[AmericanChopper]

If you care about something so deeply that you can't tolerate people questioning it, but don't really understand why, then you probably have some other problems to address as well. I'm not trying to be judgemental, but that surely implies you've been taken in by a dogma without proper scrutiny.

[VikingCoder]

I thank you for your perspective, and if you don't mind - I'd like to ask in return...

Let me guess for a moment that you care very deeply that humanity not go extinct.

Can you explain why, in truly objective terms?

[AmericanChopper]

Great response. Your guess is close enough, and it's simply because there's things I like about humanity, and following on from that I would consider anti-humanity views to be heretical towards what I consider to be respectable values. In truly objective terms though, I don't believe objective truths exist.

But what is it about biodiversity that you like? Your comment seemed to imply you believe it has some provable value or utility that you were unable to articulate (which I'm not saying it doesn't). But if value or utility isn't why you appreciate biodiversity, then why do you feel a need to justify your position?

[VikingCoder]

I think biodiversity supports humanity in ways that I like, and I'm actually strongly suspicious that a great many humans would suffer if biodiversity were harmed, and in really chaotic ways.

Let alone the harm to many other species, in a horrific cascade.

I think within the bounds of some assumptions that objective truths exist. Within the Natural Numbers, 2 + 5 = 7.