Читать книгу Fundamentals of Conservation Biology - Malcolm L. Hunter Jr. - Страница 104

Careful readers may wonder why we have departed from the taxonomy of values used for species and ecosystems: intrinsic, instrumental, and uniqueness. We could squeeze genes into this classification, but it seems a bit contrived to talk about intrinsic value and uniqueness of molecules. Although a DNA helix is conceptually a beautiful and inherently intriguing structure, the value of genes lies in what they do, rather than what they are, and in this sense all of their value is instrumental. The classification used here distinguishes between values that are important to the species itself (evolutionary potential and loss of fitness) versus those that are important to people and other species (utilitarian values).