Is there any real point in protecting them? I don't mean burn down the rainforests or release all the pandas or stop prosecuting poachers but is there any real point in trying to prevent natural selection?
Well, I think we as humans have owned to extinction a lot of species, so I don't see the harm in trying to make amends. Natural selection, bah. One animal will be stronger than the other, and the other will be killed. Then the "one" animal will be pwned by the humans. And then the humans will try to protect another animal. Pretty strange...
On the one hand, diversity is good in nature, and these endangered species may have useful biological secrets that we haven't learned yet. On the other, protecting some random animal species may stifle human progress.
Nearly all endangered species are caused by our effects on the world. What we're doing... is causing chain events of sorts that effect the lives of just about every creature on this earth.
We should protect them. It's stupid to think, "Ohh, well evolution will create some more for us, lol".
We have a responsibility to protect the things on this earth that we're destroying, whether intentionally or indirectly.
And just so you know, the extinction of species in the world has DIRE concequences for us in the world too. For example, vultures in India are down nearly 95% or something so I heard from their previous levels, because of the chemicals they've been eating off the corpses of farm animals. Drugs that are given to those farm animals to work them longer and harder, and to feel less pain while doing so. The vultures have a bad reaction to it and have kidney failure and start dying in droves, which they have been.
The overall effect? Far fewer carcasses are being eaten by the vultures in India and disease and deadly germs are becoming far more rampant. This has an effect on us, as well as other creatures of the land too.