Planned extinction: Is it ethical to deliberately wipe out a species?

[curl-6]

mornelithe said:

curl-6 said:

When you hear that a species is endangered, it's usually in the context that it should be saved before it's lost forever.

But what if the species in question is the Guinea Worm, or the Polio virus? Both are critically endangered thanks to decades of deliberate extermination efforts by humans. Both also happen to cause debilitating disease.

We've done it before; Smallpox and Rinderpest are extinct in the wild thanks to successful eradication campaigns.

And why draw the line there? In 2003, biologist Olivia Judson proposed that by wiping out 30 species of mosquito through the introduction of recessive "knockout" genes, we could save at least a million human lives annually that would otherwise be lost to malaria, dengue fever, and other mosquito-borne diseases.

So, do you believe that it's ethically right to intentionally eliminate a species from the earth?

That's actually incorrect.  Setting aside the outbreaks in the US due to anti-vaxxer idiots.  There are a number of scientific and military installations that have samples of all of these virii.

That's why I said "extinct in the wild". ;)

The last case of wild smallpox was in 1977, Rinderpest in 2001.