Why such a fuss about extinction?

[Still Waters]

What is wrong with extinction? I realise this question is the conservation equivalent of a landmine - or an elephant trap. And that it is likely to ruffle a lot of fur.

But I ask because I am merely wondering whether we sometimes forget a grim reality of the story of life on Earth - that extinction has always been with us.

In fact, it has quite often been good for us.

http://www.bbc.co.uk...onment-21866456

[Frank Merton]

It takes millions of years to evolve a species. It is a unique thing in the universe; an art form if you will.

Also, it is behaviors and chemicals and relationships with other species in an ecological system and all sorts of potentially useful things. When it is gone it is gone. We never know what we really have lost.

[redhen]

I heard somewhere that whenever a newspaper article asks for a value judgement in the form of a question, i.e. "Why such a fuss" or "should we protect x?" , the answer the writer implies is almost always yes. These normative question titles are pure rhetoric.

So despite the writer's controversial first statements, he comes down on the side of conservation in the end.

"We may not like everything - ants, spiders, slugs and snakes - but we are related to them. In an extremely loose sense, they are family. And that casts the threat of extinction - and our role in it - in a very different light."

p.s. found a research paper on the use of questions in journal articles;

"Full Y/N Qs more often answered ‘yes’"