“Extinction is a colossal problem facing the world. And Colossal is the company that’s going to fix it.” This is the website headliner of Colossal, a company focused on de-extinction.

Colossal is also the company that announced, earlier this month, that they have successfully brought the dire wolf back from extinction with the births of three pups—two males named Remus and Romulus born in October 2024, and a female named Khaleesi born in January 2025. 

De-extinction is the process of using genetic technologies to generate an organism that was extinct or that resembles a species that is extinct. Scientists have proposed (and tried) several different ways to bring extinct or endangered species back. Cloning takes the nucleus from a cell of an endangered animal or a preserved cell if the species is extinct and puts it into an egg (nucleus removed) of a closely related species. They “trick” the egg into proceeding with development as if it was fertilized by a sperm to generate embryos in vitro. The embryos are implanted into surrogates. Dolly the sheep was famously created using this process (somatic cell nuclear transfer or SCNT). In 2000, an endangered gaur was born just down the road from me, in Sioux Center, Iowa, to a domestic cow named Bessie after SCNT.  

If cloning is not possible, genome editing using CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing systems offers a way to alter a subset of genes in a closely related species so that it more closely resembles an extinct species. This is what Colossal did to “bring back” the dire wolf. But did they really bring the dire wolf back?

Dire wolves roamed the Americas during the last ice age but went extinct more than 10,000 years ago along with their main prey—large herbivores. Fossil remains suggest that they were about the size of modern gray wolves with a larger skull and a bite force greater than any canine species alive today. As depicted in Game of Thrones, they may have had lush white fur. 

Scientists have extracted DNA from fossilized remains. Typical of DNA obtained this way, it was highly fragmented—too much so to use it in cloning. Scientists were able to sequence and reconstruct most of the genome, however. They compared the sequences from these fossil specimens to the genome of the gray wolf. They used these data to estimate that gray wolves and dire wolves last shared a common ancestor around 4.5 million years ago and probably interbred with the ancestors of gray wolves until roughly 3 million years ago. After millions of years, gray wolves and dire wolves have diverged so that their genomes include millions of differences.

Scientists at Colossal made 20 changes in 14 genes in the gray wolf genome using genome editing. Embryos carrying these 20 changes were implanted in surrogate dogs who gave birth to Remus, Romulus, and Khaleesi. These changes made the pups resemble dire wolves in fur color (white) and skull size (larger than gray wolves) but their genomes are still almost entirely gray wolf. Most scientists, therefore, argue that dire wolves have not been brought back from extinction. Remus, Romulus, and Khaleesi are, at best, dire wolf-ish gray wolves.

The larger question here is whether de-extinction is a good idea. I will state what I hope is obvious. Preventing extinction should take precedence over de-extinction. We should be thoughtful about the lives these animals will live. Are we simply going to cage them in zoos? Resource stewardship is an issue. Is this a responsible use of time and money?

All that aside, Christian responses seem to land solely on “playing God.” And the phrase is not used as a compliment. Honestly, I’m quite sick of this argument. I hear it in my students’ senior seminar papers regularly.

Yes, we should be cautious about overstepping when it comes to any technology, but I simply don’t find the “playing God” argument convincing in most cases. It has been used ad nauseam. Antibiotics? Vaccines? Blood transfusions? Organ transplants? These are now commonly acceptable medical options but the “playing God” argument was (and sometimes still is) used for all of them. Am I playing God by getting eyeglass prescriptions for my kids? Without glasses two of the three would probably have been hit by a bus. 

Maybe we can look at “playing God” in a different light. As a child I played house. I also played school. And post office. And general store. Kids play these games as imitators of adults. It’s how they imagine themselves as a future adult. They get to try on roles. To prepare, learn, and practice. When they do, we look at them with delight. It’s so cute!

Theologian Philip Hefner suggests that humans are created to be co-creators of the Creation that God purposefully brought into being. Perhaps when we “play God” we are doing what children do when they play house— imitating God, the Creator, as beloved children (Ephesians 5:1)? Perhaps God looks on with delight? 

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The Friends of the Institute for Christian Studies and the Reformed Journal present

Free to be Faithful…Stepping Forward with Courage and Conviction 

featuring a conversation between Nicholas Wolterstorff and Kristin Du Mez!

They will be talking about the Reformed tradition and the broader North American church — past, present, and future. Wherever you find yourself on the faith spectrum, you will enjoy hearing this conversation! The conversation will be facilitated by Jeff Munroe, editor of the Reformed Journal, and there will be a time of Q/A as well.

Eastern Avenue Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Saturday May 3, 7pm EDT

Sorry, we can no longer invite you to attend in person. The building is full.
We do, however, invite you to livestream the event.
Register here if you would like to participate online via the livestream.

This is a free event but registration is required.