RZ: The basis of ethics needs to be of benefit to humanity.
This sets off all the warning bells and hazard lights. If the basis of ethics is "benefit to humanity," I damned well want to know how the author defines "benefits," and probably need to know whom he includes in "humanity." Any number of horrors or idiocies have been justified as being "of benefit to humanity."
Okay, maybe I'm just philosophically anal.
He's making a sound-bite response to the people who think that bacteria should override human development - those who claim that it's unethical to destroy Martian bacteria in the process of building a new branch of human civilization.