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[Leafsnail]

Bringing back any long extinct species would have incredible scientific value.  To bring back a species that was probably among our ancestors would be even better.

It's not likely there'd be an "underclass" or anything like that, to be honest.  You'd probably have just a few of them treated very well (due to the huge expense taken to clone them) in a scientific facility.

[Scoops Novel]

You mistake me. That's in the case of a shakeup, which i view as unlikely. Nevertheless, I'd rather not have them kept in a facility, and i dont think it's safe to do otherwise at present. Therefore, wait.

[Leafsnail]

It's not going to happen soon anyway.

[Owlbread]

You mistake me. That's in the case of a shakeup, which i view as unlikely. Nevertheless, I'd rather not have them kept in a facility, and i dont think it's safe to do otherwise at present. Therefore, wait.

Why shouldn't they live in a facility where they can be safe and studied? Provided we have their consent, of course. As a point of interest, perhaps we could run agreements with the Russian government to set up Neanderthal settlements in areas in Siberia that are uninhabited. Another possibility could be the North American and European boreal forests.

[Sheb]

Yeah, it has the potential to go horribly wrong.

[Owlbread]

You mistake me. That's in the case of a shakeup, which i view as unlikely. Nevertheless, I'd rather not have them kept in a facility, and i dont think it's safe to do otherwise at present. Therefore, wait.

Why shouldn't they live in a facility where they can be safe and studied? Provided we have their consent, of course. As a point of interest, perhaps we could run agreements with the Russian government to set up Neanderthal settlements in areas in Siberia that are uninhabited. Another possibility could be the North American and European boreal forests.

I can imagine David Attenborough...

'And here, we see the neanderthal in its natural habitat...'

Except it might also go like this:

'And here, we see the neanderthal man in his natural habitat... as his children attend the village school, he breeds reindeer here in the Taiga of the Sakha Republic to provide food for them. As part of a shared agreement with the Yakut tribesmen, he has been taught the skills necessary for survival here, and will soon demonstrate his tracking abilities for the camera."

[Dutchling]

That still creeps me out to be honest.

[lemon10]

I imagine there would be quite bad discrimination against neanderthal's, since we have been discriminating against regular humans with slight visual differences for all of human history, I don't think that it would be odd for there to be large discrimination against non-homo sapiens, who would actually be different from humans.

And that's assuming that they were given full human rights (and there would probably be countries where they wouldn't and would be viewed as abominations against god), and those that created them worked very hard to give the first few equal footing and opportunities to regular humans.

[Owlbread]

That still creeps me out to be honest.

We already do that kind of thing with African/Amazonian/Russian/Native American tribesemen anyway, so I don't see why it's so creepy if that tribesman happens to be a neanderthal.

I think though that a lot of you may be surprised at how accepting people might be of the Neanderthals. After the 20th century I think we may have accelerated the process that originally took hundreds of years for us. Obviously you'd have to deal with particularly religious countries like Saudi Arabia or Pakistan or Ireland, but I honestly think that Neanderthals would be ok. Plus - they're white Europeans. If they were black I'm sure that they would have a considerably harder time.

[Sheb]

lemon10 got a point. It'll probably be impossible to fight specisism. After all, Neanderthal may very well proove to be more stupid/brutal/hatever than we Sapiens. How will you prevent people from discriminating against them?

[Dutchling]

We clone Native Americans and put them in camps in which they are part of some sort of reality tv* for the rest of their lives?

*would there honestly be any potential scientific use for observing Neanderthals living alongside a bunch of Siberians folks? I understand cloning, but apart from that...

[Moghjubar]

Oh hey, missing the neanderthal discussion.

Anyway, real experiment: create the baby, give him/her/it to a family, tell no one else but a single lab backup partner, and see if society can even figure it out itself that the child is a different human instead of a 'different' human.

[Dutchling]

That would be an experiment I would support.

edit: Actually, I'm pretty sure the UN / FBI / KGB / whatever is already doing that. EVERYONE IS PATHOS NEANDERTHALER!

(It does explain that the high amount of ugly people these days, jeez)

[10ebbor10]

There's also the nurture versus nature point.

A Neanderthal raised by humans will be probably be no more than a severly disadvantaged/different looking human.
A Neaderthal raised in the wild, will be a feral child at best, and will most likely die.

Really, humans raised in the wilds don't suddenly develop culture/language/whatever on their own. Your cloned Neanderthaler will be no better than a rather smart petmonkey.
Asides from their biology, there's nothing to learn from cloning.

Oh hey, missing the neanderthal discussion.

Anyway, real experiment: create the baby, give him/her/it to a family, tell no one else but a single lab backup partner, and see if society can even figure it out itself that the child is a different human instead of a 'different' human.

Almost immediatly actually. At the first signs of serious differences, people will contact a doctor, which will eventually do a Dna test to try and find out what's wrong. He might not recognize it as a Neanderthaler, but he'll know it's not a human.

[Owlbread]

We clone Native Americans and put them in camps in which they are part of some sort of reality tv* for the rest of their lives?

*would there honestly be any potential scientific use for observing Neanderthals living alongside a bunch of Siberians folks? I understand cloning, but apart from that...

No, if you'd been reading what we were saying earlier on carefully you'd know that the Neanderthals would not be held anywhere against their will, or used for things against their will.

I honestly don't know. We could learn a lot about the development of our species, the interactions we had with neanderthals, the development of language, first contact, all that stuff. Hopefully the Neanderthals would develop technologically/mentally gradually to the point that we would be able to use their skills (with their consent damnit) to benefit us and the world - provided they have unique skills.

There's also the nurture versus nature point.

A Neanderthal raised by humans will be probably be no more than a severly disadvantaged/different looking human.
A Neaderthal raised in the wild, will be a feral child at best, and will most likely die.

Really, humans raised in the wilds don't suddenly develop culture/language/whatever on their own. Your cloned Neanderthaler will be no better than a rather smart petmonkey.
Asides from their biology, there's nothing to learn from cloning.

I would recommend raising the Neanderthaler ourselves.