McCord’s The Value of Species Reviewed by BioScience

A book written by the University Honors College’s Edward L. McCord, The Value of Species (Yale University Press, 2012), has been reviewed in the January edition of BioScience. The review, “Saving Species and What It Means To Be Human,” written by Kurt Jax, says, in part: “Author Edward L. McCord’s main argument for protecting all species on this planet—without regard to their usefulness for us—is that saving species is a question of realizing (in both senses of this word) what it means to be a human being. This is basically an anthropological argument for conservation, albeit one rooted in a long philosophical tradition reaching back to Aristotle. McCord, a director at the University Honors College at the University of Pittsburgh, seems to be an ideal person to convey such an argument, having been educated in anthropology, philosophy, and law and teaching interdisciplinary courses in environmental science, inter alia, at Yellowstone National Park.” McCord is director of programming and special projects in the University Honors College, where he oversees the Honors College Yellowstone Field Course and directs activities at Pitt’s Allen L. Cook Spring Creek Preserve in Wyoming. In addition, he directs the University’s Dick Thornburgh Forum for Law and Public Policy.