Answer to Question 1
The value of natural species can be categorized as follows:
- Value as sources for food and raw materials
- Wild genes
- New food plants
- Pest control: natural enemies, genes for increasing resistance
- Value as sources for medicines and pharmaceuticals
- Vincristine from the rosy periwinkle to treat childhood leukemia
- Vinblastine from the rosy periwinkle to treat Hodgkin's disease
- Venom from a Brazilian pit viper led to the development of the drug Capoten, used to control highblood pressure
- Paclitaxel (and Taxol), an extract from the bark of the Pacific yew, has proven valuable for treating ovarian, breast, and small cell cancers.
- Recreational, aesthetic, and scientific value
- sport fishing and hunting, hiking, camping, bird-watching, photography
- Value for their own sake (intrinsic value)
- The long established existence of species means they have a right to continued existence.
Answer to Question 2
Smokers living in polluted air experience a much higher incidence of lung disease than do smokers living in clean aira synergistic effect. Smoking increases the risk of black lung disease for coal miners and the risk of lung disease for workers who are exposed to asbestos. Smoking is linked to half of the tuberculosis deaths in India.
Vesalius’s De Humani Corporis Fabrica was an important early work on the human species.
Neoteny in Evolution of the Human Skull
Comparison of the human LEP and mouse ob/Lep genes
The traditional human karyotypes derived from a normal female and a normal male
The human metallothionein IIA gene promoter