Okay, I'm no biologist, so maybe I'm just ignorant. How the hell do you rationally come up with a number that declares that 97 percent of species have not yet been discovered?

An "estimate" of anywhere from 2 to 100 million species? Oh, hell, call it 50 million.

Are you even listening to yourself? I've seen people pull numbers out of their asses in many fields, but most are at least subtle about it.

Cripes, I wish I could do engineering like this.

"Hey, Brosz, how thick does that propellant tank wall have to be?"

"Oh, anywhere from a tenth of an inch to two feet. Let's settle on a foot."

"Swell. A hundred-ton propellant tank."

"Bet it won't burst, though."

And when it comes down to it, if a thousand species, or ten thousand species, or fifty billions species become extinct that nobody ever saw or heard of, and the environment goes on without a hiccup, what the hell does that mean anyway? If the last specimen of an unknown tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound?

Do you also realize that not only does this "30,000" number have to be accepted, but then they also have to prove that this extinction rate has changed due to human activity?

Compared to this kind of vaporware, the Fermi Equation is nailed down to the last decimal point.

And you're the people who laughed their asses off when the subject of "weapons unaccounted for" came up as possible evidence that they still existed somewhere.

Environmentalism is used as a political weapon, and to do so, it requires that humanity, and especially capitalist industrialism, has to be shown to be doing irreparable and massive damage. If the proof isn't there, assuming damage exists based on guesses is not sufficient.

I'm seeing a LOT of politically-motivated research that works like this lately.