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Mamihlapinatapei is a short story on the possible future where long extinct species were brought back. It tells a story of Marta, a Chilean of Yaghan ancestry, and fits the irony of her job in a world where extinct creatures were brought back, while minority cultures are becoming more and more endangered.
There's so much irony in this story, the ancient Greeks would appreciate it. |
"Since after extinction no one will be present to take responsibility, we have to take full responsibility now."
Jonathan Schell, 'The Fate of the Earth', 1982
On Navarino Island off the coast of Chile, Marta mops outside the tyrannosaurus habitat as the tourists press in to see the dinosaurs.
They come with their reluctant children in tow. They weave their fingers through chicken-wire fences and gaze down into open pits while the kids tug at their legs and demand ice cream. Outside the tyrannosaurus pen, the children snub the King of Lizards and chase the gulls instead.
For these children, there has never been a world without dinosaurs.
Inside their sunken habitats, the thunder lizards browse among replica ferns and preen their plumage, geneticist’s pride and janitor’s bane. At night Marta descends the slopes and collects feathers by the binful.
As the tourists wend their way toward the exit, the parents will confess to one another that the dinosaurs were not what they expected. Not the green-scaled dragons of their youth, which they shaded in coloring books and treasured on T-shirts and on lunch boxes. Not the wise-faced apatosaurus with artful vegetation clenched in its jaws. The beasts were extraordinary, they will add, but they were not otherworldly. It is as if they have revisited a childhood home and found the rooms shrunken, the lawn fenced, the woods dispossessed of sprites.
In the resurrection of the dinosaurs, something else has gone extinct.
Continue reading at Crossed Genres
They come with their reluctant children in tow. They weave their fingers through chicken-wire fences and gaze down into open pits while the kids tug at their legs and demand ice cream. Outside the tyrannosaurus pen, the children snub the King of Lizards and chase the gulls instead.
For these children, there has never been a world without dinosaurs.
Inside their sunken habitats, the thunder lizards browse among replica ferns and preen their plumage, geneticist’s pride and janitor’s bane. At night Marta descends the slopes and collects feathers by the binful.
As the tourists wend their way toward the exit, the parents will confess to one another that the dinosaurs were not what they expected. Not the green-scaled dragons of their youth, which they shaded in coloring books and treasured on T-shirts and on lunch boxes. Not the wise-faced apatosaurus with artful vegetation clenched in its jaws. The beasts were extraordinary, they will add, but they were not otherworldly. It is as if they have revisited a childhood home and found the rooms shrunken, the lawn fenced, the woods dispossessed of sprites.
In the resurrection of the dinosaurs, something else has gone extinct.
Continue reading at Crossed Genres
Ponder this
Evolutionary archaeology has shown that avians (modern birds) are direct descendants of dinosaurs, and yet modern birds and reptilians are so distinct (e.g. one being cold blooded and the other warm). How did the evolutionary tree fit these branches onto itself?
Discuss
Since de-extinction is now becoming more science fact than science fiction, should a line be drawn somewhere? What species should be brought back, and which should be left out, and why?
Further readings
Evolution of birds, the story of one particular branch of dino descendants.
Evolution of reptiles, the other half of the story.
"De-Extinction: Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life", April 2013 article by Carl Zimmer for National Geographic magazine.
TEDx DeExtinction, conference sponsored by the Long Now Foundation, supported by TEDx and hosted by the National Geographic Society
