when they are considering to accept a paper or not. How much media attention are they going to get and therefore, how many copies are they going to sell? And what [are] citation indexes of the paper going to be and therefore, where [does] their journal sit? That’s the sole motivating—well, not sole motivating factor—but significant motivating factor” (Interviewee 32). News values, as determined by the media and top-tier journals, filter back into scientists’ decisions concerning the production and presentation of scientific knowledge. Another evolutionary biologist explained, “If I went off and sequenced genomes of three animals in Australia, add some level of hybridization in the past, it would be interesting to me and interesting to a few evolutionary biologists around the world, but it wouldn’t be newsworthy or not media-kind-of-newsworthy.” Conversely, “If you do it on modern humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans—because two of them are extinct, one was meant to be a cave-dwelling thug, and the other one no one even realized existed—then that in itself makes it high profile and therefore, it creates greater interest and therefore, greater funding into that kind of research.” In other words, “It’s like a self-perpetuating system” (Interviewee 25).
Scientists in the spotlight, such as those involved in ancient DNA research and especially those involved in de-extinction research, are often criticized by colleagues who say their science is heavily influenced by popular interest. “Sometimes the research is compromised by the media,” commented a molecular archeologist. For this interviewee, this is because the media plays a role in how scientific research can be conceived, conducted, and communicated: “I think it’s a little bit dangerous that somehow the media have a big influence on the direction of research, not necessarily on the results but what is interesting to do because it sells so well. . . . Even with the more intellectual higher-ranking journals like Science or Nature and so on.” However, this system affects all of science: “You are a bit forced, sometimes, to publish data premature. . . . I mean, we are living in a capitalistic system and science is connected to it. It’s not completely independent of it. So, we all need the money to do our research and to have our own positions safe and so it will always be compromised in some way” (Interviewee 13). Another researcher remarked on the role of funding in particular: “Funding is a huge issue, and I think, unfortunately, it actually really shapes the research that gets done because a lot of people try to chase the trends to try to capture the funding to then get their research done” (Interviewee 27).
Although this tension between science and the spotlight is not unique to the search for DNA from fossils but shared among the sciences, for those practitioners in this specific area of study, it was a particular and constant challenge. In a field so often featured in the media, publicity could come at a cost. One researcher remarked on the negative and positive effects of public attention: “Amongst colleagues, they said, ‘Oh, that is the guy that is going on TV. He can’t do proper research.’ But in the end, I think, it helped me and other programs helped people quite a lot to explain what they do and in order to get funding because that is the relation even if people deny it and say, ‘Oh, we only do proper science in the lab.’ It is” (Interviewee 14). Another leading practitioner described it as a mixture of jealousy and being perceived by colleagues as a “media whore” and “selling out to get more money.” However, this same scientist explained the drive to publicize their work despite collegial criticism: “If I thought that it would have no effect on my possibilities of getting another Nature or Science publication, at all, I would probably say ‘no’ to participating in the media.” But to be on top time and time again, this scientist said, “I’m kind of forced to do something” (Interviewee 7).
Although such actions were a clear part of the scientific enterprise, various scientists in the field of ancient DNA research, as well as those outside of it, held the view that fame and quality research were difficult to reconcile. The life of Carl Sagan, the famous astronomer and science television star who rose to fame in the 1980s, is an excellent example of this. As highlighted by science studies scholar Michael B. Shermer, “So famous did he become that a ‘Sagan Effect’ took hold in science, whereby one’s popularity and celebrity with the general public were thought to be inversely proportional to the quantity and quality of real science being done.”37 This view of stardom—that the greater one’s fame, the lesser one’s authenticity—is a well-known trope. Graeme Turner, a media studies scholar, explains it this way: “Indeed, the modern celebrity may claim no special achievements other than the attraction of public attention.” To elaborate, Turner draws on the example of Kim Kardashian, an American media personality who is often criticized as someone who is only famous for being famous. Turner continues, “As a result, and as the example of Kim Kardashian might suggest, most media pundits would argue that celebrities in the twenty-first century excited a level of public interest that seems, for one reason or another, disproportionate.”38
In a paper published in Genome Biology, the geneticist Neil Hall argues for the rise of a Sagan-like effect in science today but on a Kardashian-style level. “I am concerned that phenomena similar to that of Kim Kardashian may also exist in the scientific community,” Hall claims. “I think it is possible that there are individuals who are famous for being famous.” To be clear, Hall does not disparage scientists for seeking the spotlight but suggests that in this age of modern media, there needs to be a way to measure a researcher’s professional and public persona: “I don’t blame Kim Kardashian or her science equivalents for exploiting their fame, who wouldn’t? However, I think it’s time that we develop a metric that will clearly indicate if a scientist has an overblown public profile so that we can adjust our expectations of them accordingly.” He proposes that this new metric—“The Kardashian Index”—could quantify the public profile of a scientist by comparing their social media followers to their number of article citations. Hall’s argument, and the fact that it was published in a research journal, is even further evidence that science is not immune from social and cultural influences like celebrity.39
Despite the problems that public-facing scientists encounter, there is still an incentive to seek the spotlight. According to Nelkin, researchers and research institutions have long been well aware of and accustomed to this reality and have taken advantage of it: “Individuals try to attract press attention for a variety of reasons—to influence public views, to attract funds, or to establish their competitive position in ‘hot’ fields of research.” Nelkin argued that in the 1970s, scientists in the new field of recombinant DNA research launched a serious media show to hype their research and to combat criticisms, even fears, about the promise or perils of genetic engineering. Nelkin also suggested that scientists have learned how to position their science, through the press and for the public, in a favorable framework for funding: “Geneticists today, seeking to maintain support for costly research, have become skilled in rhetorical strategies designed to attract the media. They describe the genome as a ‘bible,’ a ‘medical crystal ball,’ a ‘blueprint of life.’ They promise that the Human Genome Project will ‘unlock the secrets of life,’ allowing the prediction and control of disease.”40 Like these practition--ers, ancient DNA researchers faced a similar need to bring in resources, particularly during the early years, and they too turned to the public for help.
Media attention can be used as an epistemic strategy across the sciences to claim legitimacy too. As sociologist Massimiano Bucchi suggests, researchers turn to the public for legitimacy at the moment of making a controversial claim, at times of crisis, when there is competition or a desire for cooperation, and when in need of defining and negotiating boundaries of science.41 In fact, other scholars have identified various examples of this. Bruce V. Lewenstein’s work on the cold fusion controversy in the late 1980s and early 1990s highlights how scientists bypassed conventional research and review norms to advance a controversial claim.42 The discovery of cold fusion was not only announced in the press; the controversy over its reality and means of replication played out in the press too. Similarly, science studies scholar Angela Cassidy makes a compelling case regarding evolutionary psychology and how popular science provided a unique venue outside the norms of academia for debate across disciplines as researchers tried to claim their expertise in this area of research.43 Felicity Mellor, another science studies researcher, outlines how a select group of planetary scientists and astronomers actively advocated for the threat of an asteroid colliding with earth in the near future. She argues that they promoted the asteroid impact threat via evidence, narratives of technology-to-the-rescue, and appeals to the media in order to confirm the legitimacy of their concerns as an important scientific issue.44 Research by science communication scholars Rae Goodell, Declan Fahy, and Jane Gregory further demonstrates the role of the individual in shaping public science and how stardom feeds into the shaping of science itself.45 Even more closely related to the case of ancient DNA research, Amy Fletcher argues that the way scientists framed the thylacine de-extinction project was part of a “deliberate strategy to court media and public attention.”46 Indeed, the ever closer coupling between science and the media is a conscious, calculated, and growing phenomenon.47
SCIENCE THAT SELLS
Nearly three decades after the release of Jurassic Park, the search for DNA from fossils is still intimately connected to the idea of resurrecting ancient and extinct species, be it dinosaurs, mammoths, thylacines, quaggas, or even passenger pigeons. This link between the two, the science of ancient DNA research and the prospect of de-extinction, was not established by accident. Far from it, scientists, journal editors, media reporters, popular writers, and movie producers alike made the link and reinforced the association as the disciplinary development of ancient DNA research coincided with the worldwide success of Jurassic Park.
Ancient DNA researchers then, as well as now, engage with this rhetoric of resurrection, or at least entertain press and public interest in it, not because it represents their work but because they understand the advantages in doing so when communicating to the public for support. As far as some interviewees are concerned, de-extinction can be seen as a way for scientists to marshal resources for further research. “I think de-extinction has proven to be very popular and interesting to the public,” remarked a young leading researcher in the field. “And it’s also a lightning rod—maybe lightning rod is an exaggeration—but it is a point in which some investors might want to put some money in, and I think that kind of highlights just how underfunded we’ve become and scientists are reaching out to alternative funding sources.” This interviewee further explained, “It is like Jurassic Park playing out in real life, but it’s also kind of like a means to an end. So, the real value of the Human Genome Project wasn’t really getting the human genome. It was all the technologies that came out of it. It was all of the additional things that developed as a result of having a lightning rod to focus money on to get things done.” They further illustrated this point: “So, I think Pleistocene Park is much more realistic than Jurassic Park, and people love charismatic megafauna. There is a reason why the panda is the lead organism on the World Wildlife Fund. People love big charismatic megafauna and what is more charismatic than a cute, cute woolly mammoth?” (Interviewee 27). Indeed, news value affects more than science reporting; it also affects how and what science gets pursued and published, playing into this self-perpetuating system in which high-profile publications lead to high-profile press that might lead to further funding.
Since the turn of the twenty-first century, new technologies and techniques—such as the innovation of NGS and CRISPR—have caused a number of ancient DNA researchers to do more than just entertain the idea of reviving extinct species. In fact, some have reconsidered the idea of de-extinction as a legitimate prospect, embracing the effort to bring back extinct creatures in light of technological developments and the possibilities they may afford. According to interviewees in the field of ancient DNA research, there are very credible scientists, as well as not so credible scientists, behind de-extinction efforts who have suggested it is a research reality now more than ever. But today, the speculation around resurrection is less about Jurassic Park and much more about scientists’ ability to revive other creatures such as the thylacine or passenger pigeon. There is even talk about a real-life Pleistocene Park that could be home to the woolly mammoth.48 This newfound potential has, of course, encouraged further publicity and heightened the celebrity status of ancient DNA research and its connection to bringing extinct species back to life.
Scholars in science communication studies have suggested that the relationship between scientists and the media, journalists in particular, can be described as a “symbiosis”—“that condition in which diverse entities coexist for mutual benefit.”49 Sharon Dunwoody, for example, specifically suggested the idea that journalists and their sources, including scientists, interact within a “shared culture.”50 In fact, this scientist-journalist interaction occurs most often in research subjects that appeal to popular audiences. As cultural studies scholar Peter Broks argues, “popular science is best seen not as a conduit for messages but as a ‘forum’ where what is popular meets what is scientific.” According to Broks, it is best to think of popular science as a “conceptual space”—“a new model for understanding how the meanings of scientific knowledge are challenged and negotiated.”51 In this shared space, however, scientists face difficulties. While they seek to legitimize their research via the mass media, they are also concerned that publicity may compromise their credibility, and by extension their authority. “In other words,” Broks further explains, “the problem lies in the expectation that there can be some measure of control over the meanings of an idea once it is placed in the public domain.”52 Dorothy Nelkin put it in these terms with her observation that “while they want their work to be covered in the press, they are constantly concerned about how it is covered.”53
In fact, the renewed hype for resurrecting extinct species has prompted ancient DNA practitioners to once again balance their celebrity with their credibility, particularly as many de-extinction efforts are a very public affair. One researcher specifically remarked on this challenge: “When you put out a publication you are in so much control of it. Ultimately, you control your product.” However, “when you work with the media that’s a huge wild card and you have no idea what they’re going to do or say” (Interviewee 27). Even an editorial in Nature notes the tension between scientists’ desire for legitimacy and need for authority: “In principle, there is no reason why science should not be accompanied by highly proactive publicity machines. But in practice, such arrangements introduce conflicting incentives that can all too easily undermine the process of the assessment and communication of science.”54 The ever closer connection between science and media, coupled with advantages of popularizing one’s work to the broader public, has been and continues to be both a blessing and a curse to scientists who want to communicate to the public while simultaneously sustaining authority over their message regarding its presentation and interpretation across audiences.