It's not so shocking to hear that a University of Texas evolutionary ecology professor advocates depopulating the planet Earth by killing a few billion people with the Ebola virus, because we are "no better than bacteria", and we are despoiling the planet, scourging the earth, you know the drill. There are cranks with tenure in universities all over the world. He probably didn't even make Horowitz's book.
What is much more disturbing is that after a recent speech before The Texas Academy of Science, in which Dr Eric Pianka put forth his gruesome mass-death scenario as environmental policy, he was greeted with an enthusiastic standing ovation, and has also been named the recipient of the Academy's 2006 Distinguished Scientist Award.
A last minute decision prohibited videotaping of the speech, because Pianka says the general public is not yet ready to hear what he has to tell us, and that for now, he "speak[s] to the converted". You know, the enlightened of the Texas Academy of Science, and other bien pensant types, who already realize that if we are to save the planet, we are going to have to kill two thirds of the human beings on it, preferably in the most horrific fashion. It's quick, you understand. The rest of us will presumably be told when we're "ready."
Dr. Pianka is said to have several students who "idolize" him. Have any kids in college? (via Drudge)
UPDATE 4/2: A follow up article on Dr. Pianka and his weirdness.
UPDATE:4/3: Wow. Amazing comment thread here, generated by a link from this post, featuring acquaintances of Dr. Pianka on both sides of the debate. Even if we were all agreed (we aren't) that man is the scourge of the Earth, and agreed that hypothetically the Ebola virus would be an efficient killer of huge quantities of humans, I guess the question must be; is that an outcome that is to be hoped for, or thought desirable, as seems to be Dr. Pianka's view?
No, that's a sick and reprehensible view, in the opinion of your humble blogger. Carry on.
The April Fools Day hoax idea did occur to me, and if Dr. Pianka is somewhere in Texas tonight still chortling into his beard over the furor he has caused, then good for him. I doubt it.
UPDATE 4/3: Pianka responds. He was taken out of context, he says:
Pianka said he was only trying to warn his audience that disease epidemics have happened before and will happen again if the human population growth isn't contained.Posted by dan at April 2, 2006 03:56 PM | TrackBackHe said he believes the Earth would be better off if the human population were smaller because fewer natural resources would be consumed and humans wouldn't continue to destroy animal habitats. But he said that doesn't mean he wants most humans to die.
It is unfortunate that such brilliant men as Dr. Pianka are so lacking in the courage of their conviction that they do not lead by example.
Posted by: talnik at April 2, 2006 06:52 PMIt is unfortunate that such brilliant men as Dr. Pianka are so lacking in the courage of their convictions that they do not lead by example.
If he is unwilling to infect his family and himself first, he is merely a clown.
It is unfortunate that blogs like Wizblog here go ahead and post this he-said-she-said bullshit, with no proof, no quotes, and specifically saying that there's no video proof.
Yup. Mainstream Media is dead with top notch investigators like you around. Way to go!
Posted by: sgt.baker at April 2, 2006 07:03 PMAnd I thought Nazism was defeated in 1945. Silly me.
Posted by: Anat at April 2, 2006 10:58 PMHey Sarge, I posted the first-hand account of a man who was at the lecture. I'm trying to think of a reason he would have to lie about what Dr. Pianka said. Perhaps it's a conspiracy to portray him as weirder than the tree-dwelling hermit lizard-man that he already appears to be. But since we're having a nice dialogue here, let me ask you. If Dr. Pianka is promoting the idea that the Earth would in fact be better off if 90% of it's human beings were killed off by airborne Ebola virus, do you think parents who are spending their hard-earned money to send their kids to the University of Texas deserve to know about it? Is this first-hand report sufficient to pique the interest of the major media to investigate and serve the public's right to know? Or do you think the guy just might be onto something? Just wondering.
Posted by: dan at April 3, 2006 01:39 AMI know this creep. He drives a highbred car and keeps 30 or so American Bison. He has to buy hay to feed them as his acreage cannot support them. He has no market for them. They are his pets. This puke advocates the most draconian measures FOR THE REST OF US to preserve the earth meanwhile keeping 15 tons of hayburners for his amusement. It takes a hundred or so gallons of tractor fuel and thousands of pounds of fertilizer each year to keep his pets fed.
He is a highly anti-social person. His neighbors hate him and actually I would call him a psychopath.
Posted by: Reed at April 3, 2006 01:46 AMI forgot to add. I have personally heard him advocate the sterilization of earth of all human life. Evidently he worships the planet so much that he believes it needs to be totally free of the viral human species. Yes he considers humanity a lethal virus. I've heard him say it half a dozen times.
Posted by: Reed at April 3, 2006 01:50 AMHere is a site with evaluations of Pianka's classs. If you scroll down to 2004 there are a couple of comments which mention ebola; they seem to confirm, if any confirmation is still necessary, that he thinks it would be good to wipe us out with ebola.
http://www.zo.utexas.edu/courses/bio357/357evaluations.html
I personally know Eric Pianka. He is a very gentle man and he is brilliant. He overcame a near-death experience as a child to become a father and a very good scientist. He has several grown children. Eric is a caring, empathetic person that worries about the people he cares about and many other things. This hardly makes him a maniac.
Eric does have Bison. They are wonderful animals - very gentle and gorgeous. You don't get gentle bison by being mean to them.
Eric is low on forage. We are in the process of moving his bison to my ranch to join the 250 head I already manage. This was Eric's decision. Eric does have a market. At $600 each, his calves are very marketable.
In my area of North Texas, most ranches and farms are missing up to three feet of topsoil. I can show anyone who cares a place to stand on virgin ground where next door you will step down two feet. We have mined the soil to almost death.
No matter where one looks - the seas, the land, the rivers - nothing is as it was - and it is getting worse. Eric can back his claim that humanity is despoiling the planet with hard numbers.
We are fortunate to have people like Eric to show us our mistakes. I don't think Ebola is the answer - but we are not on a course that is healthy.
There is a biography on Eric, called "The Lizard Man Speaks". Go read it.
Posted by: Austin Moseley aka Red River at April 3, 2006 08:01 AMI hate to tell you this, Austin, but Dr Death wishes you and your family were dead. He just hides it so that he can manipulate you.
Anyone who wishes the ebola virus would kill 90% of the population is no better than a Nazi. If I had been at the TAS meeting I would have asked the bastard: "SO, Pianka, how do you justify your existence, and all the resources you deplete for you own selfish pleasures?"
Posted by: Brian at April 3, 2006 01:09 PM"No matter where one looks - the seas, the land, the rivers - nothing is as it was - and it is getting worse. Eric can back his claim that humanity is despoiling the planet with hard numbers."
This is foolishness. Humans are able to cultivate, fertilize, and improve upon nature. We have fisheries, farms and ranches. We can plant forests, stop soil erosion with terracings, redirect rivers. "It's getting worse," you whine, because you are blinded by your perspective...
The pessimistic view you espouse emanates from a sense of superiority. Your belief that humans are a blight is a religious view, not a scientific one. You and Pianka have the same flaw, and internal anti-urban solipsism that ehoes puerile vanity from your childhood. In the cavernous void that is your soul floats the idea that the world is beautiful except for all the people...
The earth is vast. We've barely begun to scratch its surface, no matter what fools such as you believe. We have more fossil fuel reserves that we could use in a hundred centuries if you care to look at the data. Pianka is not a scientist, but a zealot with eugenic pretensions. May his children and students die before those ideas replicate.
Posted by: Buffalo Jan at April 3, 2006 01:19 PMWhat really gets me about these earth worshippers is they violate plain old common logic. They just looooove animals and plants but hate the animal with the largest brain. These godless nihilists belive that life is one giant accident. Self creating. Yet they want to interfere with the self perpetuating accident and remove the apex of it's creation. If life is making itself surely it's most intelligent creation so far is worth something.
Then there is the problem of such a failed and warped product of this self creating system, us, could possibly be worthy of deciding to kill ourselves off. How dare we? Spontaneous generation created us. We have no right to think we can remove ourselves.
The truth of the matter is humanity is the planet's only answer to humanity. Either we get ourselves out of this mess or ... we don't. In a hundred million years or so there will be no trace we ever existed.
Why do they care so much what man does to the planet during the brief period of our existence? They must have a hidden agenda.
Reed
Posted by: Reed at April 3, 2006 01:40 PMAustin Mosley,
You just think you know Eric Pianka. You will soon discover the truth if you continue to associate with him. He is not a gentle man. He may care about his own kids but then .... those are HIS genes. If you talk enough with Eric you will eventually hear his 'cave man' rap. He sees himself as a superior man. He believes such as himself should get special treatment and reverence. He is an eletist of the most sickening ilk.
During the time I knew him he sold not one calf bison. Absolutely no market. The meat is mostly the equivalent of shoe leather. Personal experience.
Eric is deranged and evil. He is brimming with hate for humankind and I assure you he longs for the day of human eradication from the earth. He may be a genius but is is a very twisted and sick genius.
If he was a decent man he would be working for the betterment of man. If he understands that there are too many people on earth he should be working to reduce the population by inteligent and human means ... not filling young minds full of self hatred and murderous ideas.
Oh, has he shown you his vast pornography library?
Reed
Posted by: Reed at April 3, 2006 01:58 PMFind me a Passenger Pigeon and I will shut up.
Reed,
Dude, did you read what I said?
I raise bison and have for over eleven years. I eat the meat and sell the animals all the time. I conduct 3-8 hunts a year. I am the owner-operator of a 2000+ acre ranch with over 200 mama bison cows. I sell over 100+ head a year. I have rounded up dozens of herds, some in very rough terrain, by myself. I know what I am talking about when it comes to these animals.
I just brought 5 of Pianka's dominant bison to my ranch. They are calm and trusting. They are not the product of a deranged person.
Obviously, you have a personal issue with Dr Pianka.
"Pianka is not a scientist"
Uh, yeah. Pianka's work one of the most heavily cited in both Herpetology and Ecology. His works have been translated into many languages. Not only are his works original in subject matter and source, but they are both inductive and highly mathematical. Its like saying Plate Tectonics is a Big Lie.
"We have more fossil fuel reserves that we could use in a hundred centuries"
Nope. The writing is on the wall for oil. Gas and Coal will last a bit longer. But not Oil. That's not a big deal - the scarcity of coal in the UK 100 years ago led to the conversion to Oil. No doubt we will find substitutes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil
The Hubbert Peak describes the production of a resource from a finite reservoir. It accurately predicted US Mainland production would peak in 1972. Applying to the world production yields a curve that places 2001 at or near the midpoint for the world production of oil. This is why oil prices have spiked - because we are at the swingpoint for oil production.
Cod, Whales, Grouper, Abalone, Salmon - etc all major fisheries are either in decline or have collapsed due to overfishing. The same goes for many of the major soil formations and grassland-based regions in the world. Overgrazing and the plow have reduced both.
The major hardwood species are mostly gone in Texas as is the fabulously productive Blackland Prairie.
I do not see the logic in denying the facts with respect to limits or the actions of people in the past. The rational person accepts them and works for a solution.
To argue against Pianka means you must argue in his language - that of an Evolutionary Ecologist - using source data and statistics. You must see people as just another lifeform and model their interactions with the world that way. If you look at the Earth's Net Primary Productivity and what percentage is used by humans versus what is required to sustain life - you have to agree that we have exceeded the Earths ability to support us. If fossil fuels are remove from the equation, civilization collapses.
I don't defend Pianka's comments, but I do agree that there are limits and that we can use resources more wisely. I seperate Pianka's definition of the problem ( overpopulation and mismanagement ) from the proposed solution ( extermination). You can reject the latter and agree with the former.
You can also accept limits, but realize that the limits can be mitigated by better management by accounting for all the costs and freeing people to use their creativity to solve problems.
Posted by: Austin at April 3, 2006 07:10 PMI have no arguement with folks who say we need to manage our resources here on planet earth better. It's also true the planet would be perhaps in a better state with 4 billion folks as opposed to 6 billion.
The industrialized nations are now at or very near zero population growth. The third world will follow suit. They will learn that two kids are easier to deal with than six. When the third world grasps the concept of retirement funding/pensions they won't need six kids to take care of them in their old age.
Yes we've had a free ride on fossil fuel and EVERYONE can see the writing on the wall. It's just that the envirowhackos like Pianka are screaming bloody murder the sky is falling when it is not. We went from horse and buggy to the moon in 100 years. We can straighten out our energy needs and resource management in 50 or so.
I can match you species for species in animals brought back from the brink of extinction verses animals/plants extincted. It's a dirty shame about the Passenger Pigeon but we are now doing better and will do even better in the future.
If Yellowstone erupts it will be 1000 times more cataclysmic than all the environmental damage ever accomplished by man. Same for a six mile wide asteroid. I prefer the manmade problems myself. We can and will rectify most of them.
It will only happen by enlightened self interest free to pursue one's dreams however. Totalitarianism will never accomplish it. Why is is environazis always want to push totalitarian means? Could it be that their invironmental concerns are just a cheap cover for other ideas? It sure seems so.
Posted by: reed at April 3, 2006 07:51 PMIt's an interesting topic, however, I really don't know what all the fuss is about.
I see people everyday that will eventually drain the gene pool of intelligent beings and thus should solve the issue by itself... without Ebola.
Just read the Darwin awards. :)
Posted by: TX Daisy at April 4, 2006 10:48 PMThe death rate for ebola is 90% but Pianka is suggesting that we "only" need to reduce the human population by 60%. I'm guessing that he's presuming that an ebola outbreak is not going to infect everybody.
Still horiffic, but we should at least get our numbers right.