Alarming articles like this raise more questions than answers. The number of species on earth apparently ranges from 2 million to 1 trillion (??). One question

Alarming articles like this raise more questions than answers. The number of species on earth apparently ranges from 2 million to 1 trillion (??). One question is whether this biodiversity is needed. Life on earth has survived significantly larger extinction events and in the grand scheme of things "preservation" is not an optimal condition for anything. It just feels good for humans to preserve the planet. More importantly however, evolution has found a clear winner in its path towards (whatever she was trying to do): humans. We are already beginning to alter evolutionary trends and this will only keep accelerating. It's worth considering whether evolution is now obsolete and whether indeed most species serve a purpose. With brains taking over, life is on transformative path which will lead to it becoming extraterrestial and generally way more transformative than evolution has ever been.