Muddying the waters

By not distinguishing means from ends, Thorburn in her “Guest Opinion” piece (“Conservation should not be driven by ideology,” Jan. 24), thoroughly confuses science and values. The very notions of conservation itself, its goals, value and choices, are essentially ideological issues.

The idea that it desirable to try to “preserve nature,” which aspects of it and to what purposes, derives from human values. How to accomplish those purposes, however, can be a matter of custom, folk lore, or science. For instance, whether the value of the enjoyment provided some people by their pursuit of killing or capturing creatures is a preeminent goal of a society is a value decision that the society determine . How that is done can vary, but in our society we tend to support a democratic process, another ideological construct.

The actual question regarding “Conservation” is whether most citizens do or do not want to maximize the conservation of the natural ecology in the part of the world under their control and at what cost ? This is an utterly ideological matter.

Whatever values we choose, hopefully we select means to those ends which are most consistent with their inherent values and most efficient. For instance, is supporting the hobby enjoyed by a relatively few of our citizens of hunting and killing animals the means most compatible with our values and most efficient in achieving the degree of nature preservation that we desire?

Peter Grossman

Spokane