Advocating The Extermination Of The Human Race

[Meta Blog]

You can't make this stuff up:

Dr. Eric R. Pianka, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of Texas and lizard expert, gave as speech at the University of Texas in Arlington to the Texas Academy of Science in which he endorsed airborne Ebola as an efficient means for eliminating 90 percent of the world's population. Pianka received an enthusiastic and prolonged standing ovation. Later he received more applause from a banquet hall filled with more than 400 people when the president of the Texas Academy of Science presented him with a plaque naming him 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist.

I quote here an eyewitness account of the speech, but I suggest you read the whole thing:

.... Professor Pianka began his speech by explaining that the general public is not yet ready to hear what he was about to tell us....

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 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. ... 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.

...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."

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.

I live in Arlington, and judging by the glowing reviews of his students, I am rather worried that one of them might decide to implement his scheme. I can only hope that they will volunteer to be first in the extinction.

http://ObjectivismOnline.com/blog/archives/000750.html

(Edit: a number of people have reported that the story is inaccurate – Dr Pianka does not advocate killing 90% of the planets population – he merely states that it would be a “good thing for the planet.” Sorry - I didn’t mean to give the impression that environmentalists are some kind of man-hating terrorists, trying to destroy industrial civilization.)

Edited April 4, 2006 by GreedyCapitalist

[mweiss]

Gupta Singh lives! (Referring to the Depopulationist leader described in Whitley Streiber's and James Kunetka's book "Nature's End".

Frankly, much of the primative third world should volunteer for this program. I don't see how the tribal wars contribute to earth's and mankind's evolution in any material way. After them, then move on to the Liberals and Socialists. Oh and let's not forget N. Korea, Iran, and other nations supporting terrorism.

I have often dreamed of a lethal disease that would kill all irrational people.

[Eternal]

The guy may be nuts, but that girl sure is cute (reminds me of some 60's movie star)

[EC]

I'm glad that I'm not the only one who noticed the girl in the pic.

I'm more scared that the people applauded this insane speech more that some random nutcase made it because this shows a widespread philosophical breakdown of the youth at a relatively large university. Ominious Parallels, huh.

[Geoff]

We dont need to reduce the earth's population by 90%, we just need to get stricter on who we let out of the mental institution.

He kind of looks like Santa.

[Clawg]

http://www.sas.org/tcs/weeklyIssues_2006/2...re1p/index.html

http://www.sas.org/tcs/weeklyIssues_2006/2...al-p/index.html

Prof. Pianka says that 5bil. people have to die to save the environment and gets an award and standing ovations...

I am a little at loss of words here... well... if I understood it correctly his "argument" is that we are no longer part of the evolution (our minds can shape the environment, the environment no longer shapes us) so we are inferior to nature and have to exterminate us to follow the evolution...

Not sure... Could this be THE anti-hero?

Other scientists even have come forward to defend him saying that "there is no denying the natural world would be a better place without people - ALL people!"...

I agree that the system in nature is very efficient at using the energy of the sun and most waste products are recycled, but without man how can you attribute nature any value? How can you say it is 'better'? Better at using the sun light to swim around in the mud?

As I've said, I'm at loss of words here...

[DavidV]

Btw, Pianka did an interview tonight and "defended" his speech:

"If we don't control our population, microbes will. Why do we have these lethal microbes that kill us in the first place? The answer is, there's too many of us," Pianka said.

Pianka says he would never advocate genocide or extermination like some suggest he does.

"I've got two granddaughters, man. I'm putting money in a college fund for my granddaughters. I'm worried about them," Pianka said.

After 50 years of ecological study and writing nearly 20 books, Pianka said he thinks the world's in trouble and wants everyone to know.

"We're taking over this Earth and not leaving anything for anything else on this Earth," Pianka said.

"What we really need to do is start thinking about controlling our population before it's too late," he said Monday. "It's already too late, but we're not even thinking about it. We're just mindlessly rushing ahead breeding our brains out."

http://www.startribune.com/484/story/350003.html

Here's what he advocates as a solution:

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."

[intellectualammo]

I can only hope that they will volunteer to be first in the extinction.

From Metablog: "I can only hope that they will volunteer to be first in the extinction."

I can only hope that the Santa/Socrates double, takes his next drink with hemlock instead of lemon...to become the first volunteer. Maybe "Santa" would love to put Ebola instead of coal in our stockings this year, distributing it to 90% of the population, because it might be "good for the planet". I'd type more, but this might just end up in the forum's trash can anyways...

[mweiss]

Time for a few bars of Zager & Evans' "In the Year 2525".

[gags]

lol, I haven't heard that song for quite a while. What a classic late 1960s hippie piece of crap that thing is/was.

I'll echo the others here, hoping that Professor Doom leads by example and stops breathing my air ASAP.

[DavidV]

Apparently the prof is now being investigated by the FBI. In his defense, he said that "Humans, and the way they've multiplied, are no better than bacteria,"

[Proverb]

I thought this was going to be a thread about PETA. This is much worse. I guess it's some form of Occam's razor that promotes killing people off instead of finding new technologies that will not have adverse affects on the environment. lol

[Liriodendron Tulipifera]

Unfortunately, I think these people, although a minority in the scientific community, are still a sizeable minority. I think they consist of two kinds of people: those who are genuinely evil (hopefully a minority within this minority), and the rest who hold these views hold them tenuously and just haven't thought about the issues critically enough. I see a lot of undergraduates come into my university with pretty radical attitudes which become moderated after a couple of years' exposure to higher education.

I have reason to be hopeful despite these wackos. I used to be a pretty subjectivist secular person before I was exposed to Objectivism. There are a lot of scientists out there who are very subjectivist and just don't think about their personal philosophy very much, but are honest people and would clearly be won over to a rational outlook if challenged to debate. These are the people who need to be targeted. Members of the former group are, of course, hopeless.

I spent a bit of time revieweing the students' reviews of his "ecology" class. Obviously, I am discouraged by most of the students' remarks. Reading between the lines, however, a lot of student mentioned that they thought the guy was a freak to start out with. Unfortunately, he seemed to "win them over" to his viewpoint in the end... obviously a lot of young impressionable people out there. One of my psychology friends tells me that certain parts of the brain that influence decision making and predictable life choices aren't done developing until age 25. So let's hope some of them change their minds later. Sheesh.

I did like this student's review (below). At least there are some people that have listened to a whole semester of his dogma that can think for themselves.

"Though I agree that convervation biology is of utmost importance to the world, I do not think that preaching that 90% of the human population should die of ebola is the most effective means of encouraging conservation awareness. I found Pianka to be knowledgable, but spent too much time focusing on his specific research and personal views."

Edited April 6, 2006 by Liriodendron Tulipifera

[mweiss]

Particularly ironic is the following quote from the article:

"Fellow professor David Hillis said most people were sympathetic of the nationally renowned professor's plight. "There's a strong anti-science sentiment in the country right now," Hillis said. Pianka "has such a passion for life and diversity. How anyone could paint him as pro-death is unbelievable." "

Edited April 6, 2006 by mweiss

[softwareNerd]

He has a passion for non-human life, I guess.

[Liriodendron Tulipifera]

Particularly ironic is the following quote from the article:

"Fellow professor David Hillis said most people were sympathetic of the nationally renowned professor's plight. "There's a strong anti-science sentiment in the country right now," Hillis said. Pianka "has such a passion for life and diversity. How anyone could paint him as pro-death is unbelievable." "

Yeah, especially ironic considering that what this guy is advocating has nothing to do with science. Any scientific fact can be used for an immoral purpose. Can these people actually think? Also, what is his supposed plight? That he is being investigated by the FBI? Shouldn't he have expected that?

[Proverb]

"You're eating people!!!!!!"

:-D

I couldn't resist.