Bio-Imaginaries: Bringing Back the Woolly Mammoth

Abstract

This chapter analyzes the social and cultural significance of recent efforts to sequence the genomes of long-extinct species, focusing on the debate about whether or not it will become possible to bring back the woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius). I argue that the idea of cloning a woolly mammoth is a socio-technical imaginary that embodies our fear of the present environmental crisis and our desire to create the future through biotechnological innovation. Ancient DNA analysis and the sequencing of ancient genomes continue to reveal information about deep time and to increase our knowledge of climate change, human migration and species evolution. Yet despite ongoing efforts by many practitioners to focus on these important but normal scientific developments, woolly mammoths keep popping up lately in odd places such as T.E.D. conferences, I-Max documentaries and newspaper articles. This chapter begins in the Smithsonian Museum’s Hall of Extinct Monsters, where the mysteries of deep time first became tangible to a mass audience. The following sections consider the progress of woolly mammoth genomic research since the 1980s and the way in which science and science fiction converge and collide in media representations of palaeogenomics. The book concludes with a brief introduction to synthetic biology, a recent technological development that, some proponents say, may provide the skeleton key that will finally unlock the doors to lost worlds.

It seems to be the fate of man to seek all his consolations in futurity. The time present is seldom able to fill desire or imagination with immediate enjoyment, and we are forced to supply its deficiencies by recollection or anticipation.

—Samuel Johnson (1752)