De-Extinction or Deception? What the Dire Wolf Saga Teaches Us

Yesterday Nature published an article, which beautifully depicts the fight between scientists, that broke loose when Colossal Biosciences announced their claim of having “de-extinct the dire wolf” earlier this spring.

Even non-scientists must have realised by now that something must be off.

A healthy debate is important for science and it´s in the job description of scientists to review each other´s work, asking for validating data, sound methodology and ethics.
Scientists with a clear moral compass will always speak up when claims are published that are not backed by data and are an obvious overstatement of current technological possibilities.
This doesn´t mean that all scientists who work in the industry have flexible scientific values. But usually scientists with high ethics, who happen to be in a company where they are asked again and again to bend a little to make things more impressive than they actually are, won´t stay long. It equals a slap in the face when the marketing or leadership team changes their “we created a grey wolf that received 20 changes to 14 gene locations based on findings in ancient, highly-fragmented DNA remains of a dire wolf” to “we de-extinct the dire wolf”. Much shorter, less science blah, much more WOW, right?
Wording matters, especially in science, where we need to make sure that we communicate as precisely as possible – hence the riot.

Overstatements are super common in the startup world. If you don´t play the game, nobody will invest in you, because you are not impressive enough. Which raises at least 2 questions:
1. Do investors like to be misled?
2. What does this do to science?

Personally, I am glad that the scientific community still has enough backbone to call out if someone is trying to mislead the public.
While academic literature is always peer-reviewed before publication and full of “the data suggests that…” and “further tests are necessary to confirm”, companies can publish their claims before the scientific community has had a chance to take a look at the facts, including patents.

This can make things really messy, especially for investors. Without a scientific background, it is impossible to discern what´s a marketing stunt to create hype and attract investors, and what is actually happening behind closed lab doors.

On the other hand, if everyone communicated exactly at which stage their current prototype is and what the risks & limitations of their technology are, I would be without a job. 😉

Don´t get me wrong, de-extinction is a valid technology, if the animals can actually be recreated AND are able to fulfill their ecological niche. Neither the dire-like grey wolf nor the mammoth-like elephant will tick these boxes.
Millions of dollars went into Colossal! But where is the impact? Why not de-extinct a species that has ecological relevance and for which we have a high-quality DNA as a template? To my knowledge, Colossal is exclusively working on flashy, high-cost projects, when on the contrary the most important animals are often un-charismatic and small. What about the Lake Pedder Earthworm? It didn´t star in Game of Thrones – it´s naked and blind, but its loss resulted in a complete ecosystem collapse. How many species like that could have been de-extinct with the dire wolf funds?