John Tierney asks, why not bring a neanderthal to life?". With today's technology, we could probably completely reconstruct a physical neanderthal genome. Tierney sees no reason not to do it.
Commenters over at Tierney's column point out that it might be just a tad unethical to raise a cloned neanderthal as a science experiment. This clone would of course start out as a child, extremely similar to children of our own species, complete with all of the emotional complexity that comes with being human.
The other ethical problem is that you don't just grow a neanderthal clone in a giant bubbling beaker. This isn't Jurassic Park; you need a surrogate mother. Actually, lots of surrogate mothers, dozens or hundreds, just to get one success. You would have to find 100 women willing to risk almost certain miscarriage for the chance to carry the first cloned neanderthal baby, and agreeing to such an experiment already raises doubts about that person's potential to be a good parent anyway.
