There are different types of value you can derive from these stories. There is the practical: crops that defend themselves from predators. Then there is entertainment value.
Arguing that practical value to be found in species past and present is akin to stating that all information can be found by in the digits of pi. Sure enough there are valuable things to find, but only amongst uninteresting things. Unless there is a mechanism to roughly draw out the interesting, such as evolution.
On the other hand, entertainment doesn't have a need to be fixated on anything particular. Details on the Dodo are lost, so you turn to the wasps. If the wasps are gone you turn to the snakes.
As for other types of value, I may miss something. Or our beliefs may fundamentally differ such that we cannot argue in terms of each others.
Don't endangered species contribute some portion of new pharmaceuticals each year? Didn't we just finish unraveling the complex dynamics of a bee's flight, which our previous models couldn't explain?
My impression was always that the study of ecology and such is a big driver for technology, and by extension the economy and quality of life.
My point stands. A non-endangered species is equally likely to yield useful insight as an endangered one.
Though I realise that I have made a weak argument and that I do have a, perhaps unreasonable, bias towards not expending effort to preserve endangered species. In my mind preservation of endangered species is hoarding on a larger scale: someday this species may be useful to us, so let us keep it around.
Arguing that practical value to be found in species past and present is akin to stating that all information can be found by in the digits of pi. Sure enough there are valuable things to find, but only amongst uninteresting things. Unless there is a mechanism to roughly draw out the interesting, such as evolution.
On the other hand, entertainment doesn't have a need to be fixated on anything particular. Details on the Dodo are lost, so you turn to the wasps. If the wasps are gone you turn to the snakes.
As for other types of value, I may miss something. Or our beliefs may fundamentally differ such that we cannot argue in terms of each others.