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Anne Dalke's picture

bio-diversity as human-centrity?

I'm dropping into this discussion from up the hill--over there in English House where cultural diversity is much discussed--and am intrigued. And puzzled. Once the goal of "genetic diversity" is re-defined as the aim of preserving as high a number as possible "of significant or meaningful experiences" ...

...then the whole game changes, right? Because the term "experience" has built into it--definitionally--consciousness, i.e. humanness? So then the goal of biodiversity gets re-defined as something that is human-centric, something that contributes to what humans value (the apples our grandfathers peeled for us, the grains our grandmothers baked with ...)? If only humans have 'experiences,' once "enhancing biodiversity" is defined as "adding to the sum total of 'meaningful experiences,'" then the only thing that counts is what humans count?

But mightn't there be a perspective available to us that doesn't measure value in human terms? Let me evoke an imaginative text: anyone else know James Tiptree/Alice Sheldon's sci fi short story, "The Last Flight of Doctor Ain," in which Dr. Ain infects all humans-->kills all humans...in order to save what he loves most: the planet Earth....?

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