Ecologist advocates EBOLA to kill world population (maybe?)

[Joe]

WHAT THE FUCK

Meeting Doctor Doom

Forrest M. Mims III

Copyright 2006 by Forrest M. Mims III.

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., Founder and Executive Director, Society for Amateur Scientists.

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 tortuous 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.

Copyright 2006 by Forrest M. Mims III.

Granted, we only have one guy's testimony to rely on; I'm not familiar with this publication but everything here looks legit.

But seriously, what the FUCKING FUCK? Am I just missing some context here? He advocates mass genocide and gets a standing ovation?

This is what creationists are going to pull out of their bag from now on when they want to prove that all scientists are morally depraved, by the way.

[Pick]

I might note that he apparently talked about much more than his plans for mass death. It is quite possible that people were applauding for later statements. He clearly does have significant prowess in his field, if not a commonly accepted perception regarding. There's no accounting for people, really.

I don't know why he thinks ebola would be a good choice, though. Despite being fast, it tends to burn itself out for similar reasons. If he wanted to really have a massive death-virus wiping out masses of people, he would probably need to find something with a longer gestation period --if nothing else to keep it from being easily quarantined. Though you could get lots of people with ebola, I find it hard to believe that it could spread that widely before burning out like a flash forest fire.

[Elheru Aran]

Date on the article is 31 March. I think he was pulling an early joke, or at least that's a possibility.

If not-- as Pick noted, the disease moves too fast to really be useful. It'll make news and be gory for awhile, but it'll wind up pretty quickly.

As my dad put it once-- "Considering Ebola's spready by contact with blood or body fluids, it's not that useful. You see someone fall over and start bleeding like crazy, do you think you'll go right up to him and try to help and be wading in blood? Hell no!"

[TheBlackCat]

I think we are missing context. People's reaction to him just doesn't match what this guy claims he is saying. Sure in a cult I could see that reaction happening, but in a general meeting of the Texas Academy of Sciences? I find that streches the limits of credibility somewhat.

[Zero]

I have to think that they must have been applauding his other statements. No reasonable human being with family and friends could ever actually desire 90% of the global population dying. Or maybe they were even clapping because of how much of a nutcase this guy was.

[Dooey Jo]

That's nice. I assume that he has a secret underwater base from where he intends to carry out his wonderful idea of making 90% of the human population die from liquified internal organs?


Wait a minute. Why isn't that considered to be a terrorist threat? They should have him investigated to see if he is up to something...

I might note that he apparently talked about much more than his plans for mass death. It is quite possible that people were applauding for later statements.

I wonder if it went something like this:
"Blah blah ecology blah [two hours of blah] blah and by the way, I hope 90% of the world population dies from Ebola blah blah blah. Ecology blah blah. Thank you!"

[Thinkmarble]

Found a little more background to this.
Quoting it all.

?Mr. Hyperbole? Meets ?Dr. Doom?

Head?s up, folks. Forrest M. Mims III is on a new rampage. This time, he is targetting Eric R. Pianka, noted ecologist and Denton A. Cooley Centennial Professor of Zoology at the University of Texas at Austin, whom Mims is calling ?Dr. Doom?.

Pianka has long been talking about how humans have overpopulated the earth, and that human population is liable to ?crash? just as we have seen happen in various animal populations that outgrow their resources. In his courses, he discusses both how an airborne contagious version of the Ebola virus might reduce the world human population to 10% of its size at the time of spread, and how, ecologically speaking, this would not be a bad thing. Apparently he gave a capsule version of what he teaches in his courses at a meeting of the Texas Academy of Sciences, where Pianka was to receive the TAS 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist award. Mims was moderating the session. Mims has come away with the notion that Pianka wants people to undertake biological warfare to accomplish a 90% reduction in human population on purpose.



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 tortuous death of over five billion human beings.


Pianka has a brief discussion of the topic on this course site.


If humans do not control their own population (and we seem unwilling and unable to do so), then other forces will certainly act to control our population. The four horseman of the apocalypse (conquest, war, famine, and death) are all candidates. Most likely, lethal virulent microbes like HIV and Ebola zaire will set limits on the growth of human populations. HIV, by allowing infected hosts to survive years while they spread the virus and infect new hosts, has already become a pandemic, but it will be years before it decimates the human population. Although Ebola kills 9 out of 10 people, outbreaks have so far been unable to become epidemics because they are currently spread only by direct physical contact with infected blood. However, a closely related virus that kills monkeys, Ebola reston, is airborne, and it is only a matter of time until Ebola zaire evolves the capacity to be airborne.


Again, there?s no trace of the activist notion that we should bring about a pandemic as our means of population control.

I?ve emailed Prof. Pianka and hope to get a response on this topic. If I can, I will share that with you later.

As for the ?Mr. Hyperbole? title, Forrest M. Mims III is a long-time antievolution advocate. His notoriety in antievolution comes from his failed bid to become
a staff writer for Scientific American magazine. During his job interview (something that everyone at the outset apparently thought was a mere formality), they noticed several church publications on his resume? and asked him about his views on biology. He?s a creationist and antievolutionist. SciAm decided not to hire him. Mims screamed bloody ?religious discrimination?, going so far as to provide Harper?s Magazine with a tape-recorded conversation with SciAm editor Jonathan Piel. Mims hadn?t bothered to tell Piel that the conversation was being recorded. Since then, Mims has repeatedly claimed that he was ?fired? from Scientific American and that this constituted religious discrimination.

My take on this is that we are witnessing an intellectual mugging here. As even Mims reports, ?In his last e-mail, Pianka wrote that I completely fail to understand his arguments.? I?m guessing that Mims?s penchant for hyperbole and inability to accept correction on cherished misconceptions is the only thing of note here. It?s one thing for Pianka to be dinged for inflammatory rhetoric, and quite another for him to be accused of fostering and encouraging academic scientists to take up organized biological warfare.

Obligatory disclosure: I was a student of Kirk O. Winemiller?s at Texas A&M University in 1993. Winemiller was a graduate student of Eric R. Pianka.

That comes from here

[Joe]

As for the ?Mr. Hyperbole? title, Forrest M. Mims III is a long-time antievolution advocate. His notoriety in antievolution comes from his failed bid to become
a staff writer for Scientific American magazine.

Ah, well there's the context I was missing.

[Dooey Jo]

As for the ?Mr. Hyperbole? title, Forrest M. Mims III is a long-time antievolution advocate. His notoriety in antievolution comes from his failed bid to become
a staff writer for Scientific American magazine.

Ah, well there's the context I was missing.

Well in that case, other creationists are definitely going to refer everyone to that article

[Pick]

In that case, I'm no longer fence-sitting. Forget Mims --he's a bloody idiot and probably using exaggeration and out-of-context information to get the tone he wants. Fuck him.

[Joe]

Title changed to reflect reality.

[Joe]

This one is a bit more objective

AUSTIN — A University of Texas professor says the Earth would be better off with 90 percent of the human population dead.

“Every one of you who gets to survive has to bury nine,” Eric Pianka cautioned students and guests at St. Edward’s University on Friday. Pianka’s words are part of what he calls his “doomsday talk” — a 45-minute presentation outlining humanity’s ecological misdeeds and Pianka’s predictions about how nature, or perhaps humans themselves, will exterminate all but a fraction of civilization.

Though his statements are admittedly bold, he’s not without abundant advocates. But what may set this revered biologist apart from other doomsday soothsayers is this: Humanity’s collapse is a notion he embraces.

Indeed, his words deal, very literally, on a life-and-death scale, yet he smiles and jokes candidly throughout the lecture. Disseminating a message many would call morbid, Pianka’s warnings are centered upon awareness rather than fear.

“This is really an exciting time,” he said Friday amid warnings of apocalypse, destruction and disease. Only minutes earlier he declared, “Death. This is what awaits us all. Death.” Reflecting on the so-called Ancient Chinese Curse, “May you live in interesting times,” he wore, surprisingly, a smile.

So what’s at the heart of Pianka’s claim?

6.5 billion humans is too many.

In his estimation, “We’ve grown fat, apathetic and miserable,” all the while leaving the planet parched.

The solution?

A 90 percent reduction.

That’s 5.8 billion lives — lives he says are turning the planet into “fat, human biomass.” He points to an 85 percent swell in the population during the last 25 years and insists civilization is on the brink of its downfall — likely at the hand of widespread disease.

“[Disease] will control the scourge of humanity,” Pianka said. “We’re looking forward to a huge collapse.”

But don’t tell local “citizen scientist” Forrest Mims to quietly swallow Pianka’s call to awareness. Mims says it’s an “abhorrent death wish” and contends he has “no choice but to take a stand.”

Mims attended the educator’s doomsday presentation at the Texas Academy of Science’s annual meeting March 2-4. There, the organization honored Pianka as its 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist — another issue Mims vocally opposes.

“This guy is a loose cannon to believe that worldwide genocide is the only answer,” said Mims, who filed two formal petitions with the academy following the meeting.

Joining the crusade, James Pitts, who recieved a Ph.D. in physics from UT-Austin, became the second to publicly chastise Pianka when he filed a complaint Saturday with the UT board of regents. He insists a state university is no place to disseminate such views.

He writes:

“Pianka’s message does not fall within the realm of his professional competence as a biologist, because it is a normative claim, not a descriptive one. Pianka is encouraged to use his ecological expertise to predict the likely consequences of certain technological and reproductive strategies, but to evaluate some as good, bad, or worthy of prevention by genocide is the realm of philosophy or political science, not science. His message falls no more within his professional competence than it would for a physicist to teach religion in class or a musician to encourage racism.”

But Pianka, a 38-year UT educator, maintains he’s not campaigning for genocide. He likens mankind’s story to an unbridled party on a luxury cruise liner. The fun’s going strong on the upper deck, he says. But as crowds blindly absorb the festivities, many fail to notice the ship is sinking.

“The biggest enemy we face is anthropocentrism,” he said, describing the belief system in which humans are the central element of the universe. “This is that common attitude that everything on this Earth was put here for [human] use.”

To Pianka, a human life is no more valuable than any other — a lizard, a bison, a rhino. And as humans reproduce, the demand for resources like food, water and energy becomes more than the Earth can sustain, he says.

Ken Wilkins, a Baylor University biology professor and associate dean, agrees the inevitability of a crashing point is unarguable.

“The human population is growing,” he said. “We will see a point when we reach the carrying capacity — there aren’t enough resources.”

But resources aren’t the only threat, Pianka says. It’s the Ebola virus he deems most capable of wide scale decimation.

“Humans are so dense (in population) that they constitute a perfect substrate for an epidemic,” he says.

He contends Ebola is merely an evolutionary step away from escaping the confines of Africa. And should an outbreak occur, Pianka assuredly says humanity will quickly come to a “grinding halt.”

The professor’s not the only one who can articulate this concept. Because Pianka includes his doomsday material in his coursework, Ebola and its potential play a notable role in some students’ studies. A syllabus for one course reads:

“Although [Ebola Zaire] Kills 9 out of 10 people, outbreaks have so far been unable to become epidemics because they are currently spread only by direct physical contact with infected blood. However, a closely-related virus that kills monkeys, Ebola Reston, is airborne, and it is only a matter of time until Ebola Zaire evolves the capacity to be airborne.”

It is here that some say Pianka ventures from provocative food for thought to, as Wilkins said, “very extreme material” that violate many people’s views — including his own — about the treatment of human life. While many praise Pianka’s boldness and scientific know-how, others say he crosses an ethical line in his treatment of Ebola’s viability as a killer.

In an evaluation of Pianka’s course — performed anonymously in keeping with university policy — one student offered:

“Though I agree that conservation biology is of utmost importance to the world, I do not think that preaching that 90 percent of the human population should die of Ebola is the most effective means of encouraging conservation awareness.”

Mims says he’s seen countless doomsday predictions come and go. But Pianka’s is different, Mims said. Pianka, he insists, exhibits genuine cause for alarm.

Mims worries fertile young minds with a thirst for knowledge may develop into enthusiastic supporters of a deadly disease, advocating the fall of humanity.

“He recommended airborne Ebola as an ideal killing virus,” Mims said. “He showed slides of the Four Horsemen of the apocalypse and human skulls. He joked about requiring universal sterilization. It reminded me of a futuristic science fiction movie with a crazed scientist planning the death of humanity.”

But as confident as Mims is in his assessment, he faces one unarguable fact: Most of Pianka’s former students are bursting with praise. Their in-class evaluations celebrate his ideas with words like “the most incredible class I ever had” and “Pianka is a GOD!”

Mims counters their ovation with the story of a Texas Lutheran University student who attended the Academy of Science lecture. Brenna McConnell, a biology senior, said she and others in the audience “had not thought seriously about overpopulation issues and a feasible solution prior to the meeting.” But though McConnell arrived at the event with little to say on the issue, she returned to Seguin with a whole new outlook.

An entry to her online blog captures her initial response to what’s become a new conviction:

“[Pianka is] a radical thinker, that one!” she wrote. “I mean, he’s basically advocating for the death for all but 10 percent of the current population. And at the risk of sounding just as radical, I think he’s right.”

Today, she maintains the Earth is in dire straits. And though she’s decided Ebola isn’t the answer, she’s still considering other deadly viruses that might take its place in the equation.

“Maybe I just see the virus as inevitable because it’s the easiest answer to this problem of overpopulation,” she said.

Though listeners like McConnell may walk away with a deadly message, Pianka maintains this is inconsistent with his lecture. One UT official said Pianka is likely well within his rights as a tenured educator.

The 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure — a set of guidelines recognized nationwide — guarantees college professors vast classroom liberties. But Neal Armstrong, vice provost for faculty affairs at UT, said even this freedom is not without limits.

“Faculty members have the right of free speech like anyone else,” he said. “In the classroom, they’re free to express their views. There is the expectation, though, that in public — especially when speaking on controversial topics — they must make every effort to be clear that they are not speaking on behalf of the university.”

Students should be able to discern on their own the validity of views like Pianka’s, Armstrong said. But if allegations of Pianka actively advocating human death were to be confirmed, he said “there might be some discussion about the appropriateness of that subject.”

“I would hope that’s not what’s intended,” he said. “I don’t think that’s appropriate for the classroom, but that’s my personal statement.”

Robert K. Jansen, chair of the section of integrated biology under which Pianka is classified, said his understanding of the doomsday material left no cause for concern.

“It’s important for students to get all opinions, and they have to do that on a daily basis,” he said. To hold a classroom’s attention, Jansen says educators must often “speak their mind” in a fashion bold enough to garner a bit of shock.

The Texas Academy of Science uses a similar approach in defending its decision to honor Pianka with the Distinguished Scientist award. Though TAS offered no direct comment to the Gazette-Enterprise, an email sent from TAS President David Marsh to Mims in response to Mims first letter of protest reads:

“We select the DTS speaker based on his/her academic credentials and contributions to science. We do not mandate the subject he/she decides to address, nor will we ever. I would suggest that one of the purposes of any such presentation is to stimulate discussion — which indeed it did.”

In his petitions, Mims inquires about the group’s stance on Pianka’s talk, asking if the recent honor should be interpreted as an endorsement by TAS. Marsh responded firmly, saying the award does not represent any formal backing of Pianka’s ideas.

But despite the academy’s flat denial of any wrongdoing, Mims maintains his stance. He said thus far, he’s seen no response to the second petition.

“I completely agree with one assertion made several times by Dr. Pianka: ‘The public is not ready to hear that he hopes 90 percent of them will be exterminated by disease,’” Mims said.

McConnell said the TAS audience, unlike Mims, was in awe of Pianka’s words. They offered a standing ovation, and enthusiastically applauded Pianka’s position, Mims said.

“There was a good deal of shock and just plain astonishment at what he had to say,” the student said. “Not many folk come out and talk about the end of the human population in as candid of a manner as he did. Dr. Pianka received a standing ovation at the end of his talk, if that says anything. What he had to say was radical, no question about it, but that is not to say that at least some of what he had to say is not true.”

Though Pianka turned down requests for a sit-down interview, he maintains he is not advocating human death.

Does he believe nature will bring about this promised devastation? Or is humanity’s own dissemination of a deadly virus the only answer? And more importantly, is this the motive behind his talks?

Responding to these very questions, Pianka said, “Good terrorists would be taking [Ebola Roaston and Ebola Zaire] so that they had microbes they could let loose on the Earth that would kill 90 percent of people.”

As of press time, Pitts — who sent his appeal via email Saturday — had received no response from the university, but he says, “It’s too early for any responses to have been made.” Meanwhile, Pianka urges humanity to heed his call to be prepared, saying “we’re going to be hunters and gatherers again real soon.”

“This is gonna happen in your lifetime,” he told his St. Edward’s audience. “Do you wanna go there? We’ve already gone there. We waited too long.”

• Read more about Pianka by visiting his lab page at uts.cc.utexas.edu/~varanus/

• Read more about Forrest Mims at

www.forrestmims.org or visit the Citizen Scientist at http://www.sas.org/tcs/index.html

Editor's note: A correction was made to this story to reflect that while Pitts got his Ph.D. from the university, he is not a professor there.

I still say Pianka is a dick - I don't fucking care how much you like lizards, human lives are ALWAYS more important - but he's at least probably not a genocidal dick.

[LongVin]

Someone's been reading Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six a bit too much.

[Gil Hamilton]

*rushes in before Admiral Valdemar gets in here and pants for a bit*

Ebola couldn't destroy the world's population if it wanted too. It's entirely too deadly and not airborne. Ebola Sudan is the less deadly of the deadly strains in humans and it still kills 60% of victims very quickly. Worse, it is the Indian of the viruses, it eats every part of the person except the skeletal structure, which makes it very easily to spot as hemorrhagic fever is very messy indeed. The only reason you get outbreaks of it is because of certain retarded African burial customs that involve the family cleaning the corpse in an unsanitary manner. In modern places, an Ebola outbreak would be very easy to control.

[Lord Zentei]

Someone's been reading Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six a bit too much.

Word.

In an evaluation of Pianka’s course — performed anonymously in keeping with university policy — one student offered:

“Though I agree that conservation biology is of utmost importance to the world, I do not think that preaching that 90 percent of the human population should die of Ebola is the most effective means of encouraging conservation awareness.”

I couldn't put it better myself. This guy seems to be hawking for the ratings:

But as confident as Mims is in his assessment, he faces one unarguable fact: Most of Pianka’s former students are bursting with praise. Their in-class evaluations celebrate his ideas with words like “the most incredible class I ever had” and “Pianka is a GOD!”

Dumbass kids.

And this Mims tool is right about one important thing: Pianka is going beyond his realm of competence and into the territory of the social sciences. From the perspective of economics, humanity is not straining the Earth's resources to the breaking point.

[Admiral Valdemar]

*rushes in before Admiral Valdemar gets in here and pants for a bit*

Ebola couldn't destroy the world's population if it wanted too. It's entirely too deadly and not airborne. Ebola Sudan is the less deadly of the deadly strains in humans and it still kills 60% of victims very quickly. Worse, it is the Indian of the viruses, it eats every part of the person except the skeletal structure, which makes it very easily to spot as hemorrhagic fever is very messy indeed. The only reason you get outbreaks of it is because of certain retarded African burial customs that involve the family cleaning the corpse in an unsanitary manner. In modern places, an Ebola outbreak would be very easy to control.

That's it, you're still getting a Christmas card this year, but it'll have white powder thanks to ruining that for me, bah.

And I need to pant. It's, uh, relaxing.

You can't help but see some logic to this guy's statements though. If a lot of humanity did just vanish, plague or no, then a damn sight more species would be better off because of it, if only down to less land being taken by us.

But much as I'd like to wipe out humanity myself at times when feeling really pissy, I doubt I could (haven't got the funding, strangely hard to find sponsors). It's also horrifically wrong, no matter how much life may prosper if we got screwed over by eco-terrorists someday.

And you don't use Ebola, you use Influenza. Baka.

[Surlethe]

And this Mims tool is right about one important thing: Pianka is going beyond his realm of competence and into the territory of the social sciences. From the perspective of economics, humanity is not straining the Earth's resources to the breaking point.

I once plugged in figures for humanity's growth into a crude logistics curve and found that it was asymptotic to about nine billion; a quick google pulls up numbers from 100 million (for hunter-gatherers) to 30 billion (maximum efficiency farming). How close is humanity coming to straining the Earth's resources, economically?

[Zero]

This guy's a moron. Airborne ebola, if it evolved, would kill it's carriers too fast, and be far to visible to escape strong quarantines. Besides that, he's trying to bring in concepts of right and wrong into a biology class, when right and wrong both fall into the realm of ethical philosophy.

So Pianka's a dick. So is Mims, since he claimed that Pianka's position advocated biological warfare to eliminate most of humanity.

[Lord Zentei]

And this Mims tool is right about one important thing: Pianka is going beyond his realm of competence and into the territory of the social sciences. From the perspective of economics, humanity is not straining the Earth's resources to the breaking point.

I once plugged in figures for humanity's growth into a crude logistics curve and found that it was asymptotic to about nine billion; a quick google pulls up numbers from 100 million (for hunter-gatherers) to 30 billion (maximum efficiency farming). How close is humanity coming to straining the Earth's resources, economically?

The most pressing concern currently is oil, and the need for a replacement for it. Other than that, the price of natural resources is for the most part going down, not up, so the progress of technology is outstripping our population growth. That is to say, the point at which humanity differs from other species that might be more limited to the logistics curve: we can change the rules of our environment. Of course, a levelling off will eventually occour, and I have heard the nine billion figure before, so its is probably a reasonable enough guess.

Incidentally, we have had previous phases during which the world population has appeared to grow logistically, only for the curve to arc up again in later centuries. These were notably during the ancient world maxing at about the first century, and the late middle ages, maxing at the 1300s. Thogh the population took a hit after each of these local maxima, followed by some stagnation, it was nothing like 90% reduction, and moreover humanity eventually emerged from these eras more dynamic than before.

[Lord Zentei]

Ghetto:

It should be noted that the 30 billion figure you name (the one that assumes that all humanity will be using high intensity farming) is of course a theoretical possibility, it is not neccesarily the most likely in the forseeable future, which is why the populaiton is assumed to level off much sooner. Though technology is still outstripping population growth, the distribution of that technology is another matter.

[Surlethe]

The most pressing concern currently is oil, and the need for a replacement for it. Other than that, the price of natural resources is for the most part going down, not up, so the progress of technology is outstripping our population growth. That is to say, the point at which humanity differs from other species that might be more limited to the logistics curve: we can change the rules of our environment. Of course, a levelling off will eventually occour, and I have heard the nine billion figure before, so its is probably a reasonable enough guess.

The picture I'm getting in my head is that the long run population growth of humanity can be modeled as a function of time, which is a logistic curve with a carrying capacity K. Then K is a function of the long run aggregate supply, which is, in turn, dependent on technological capacity (if I remember this correctly). So technology permits a population to increase the carrying capacity of its area, thus parameterizing the logistic curve by technology. Does that make sense?

Incidentally, we have had previous phases during which the world population has appeared to grow logistically, only for the curve to arc up again in later centuries. These were notably during the ancient world maxing at about the first century, and the late middle ages, maxing at the 1300s. Though the population took a hit after each of these local maxima, followed by some stagnation, it was nothing like 90% reduction, and moreover humanity eventually emerged from these eras more dynamic than before.

Do these maxima correspond to the total long run aggregate supply available to the world population prior to some technological advance which increased the LRAS and made it possible to sustain further growth?

[Lord Zentei]

The picture I'm getting in my head is that the long run population growth of humanity can be modeled as a function of time, which is a logistic curve with a carrying capacity K. Then K is a function of the long run aggregate supply, which is, in turn, dependent on technological capacity (if I remember this correctly). So technology permits a population to increase the carrying capacity of its area, thus parameterizing the logistic curve by technology. Does that make sense?

It does make sense, though the effects of such technological advancement on the carrying capacity seem to be dependant on long term improvements, otherwise we would presumably see a steady growth rather than a series of wave-like phases.

Do these maxima correspond to the total long run aggregate supply available to the world population prior to some technological advance which increased the LRAS and made it possible to sustain further growth?

You would have to ask a historian. Though there is the matter of the technology saturating the economy as well as it simply being available. Also, it may be a matter of change in the social environment that allowed such innovation to be implemented.

BTW, there is another reason this Pianka is a tool: he complains about how humanity is "grown fat, apathetic and miserable, all the while leaving the planet parched." Is modern humanity - the part of it that is fat and apathetic, that is - more "misreable" than before? How does he quantify that? Is that meant to be a professional assessment? And a fat and apathetic population need not be a bad thing if you are worrying about a too-high populaiton growth: witness the population development in the West for a case in point. Bah.

[Pick]

You can't help but see some logic to this guy's statements though. If a lot of humanity did just vanish, plague or no, then a damn sight more species would be better off because of it, if only down to less land being taken by us.

For this reason, I'm not really tough on the guy. As far as I'm concerned, he's entitled to that perspective, in fact, probably more so than most given he's at least informed in a field that human population directly affects. I disagree with the means he supposedly advocaded, but if he is one of the "ends-justify-the-means" types then his viewpoint is going to reflect that. As long as he does not plan to implement anything or seriously spurn anyone else to do so, I am not offended by his mere suggestion.

[Surlethe]

The picture I'm getting in my head is that the long run population growth of humanity can be modeled as a function of time, which is a logistic curve with a carrying capacity K. Then K is a function of the long run aggregate supply, which is, in turn, dependent on technological capacity (if I remember this correctly). So technology permits a population to increase the carrying capacity of its area, thus parameterizing the logistic curve by technology. Does that make sense?

It does make sense, though the effects of such technological advancement on the carrying capacity seem to be dependant on long term improvements, otherwise we would presumably see a steady growth rather than a series of wave-like phases.

That would make sense, too; that's why I lumped the technological advancement in with the long run aggregate supply (if I understand the concept correctly).

Do these maxima correspond to the total long run aggregate supply available to the world population prior to some technological advance which increased the LRAS and made it possible to sustain further growth?

You would have to ask a historian. Though there is the matter of the technology saturating the economy as well as it simply being available. Also, it may be a matter of change in the social environment that allowed such innovation to be implemented.

Given your point above, it stands to reason that the wave-like phases correspond to a point where the technology had saturated the economy enough that long-term production increased.

BTW, there is another reason this Pianka is a tool: he complains about how humanity is "grown fat, apathetic and miserable, all the while leaving the planet parched." Is modern humanity - the part of it that is fat and apathetic, that is - more "misreable" than before? How does he quantify that? Is that meant to be a professional assessment? And a fat and apathetic population need not be a bad thing if you are worrying about a too-high populaiton growth: witness the population development in the West for a case in point. Bah.

Perhaps he defines "apathetic and miserable" in terms of the amount of sex one gets -- in which case, for an increasingly obese population, his claim is tautological.

[Admiral Valdemar]

We're a very much more unhealthy species in various ways to what we were in the past, mainly down to our general abundance and diet. Stress is also fast becoming the leading disease in society now, and that leads to mental and physiological problems that never existed like they do now in this rushed age. People living longer allows new ailments and stresses to arise too.