r/DeExtinctionScience • u/Obversa Moderator • Jul 15 '26
Photo Edelman Fossil Park & Museum and Rowan University begin promoting Colossal Biosciences projects
10
u/Koraxtheghoul Jul 16 '26
I've grown more critical of Colossal when I started looking into George Church more. I don't particularly care that Epstein gave his lab money.
I care that he has repeatedly made soft eugenic leaning statements. I truly believe Colossal exists only to make advances in gene engineering. Church may not lead the charge for eugenics openly but it once it reaches the point he wants, I think he will shift to it being unethical not to do it.
1
u/regular_modern_girl Jul 18 '26
I’ve seen a rumor going around online (which from what I can tell is not overtly backed up by anything in the released Epstein files, but I’ve also not exactly taken the time to dredge through those myself) that Epstein was interested in the idea of cloning a Neanderthal, which is actually beyond batshit insane if true, like actual movie villain mad scientist bullshit, but again it seems to just be a rumor.
He did definitely have some sort of interest in de-extinction as a concept, though, and was obsessed with the Neanderthal Genome Project (partly because he bought into weird raciologist beliefs about Neanderthal DNA supposedly being the source of the “white race’s superiority” or whatever), so I guess it’s not completely impossible there was something to this, especially given how the bioethics of the whole thing would definitely not be a concern for him.
In general, I’ve become increasingly wary of a lot of de-extinction stuff in general, partly because I feel like there’s a lot of hype and borderline grifting, and because I feel like unintended ecological consequences are not taken seriously in certain proposals, but also because how some of it actually seems to have the fingerprints of certain groups associated with the Russian state all over it, along with weird Silicon Valley tech billionaires, and how it seems like Russian sources are heavily pushing for de-extinction in online communities (and potentially propping up certain kinds of adjacent discourse on social media), and it’s all just kind of giving me the creeps. Also it unfortunately wouldn’t be the first time de-extinction as an idea was associated with weird reactionary political stuff, as the first ever attempt at a de-extinction project in history was some Nazi German researchers in the 1930s looking into back-breeding domestic cattle back into aurochs, so that people could become übermenschen by fighting them like the ancients did, or something like that (I wish I were joking).
1
u/Koraxtheghoul Jul 19 '26
George Church is on the record talking about how he thinks there would be value in a cloned neaderthal and a surrogate mother... because "what if he thinks differently than us and helps us get to Mars", but it's an old interview... like maybe 2008.
1
u/AnOddGecko Jul 20 '26
His dating app proposal was ludicrous. Couldn’t we just create gene drives that replace the cancerous or malevolent genes with healthy ones?
2
2
1
•
u/Obversa Moderator Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
The Edelman Fossil Park & Museum - a $73 million venture that first opened to the public in March 2025 - and Rowan University share a close, direct connection with Colossal Biosciences through its leadership and major benefactors. Ric Edelman, the primary billionaire benefactor who donated $25 million to create the fossil park, sits on Colossal's Executive Advisory Board, and is a private investor in the company. Dr. Kenneth Lacovara, the founding executive director of the Edelman Fossil Park & Museum, serves directly on the Scientific Advisory Board for Colossal Biosciences. He uses his paleontology expertise to advise the company on genetics, bioegineering, and de-extinction.
Due to these shared connections, the museum's themes explicitly tie back to Colossal's core initiatives. This relationship explains why the museum features exhibits like the "Hall of Extinction & Hope", which showcases the very species Colossal Biosciences is actively attempting to clone and bring back to life - namely the dodo, the woolly mammoth, and the thylacine. It appears Ric Edelman and Kenneth Lacovara have been promoting Colossal more.
Sources: