Unfortunately this isn't a late April Fool's joke: JUST SCARY AND SURREALISTIC

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Ecologist advocates killing 90% of the population with Ebola virus

Posted: 2006/04/03

Blonde Sagacity

 

 

 

 

Tree Hugging Begets Genocide...?

 

 

I always knew there were

 

those that value trees an plants more than human life, and I thought

I may be to the point were nothing could really shock me. I was

wrong...

 

Dr. Eric R. Pianka (who is said to be a world- renowned ecologist)

advocates KILLING 90% of the population with Ebola virus to save the

natural resources of the earth. He made this recommendation at the

109th meeting of the Texas Academy of Science at Lamar University in

Beaumont and received a " prolonged standing ovation " .

 

" Professor Pianka began his speech by explaining that the general

public is not yet ready to hear what he was about to tell us. Because

of many years of experience as a writer and editor, Pianka's strange

introduction and the TV camera incident raised a red flag in my mind.

Suddenly I forgot that I was a member of the Texas Academy of Science

and chairman of its Environmental Science Section. Instead, I grabbed

a notepad so I could take on the role of science reporter.

 

One of Pianka's earliest points was a condemnation of

anthropocentrism, or the idea that humankind occupies a privileged

position in the Universe. He told a story about how a neighbor asked

him what good the lizards are that he studies. He answered, " What

good are you? "

 

Pianka hammered his point home by exclaiming, " We're no better than

bacteria! "

 

Pianka then began laying out his concerns about how human

overpopulation is ruining the Earth. He presented a doomsday scenario

in which he claimed that the sharp increase in human population since

the beginning of the industrial age is devastating the planet. He

warned that quick steps must be taken to restore the planet before

it's too late.

 

Professor Pianka said the Earth as we know it will not survive

without drastic measures. Then, and without presenting any data to

justify this number, he asserted that the only feasible solution to

saving the Earth is to reduce the population to 10 percent of the

present number.

 

He then showed solutions for reducing the world's population in the

form of a slide depicting the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. War

and famine would not do, he explained. Instead, disease offered the

most efficient and fastest way to kill the billions that must soon

die if the population crisis is to be solved.

 

Pianka then displayed a slide showing rows of human skulls, one of

which had red lights flashing from its eye sockets.

 

AIDS is not an efficient killer, he explained, because it is too

slow. His favorite candidate for eliminating 90 percent of the

world's population is airborne Ebola ( Ebola Reston ), because it is

both highly lethal and it kills in days, instead of years. However,

Professor Pianka did not mention that Ebola victims die a slow and

torturous death as the virus initiates a cascade of biological

calamities inside the victim that eventually liquefy the internal

organs.

 

After praising the Ebola virus for its efficiency at killing, Pianka

paused, leaned over the lectern, looked at us and carefully

said, " We've got airborne 90 percent mortality in humans. Killing

humans. Think about that. "

 

With his slide of human skulls towering on the screen behind him,

Professor Pianka was deadly serious. The audience that had been

applauding some of his statements now sat silent.

 

After a dramatic pause, Pianka returned to politics and

environmentalism. But he revisited his call for mass death when he

reflected on the oil situation. "

 

31 March 2006

 

Recently citizen scientist Forrest Mims told me about a speech he

heard at the Texas Academy of Science during which the speaker, a

world-renowned ecologist, advocated for the extermination of 90

percent of the human species in a most horrible and painful manner.

Apparently at the speaker's direction, the speech was not video taped

by the Academy and so Forrest's may be the only record of what was

said. Forrest's account of what he witnessed chilled my soul.

Astonishingly, Forrest reports that many of the Academy members

present gave the speaker a standing ovation. To date, the Academy has

not moved to sanction the speaker or distance itself from the

speaker's remarks.

 

If the professional community has lost its sense of moral outrage

when one if their own openly calls for the slow and painful

extermination of over 5 billion human beings, then it falls upon the

amateur community to be the conscience of science.

 

Forrest, who is a member of the Texas Academy and chairs its

Environmental Science Section, told me he would be unable to describe

the speech in The Citizen Scientist because he has protested the

speech to the Academy and he serves as Editor of The Citizen

Scientist. Therefore, to preclude a possible conflict of interest, I

have directed Forrest to describe what he observed and his reactions

in this special feature, for which I have served as editor and which

is being released a week ahead of our normal publication schedule.

Comments may be sent to Backscatter.

 

Shawn Carlson, Ph.D.,

MacArthur Fellow,

Founder and Executive Director,

Society for Amateur Scientists

 

Special Editorial: Dealing with Doctor Doom

 

 

 

Meeting Doctor Doom

 

Forrest M. Mims III

Copyright 2006 by Forrest M. Mims III.

 

There is always something special about science meetings. The 109th

meeting of the Texas Academy of Science at Lamar University in

Beaumont on 3-5 March 2006 was especially exciting for me, because a

student and his professor presented the results of a DNA study I

suggested to them last year. How fulfilling to see the baldcypress (

Taxodium distichum ) leaves we collected last summer and my tree ring

photographs transformed into a first class scientific presentation

that's nearly ready to submit to a scientific journal (Brian Iken and

Dr. Deanna McCullough, " Bald Cypress of the Texas Hill Country:

Taxonomically Unique? " 109th Meeting of the Texas Academy of Science

Program and Abstracts [ PDF ], Poster P59, p. 84, 2006).

 

But there was a gravely disturbing side to that otherwise

scientifically significant meeting, for I watched in amazement as a

few hundred members of the Texas Academy of Science rose to their

feet and gave a standing ovation to a speech that enthusiastically

advocated the elimination of 90 percent of Earth's population by

airborne Ebola. The speech was given by Dr. Eric R. Pianka (Fig. 1),

the University of Texas evolutionary ecologist and lizard expert who

the Academy named the 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist.

 

Something curious occurred a minute before Pianka began speaking. An

official of the Academy approached a video camera operator at the

front of the auditorium and engaged him in animated conversation. The

camera operator did not look pleased as he pointed the lens of the

big camera to the ceiling and slowly walked away.

 

This curious incident came to mind a few minutes later when Professor

Pianka began his speech by explaining that the general public is not

yet ready to hear what he was about to tell us. Because of many years

of experience as a writer and editor, Pianka's strange introduction

and the TV camera incident raised a red flag in my mind. Suddenly I

forgot that I was a member of the Texas Academy of Science and

chairman of its Environmental Science Section. Instead, I grabbed a

notepad so I could take on the role of science reporter.

 

One of Pianka's earliest points was a condemnation of

anthropocentrism, or the idea that humankind occupies a privileged

position in the Universe. He told a story about how a neighbor asked

him what good the lizards are that he studies. He answered, " What

good are you? "

 

Pianka hammered his point home by exclaiming, " We're no better than

bacteria! "

 

Pianka then began laying out his concerns about how human

overpopulation is ruining the Earth. He presented a doomsday scenario

in which he claimed that the sharp increase in human population since

the beginning of the industrial age is devastating the planet. He

warned that quick steps must be taken to restore the planet before

it's too late.

 

Saving the Earth with Ebola

 

Professor Pianka said the Earth as we know it will not survive

without drastic measures. Then, and without presenting any data to

justify this number, he asserted that the only feasible solution to

saving the Earth is to reduce the population to 10 percent of the

present number.

 

He then showed solutions for reducing the world's population in the

form of a slide depicting the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. War

and famine would not do, he explained. Instead, disease offered the

most efficient and fastest way to kill the billions that must soon

die if the population crisis is to be solved.

 

Pianka then displayed a slide showing rows of human skulls, one of

which had red lights flashing from its eye sockets.

 

AIDS is not an efficient killer, he explained, because it is too

slow. His favorite candidate for eliminating 90 percent of the

world's population is airborne Ebola ( Ebola Reston ), because it is

both highly lethal and it kills in days, instead of years. However,

Professor Pianka did not mention that Ebola victims die a slow and

torturous death as the virus initiates a cascade of biological

calamities inside the victim that eventually liquefy the internal

organs.

 

After praising the Ebola virus for its efficiency at killing, Pianka

paused, leaned over the lectern, looked at us and carefully

said, " We've got airborne 90 percent mortality in humans. Killing

humans. Think about that. "

 

With his slide of human skulls towering on the screen behind him,

Professor Pianka was deadly serious. The audience that had been

applauding some of his statements now sat silent.

 

After a dramatic pause, Pianka returned to politics and

environmentalism. But he revisited his call for mass death when he

reflected on the oil situation.

 

" And the fossil fuels are running out, " he said, " so I think we may

have to cut back to two billion, which would be about one-third as

many people. " So the oil crisis alone may require eliminating two-

third's of the world's population.

 

How soon must the mass dying begin if Earth is to be saved?

Apparently fairly soon, for Pianka suggested he might be around when

the killer disease goes to work. He was born in 1939, and his lengthy

obituary appears on his web site.

 

When Pianka finished his remarks, the audience applauded. It wasn't

merely a smattering of polite clapping that audiences diplomatically

reserve for poor or boring speakers. It was a loud, vigorous and

enthusiastic applause.

 

Questions for Dr. Doom

 

Then came the question and answer session, in which Professor Pianka

stated that other diseases are also efficient killers.

 

The audience laughed when he said, " You know, the bird flu's good,

too. " They laughed again when he proposed, with a discernable note of

glee in his voice that, " We need to sterilize everybody on the Earth. "

 

After noting that the audience did not represent the general

population, a questioner asked, " What kind of reception have you

received as you have presented these ideas to other audiences that

are not representative of us? "

 

Pianka replied, " I speak to the converted! "

 

Pianka responded to more questions by condemning politicians in

general and Al Gore by name, because they do not address the

population problem and " ...because they deceive the public in every

way they can to stay in power. "

 

He spoke glowingly of the police state in China that enforces their

one-child policy. He said, " Smarter people have fewer kids. " He said

those who don't have a conscience about the Earth will inherit the

Earth, " ...because those who care make fewer babies and those that

didn't care made more babies. " He said we will evolve as uncaring

people, and " I think IQs are falling for the same reason, too. "

 

With this, the questioning was over. Immediately almost every

scientist, professor and college student present stood to their feet

and vigorously applauded the man who had enthusiastically endorsed

the elimination of 90 percent of the human population. Some even

cheered. Dozens then mobbed the professor at the lectern to extend

greetings and ask questions. It was necessary to wait a while before

I could get close enough to take some photographs (Fig. 1).

 

I was assigned to judge a paper in a grad student competition after

the speech. On the way, three professors dismissed Pianka as a crank.

While waiting to enter the competition room, a group of a dozen Lamar

University students expressed outrage over the Pianka speech.

 

Yet five hours later, the distinguished leaders of the Texas Academy

of Science presented Pianka with a plaque in recognition of his being

named 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist. When the banquet hall

filled with more than 400 people responded with enthusiastic

applause, I walked out in protest.

 

Corresponding with Dr. Doom

 

Recently I exchanged a number of e-mails with Pianka. I pointed out

to him that one might infer his death wish was really aimed at

Africans, for Ebola is found only in Central Africa. He replied that

Ebola does not discriminate, kills everyone and could spread to

Europe and the the Americas by a single infected airplane passenger.

 

In his last e-mail, Pianka wrote that I completely fail to understand

his arguments. So I did a check and found verification of my

interpretation of his remarks on his own web site. In a student

evaluation of a 2004 course he taught, one of Professor Pianka's

students wrote, " Though I agree that convervation [sic] biology is of

utmost importance to the world, I do not think that preaching that

90% of the human population should die of ebola [sic] is the most

effective means of encouraging conservation awareness. " (Go here and

scroll down to just before the Fall 2005 evaluation section near the

end.)

 

Yet the majority of his student reviews were favorable, with one even

saying, " I worship Dr. Pianka. "

 

The 45-minute lecture before the Texas Academy of Science converted a

university biology senior into a Pianka disciple, who then published

a blog that seriously supports Pianka's mass death wish.

 

Dangerous Times

 

Let me now remove my reporter's hat for a moment and tell you what I

think. We live in dangerous times. The national security of many

countries is at risk. Science has become tainted by highly publicized

cases of misconduct and fraud.

 

Must now we worry that a Pianka-worshipping former student might

someday become a professional biologist or physician with access to

the most deadly strains of viruses and bacteria? I believe that

airborne Ebola is unlikely to threaten the world outside of Central

Africa. But scientists have regenerated the 1918 Spanish flu virus

that killed 50 million people. There is concern that small pox might

someday return. And what other terrible plagues are waiting out there

in the natural world to cross the species barrier and to which

scientists will one day have access?

 

Meanwhile, I still can't get out of my mind the pleasant spring day

in Texas when a few hundred scientists of the Texas Academy of

Science gave a standing ovation for a speaker who they heard advocate

for the slow and torturous death of over five billion human beings.

 

Forrest M. Mims III is Chairman of the Environmental Science

Section of the Texas Academy of Science, and the editor of The

Citizen Scientist. He and his science are featured online at

www.forrestmims.org and www.sunandsky.org. The views expressed herein

are his own and do not represent the official views of the Texas

Academy of Science or the Society for Amateur Scientists.