You say that life is vaulauble, but have failed to answer when it becomes valuable. I ask you, what makes a human life greater than that of a bug? Why can a human vote, but a cat not? We are both self aware, mammalian, care for our young, have wants, fears, have preferences and enjoy the familiar (friendship, of a sort).

A fair way to look at things, but that doesn't answer the question. I asked what and when you consider a life to be valuable, not why. Why is your life more valuable than that of a cat?

It goes like this Richard is shortened to Rich, Rich to Rick, Rick to Dick.

I honestly think the USA has enough military strength to crush China, if it saw fit. Lets look at some statistics, shall we? The United States currently has 10 one hundred thousand ton supercarriers in service. China has one 67 thousand ton carrier. The USA has 1400 F-18 Fighters, China has 1300 Q-2 Fighters. Both have a few dozen long range bombers. Just looking at this, the USA has MUCH greater sea power, and ability to mobilize aircraft than China. Although China has over 2 (2.2?) million active military personnel compared to the USA's over 1 million (1.4 or so?), their infrastructure (China is still in the throes of industrialization) and strategic reserves are nowhere near the USA's. In a conventional war, the USA is by far the most powerful military force in the world.

I've heard nothing about having smaller brains, but lower IQ is very true. Of course, women, Asians, Latinos, and Europeans have a lower IQ as well. This is due to what IQ actually measures. IQ is a quotient, a comparison based on those who are tested, not based on some outside standard. Since most who take an IQ test are white American males, the average score of 100 is based mostly on their abilities. Those who are, women, non-native English speakers, and those who are not up to date on American culture tend to score less on IQ tests.

The value of what is written in a book IS NOT in the book itself, its the ideas and what is written. It doesn't matter HOW the content gets to the people, merely that it does. The works of Shakespeare and Homer are no less valuable if it's printed on paper, carved in stone, or displayed on a monitor. This being said, the debate is about paper versus e-books. In my opinion E-books are better simply because you can get them out to more people. Scanning a book, or not printing one at all, and granting access to billions over the internet is much more affective at spreading that work than printing copies.

Well, to take a stance on this requires a grasp of WHY the amount of species (biodiversity) is important. Now, the reasons cited above are valid, but not the main reason to promote biodiversity. The OP was correct to assume that it's humanity which is important, not the plants or animals. But we have to understand that plants and animals have a VERY significant impact on humanity. In every ecosystem, there are a variety of species, sometimes a species dies off, for a variety of possible reasons. When this happens, one or multiple other species must fill that gap, or the ecosystem can collapse. If you have a greater variety of species when this occurs, then you have more "chances" to correct the issue.

As an analogy to this, think about rolling dice. Lets say you need to land a 6 to win. Would you rather have only 1 die to roll, or 10? Its the same with an ecosystem. The odds of filling the niche left by an extinct species, or a change in the environment go up if you have more species in the area.

I realize this seems awfully academic, but there ARE real world examples of low biodiversity leading to SIGNIFICANT negative impacts on humans in the area.

An example is North Africa. A thousand years ago, North Africa had a booming agriculture, so much so that most of the grain which came into the Roman Empire was imported from Africa. Today, there isn't enough grown to feed the population, much less to export. This is due to a variety of factors, but the most significant is that they planted very few strains of crops. When the environment changed(weather and waterfall), there was no local or imported strain of grain which could survive. In a few decades great prosperous cities were abandoned, and there has been little of note in those areas for nearly a thousand years.

Another more recent example of this is regarding the Mississippi River. A combination of over farming and over fertilization has severely damaged the fishing and tourism of locations downstream. This happens because every year, there is a huge boost in algae growth. Farmers in the area use fertilizer. That fertilizer washes into the river, causing algae to grow at a massive rate. These algae use up all the oxygen in the water, killing animals not only in the Mississippi, but at the mouth of the river and the Gulf of Mexico. This affects thousands of families. The fertilization alone would probably not be enough to cause this "red tide." If a century ago people didn't over fish the river, driving the majority of species to extinction, there would be more animals available to eat the algae booms, possibly preventing the death of the fishing industry along the river and Gulf Coast.

Biodiversity isn't about "save the trees" or "pandas are cute," its about preventing the loss of resources that modern civilization needs. Imagine if we lost most of our corn crop. There aren't very many varieties of corn grown in the USA. The drought this year has already had affects on the economy, what would happen if it were worse? We are lucky that it's just a drought, something that corn is fairly resistant against. What if were a fungal infection? Some sort of blight killing off not just that year's crop, but an entire species? It would kill an entire industry. But surely that cannot happen, an entire species of a popular crop going extinct sounds like science fiction, but it has happened. Recently.

Today, we eat the Cavendish banana. Up until the 1950's the Big Mike was the banana to eat. But in the 50's a fungal strain killed them ALL. Every last one. In a few years, the entire industry collapsed. Along come a certain Lord Cavendish, a nobleman who discovered the banana named after him. Supposedly, the Cavendish isn't as large, sweet, or aromatic as the Big Mike, but it's all we have. Sadly, it seems that the Cavendish is on the way out, as a fungal strain is beginning to spread throughout the world, killing the banana crops. You'd think after the first time, we'd learn not to "put all our eggs in one basket," and allow greater biodiversity.