I'm not a biologist and don't have any expertise in the field. But to my untrained eye, this looks more like creating a new species that has apparent traits similar to recorded traits of dodos than it is de-extincting the dodo.
Depends on how much actual dodo DNA they can get their hands on to be as authentic as possible. If we end up with something with a good chance of being very close to a dodo and it looks like a dodo and dodos like a dodo is it a dodo?
At some point you get into philosophical debates about whether dodosity can be defined.
This is the part that's sticky. We can't test against a reference implementation, so the only comparison we can make is to a relative handful of 16th- and 17th-century observations. This is a bird, for example, where there is apparently only a single written description of its nest. It would be difficult to make a convincing argument that we know enough about the dodo to assert the behaviors of the new animal aren't just coming from whatever animal they use to make the filler DNA (the pigeon?).
> is it a dodo?
I mean, it would seem like it is not, even with a fairly generous definition. I don't know that philosophy needs to enter the picture given that the process itself (as I understand it) can't (intentionally) produce an animal that could reasonably have been the offspring of any of the dodos that more recently lived.
> how much actual dodo DNA
I'm struck here by the comparison between human and chimp or bonobo DNA (edit: the comparison is that we share something like 98% of our DNA with those species). We need basically all of it to land on a specific species. (I'm assuming they don't have nearly 100% or they would presumably use a process more similar to cloning.)
> I'm assuming they don't have nearly 100% or they would presumably use a process more similar to cloning.
Cloning requires fully intact nuclear DNA with intact chromosomes. You aren’t getting that from old dodo feathers and skeletons but you might be able to get enough to assemble a full sequence.
A full sequence isn’t intact chromosomes so the only way to get there would be to basically apply a diff against a living sample from the closest relative.
Re: 98% match between human and chimp DNA - that could lead to the next "Planet of the Apes" sequel:
Aliens land on earth and accidentally kill all humans. They decide to resurrect humans from chimp dna. The alien scientists have a lab full of screeching chimps and are pleased with their success because the DNA is a 98% match. "Amazing, for the first time in 500 years, we can observe live humans!"
Are you making a serious comment, or does this pass for wit on such a topic? If serious, is that the sum of your contribution? To want to eat an animal that hasn't existed for hundreds of years?
It was a joke about the gastronomic focus of the great majority of Europeans who met dodo in person.
I recommend this book[0] for you, the edited diaries of an explorer of the rugged wilderness of South Westland in New Zealand in the late 1800s[1], who kept detailed notes on all the birds he encountered, including their culinary utility.
He used to eat five of what is now the world's most endangered parrot[2] for breakfast, and remarked upon their pleasant fruity flavour, and recommended saving their fat to cook your camp bread in.
And being honest, I'd be very interested in a family drumstick from Kentucky Fried Moa. Although I suspect they'd be rather gamey.
The authenticity of the dodo doesn't matter. Neither a true dodo nor a dodo-alike will atone for humanity's "sin" of wiping them out in the first place, which I assume is the point of such a project.
Is that an accurate assessment?