As I said, it is deceitful to hold biodiversity up as some sort of objective value or truth. Biodiversity is whatever you or I say it is, like happiness, or the Great Spirit. These things can't be defined, they can't be measured, they are subjects of faith and belief. There is nothing wrong with having values based on deeply held beliefs, but to cloak them in the guise of scientific objectivity is dishonest and delusional.


A quarter of a century ago, a group of scientists and conservationists introduced
"biodiversity" as a media buzzword with the explicit intent of galvanizing public and
political support for environmental causes.

Critical scrutiny of the concept of biodiversity is nevertheless long overdue, and we
argue that there are good reasons to doubt whether it provides any guidance for
environmental decision-makers or has any clearly established relationship with those
aspects of nature about which we care the most.

We suggest that biodiversity is only the most recent in a long line of scientific 
"proxies" promoted to the public as a basis for conservation values. Such proxies gain
widespread popularity due to their veneer of empirical objectivity.

The public promotion of biodiversity as a rallying point for conservationists since the
1980s has been well-intentioned, both in its aim to build public awareness and support for
environmental causes on a solid scientific foundation, and in its desire to reduce
anthropogenic species loss and stave off the prospect of a mass extinction event.

Nevertheless, biodiversity as an empirical concept fails to provide a firm foundation for
conservation values and practice and its political deployment trades on confusions
about its meaning and value-neutrality.

Biodiversity at Twenty-Five Years: Revolution Or Red Herring?
NICOLAE MORAR, (Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA), et al.
Ethics, Policy & Environment, 2015

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