Comment by lo_zamoyski

I’ve also had this feeling when conservation of particular species comes up. Species come and go. Why conserve this particular species?

So, inevitably, the answer must be that people want to conserve them either because of sentimental reasons or because a given ecosystem suits human flourishing, or because it maximizes some metric like species diversity.

> we’re really measuring against a value-laden idea of what we think nature should look like, not some neutral truth.

I will remark, that “value-laden” is not opposed to “neutral truth”. All knowledge is value-laden. Value itself is part of reality. The fact-value dichotomy is a fiction.