Scientist(s) Support Genocide of the Human Race

Someone sure doesn't know how to ask for taxpayer funding.

Hat Tip to Coast to Coast for the interesting link.

I am quoting the thing in full since stories like these disappear very fast.

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

And the follow-up linked article. With links preserved for easy-access.

02 April 2006
Special Editorial by the Executive Director
Dealing
with Doctor Doom
Shawn Carlson, Ph.D. MacArthur Fellow Founder and Executive
Director,Society for Amateur
Scientists Creator, LABRats
Forrest M. Mims III has
reported in a Special Feature in The Citizen Scientist ("Meeting
Dr. Doom," 31 March 2006) on a lecture he recently heard at a
meeting of the Texas Academy of Science. The Academy chose to honor one Professor Eric R.
Pianka, an eminent ecologist who studies desert ecologies, with its
2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist Scientist award. Professor Pianka used the
occasion to champion the notion, apparently without sanction of the Academy,
that the Earth can only be saved if ninety percent of the human beings alive
today are purged form the planet. He championed airborne Ebola as the most
efficient virus to accomplish this. And while he stopped short of calling for
terrorist action to bring this result about, he clearly implied that this was a
right and proper future for our species and our planet. Astonishingly, after
advocating for a future in which more than 5,000,000,000 persons would die a
slow and agonizing death, many members of the Texas Academy of Science stood to
their feet and applauded.
I want to answer two questions here. Do academic
institutions like the Texas Academy of Science have a duty to provide Professor Pianka a forum to advance these
ideas? And what might the consequences be of allowing him to do so? My answer to
the first question is a resounding "no." Furthermore, I am convinced that
continuing to allow Professor Pianka unfettered access to impressionable
students could one day lead to a loss of life that could make the Killing Fields
of Southeast Asia look like a picnic ground.
Let me explain.
First, do
Pianka's opinions deserve protection under the rubric of academic freedom? Well,
that depends on whether this ideas are truly academic—that is, that they are
consistent with the best understanding of our world that science has
established.
Now consider Pianka's arguments.
Pianka claims that the
natural world would be "better off" if there weren't so many humans. To see if
that's true, we have to figure out just what constitutes the "natural world"? As
an evolutionist, I see human beings as the products of the same natural forces
that shaped all other life on earth. Our brains evolved on this planet subject
to the same kinds of natural selection pressures as those that shaped peacock
feathers. The same can be said of all of our social structures, our religions
and every other aspect of what we are that helped us secure resources and
propagate our species (the hammer and anvil of natural selection). In short, our
institutions and our technology are every bit as much a part of the natural
world as elk mating rituals and beaver dams. In fact, by evolving the ability to
adapt the world to fit us , human beings have become better at securing
resources and procreating than any other vertebrate on the planet. By this
measure, we are evolution's most successful creation (amongst vertebrates). If
extraterrestrials were asked to select nature's most successful vertebrate on
the Earth they would certainly point to us.
So it seems very strange to me
for an evolutionist to identify one of evolution's most successful creations as
somehow operating outside the natural order. To do so is to deny this undeniable
truth of evolution.
Pianka, however, is an evolutionist who believes that
humanity is not part of the natural world. Somehow, the fact our evolution led
us to a point whereby we can adapt our environment to our bodies, rather than
wait for our bodies to adapt to our environment, puts us in an inferior position
in nature. In his mind, Homo sapiens are the despoilers, the corruptors of the
natural order. This viewpoint is every bit as anthropocentric as those who would
place humans in a superior position, saying that we are the "pinnacle of
evolution" or "chosen by God." Only instead of lauding humanity's position in
nature, Pianka denigrates it. Evolution supports neither camp.
Pianka is, of
course, free to ignore the evidence and believe that humanity is, as he says,
the "scourge" on the natural world. But this is a political opinion based on
some vision he holds in his mind about the way the world ought to be. It is not
a scientific fact. Indeed, it is a glaring scientific fallacy.
Pianka also
argues that human beings are now so densely populated that they provide an idea
vector for disease transmission, and he expects that microbes will "ultimately
purge the Earth of the scourge of humanity." (Personal correspondence with
Forrest Mims.)
The data stand utterly against this idea. Plagues have run
rampant through human populations throughout time. Millions have died. Huge
fractions of some populations have been wiped out. But the net death rate has
never come close to the fractions that Pianka envisions. Virulent diseases that
kill quickly tend to burn themselves out. Natural selection creates less lethal
varieties because an organism can't spread if it kills its host before it can
propagate. The flu pandemic of 1918 (the influenza virus is championed by
Pianka) may have killed 50 million people, but that was only about 5 percent of
those infected. Moreover, every year sees medical advancements—screening
techniques improve, as do our methods of creating new vaccines and treating
illness of all kinds. Not only that, a desperate situation would be met by
desperate measures, including the implementation of martial law, the halting of
all air and ground traffic except for emergency vehicles and so on, to stop
contagion.
In short, there is no historical precedent that supports the
notion that humanity could be ninety percent depopulated by a single disease.
Moreover, as time goes on and our technology and awareness grows, the risk to
humanity is steadily falling. Professor Pianka can believe that microbes will
depopulate the earth if he wants, and such alarmist nonsense by some Ph.D.s
sells lots of books. However, Pianka's viewpoint runs contrary to the best
science.
Since neither of Pianka's foundational assertions are consistent
with the best interpretation of the scientific evidence, his opinions on these
matters are merely political rants. They therefore do not deserve protection
under the doctrine of academic freedom, and scientific institutions like the
Texas Academy of Science should have no problem refusing to provide speakers of
his ilk a platform to publicly advance these positions.
The Society for
Amateur Scientists would certainly not allow such ideas to be promulgated in any
forum that we operate, and we hereby call on all other scientific institutions
of conscious to do likewise.
Professor Pianka's Death Wish
But all this
begs an important question. How could such an eminent ecologist, as Eric R.
Pianka clearly is, be so solidly on the side of absurdity and death? His on
online "obituary" is an independent indication of his fascination with death. This
document, which is actually a brief autobiography, provides some
important clues.
Professor Pianka describes himself as both a "hermit" and a
"desert rat" who has spent years living in total isolation in various deserts
while devoted to his studies of lizard ecology.
Now, what kind of man could
forsake the company of his own kind for years? I certainly couldn't. Humans are,
after all, communal animals. We are biologically programmed to seek out the
company—the love and support and companionship—of our own species, and I feel
that need very strongly. A happy hermit simply must not strongly feel this basic
drive that lies at the very foundation of our sense of community and of our own
humanity.
I can only conclude that years ago Eric Pianka must have lost
touch with his essential humanity, that is, a strong emotional need for his own
kind. Now, perhaps driven by that terrible depression
that can occur in old men, he seems to have lost touch with reality.
I offer
this under the touchstone of Ockham's
razor: I think that depression provides the least remarkable
explanation for Pianka's mental descent. According to his "obit," Professor
Pianka was born in 1939, and depression can be a side effect of aging,
especially in men. Moreover, men often express their depression by becoming
angry at the world—the "grumpy old man" syndrome. And elderly depressed men
often become fixated on death. Finally, these men often refuse to admit they
have a problem, and so depressed men in Pianka's age group rarely seek
treatment.
If this explanation is the right one, then he needs to be treated
by a psychopharmacologist with expertise in depression. Until he does receive
the necessary care, we must think of him as a person in pain, and as such
Professor Pianka is certainly deserving of all of our compassion. But we must
not allow our compassion to move us to complacency in light of grave and
immediate danger of his message.
The Piankians
Some of my friends would
prefer to simply dismiss Professor Pianka's philosophy as merely the rantings of
an old coot; a wild-eyed mountain man who's compassion and judgment have
deteriorated with age and long exposure to the torments of the desert sun. After
all, they point out, the good doctor hasn't actually called for acts of
terrorism. He hasn't declared that he wants people to bring about the painful
deaths of over 5,000,000,000 human beings.
True enough. Professor Pianka has
never, so far as I know, advocated that human beings should act to bring about
the depopulation of the planet. He says only that he thinks that it will happen,
that it has to happen if the earth is too survive, and he strongly implies that
he thinks it would be a good thing if it did happen. So, is Pianka really a
dangerous man?
Sadly, I think he is. You see, I'm old enough to remember
another desert-living child of the '60s who once had followers. And Professor
Pianka is much more charismatic than Charlie Manson ever was. Moreover, Pianka
has access to captive audiences of impressionable young students in his college
classes and lectures.
Will Pianka one day have his own "family" of followers
living in the wild with him? Who is to say? But for an interesting take on this
question, consider this blog
post (scroll down to 9 March) by a new and young Piankian who
became converted at his Texas Academy of Science lecture.
I simply remember
history. Adolph Hitler did not invent social ideologies based on hatred of the
Jews. He pulled the core of Nazi philosophy from certain influential German
philosophers. Rather, Hitler's "final solution" merely took these perverted
ideas farther than those philosophers could have imagined any sane person would
take them.
I believe, with the terrible experience of the bloodiest century
in human history behind us, that all men and women of conscious in the 2001st
century must be proactive in our opposition to genocidal or apocalyptic
philosophies before they have the chance to inspire some new champion with the
will to take their conclusions to the next step.
The "Scourge" of the
Earth
The more people who believe Professor Pianka's philosophy that humanity
is the "scourge" of the earth, and that the earth would be better off if
5,000,000,000 of us were to die a painful death, the longer men and women of
conscious allow this idea to go unchallenged, the greater is the likelihood some
disturbed people will take it upon themselves to try to help realize that
vision.
And there is plenty of precedent.
Do you recall the Egyptian
Airline copilot who committed suicide by crashing a commercial airliner full of
passengers into the Atlantic? What about the AIDS-infected dentist who became so
depressed about his condition and angry with the world that he inoculated
innocent patients with that terrible virus? Think about all the murder-suicides
committed each year. Do you remember that California doomsday cult lead by an
old cancer-riddled guru who convinced his followers that they could to ride a
comet to Heaven? Snipers in clock towers… terrorist bombers… all people who were
willing to kill themselves and many others because of some misguided notion that
they were serving a higher cause.
So what if some Piankian disciple—a former
student, perhaps, who works in a biological research or weapons laboratory—gains
access to a deadly pathogen? What if that person becomes clinically depressed?
His wife divorces him, his child dies, he discovers he's dying of cancer… Do you
think a depressed and angry Piankian just might convince himself that releasing
that agent would be a great service to the higher cause of saving the Earth? Do
you think he might be able to infect himself, and then use his own body as the
vector to infect others?
I do, too.
And that is why we cannot afford to
ignore when academics stand and applaud a man who they just heard openly
advocate that the world would be better off if over 5,000,000,000 human beings
were to die as a result of a horrible disease.
The Citizen Scientist
Community Must Respond
When the professional scientists have lost their sense
of moral outrage of such ideologies, then it falls to America 's great community
of citizen scientists to be the conscious of science. If we do nothing when
others stand and applaud ideologies of pseudoscience and death, then history
will hold us all to account for our failure to shake the very rafters in support
of truth and human life.
Professor Pianka's ideas are horrifically and
dangerously wrong. And they must be struggled against. I urge every reader of
The Citizen Scientist to voice their serious concern over this matter in letters
and phone calls to the Regents of the University of Texas and to the President
of the Texas Academy of Science.
E-mail the Regents of the University of
Texas here. Or write
Regents of the University of Texas, 201 W. 7th Street, Suite 820, Austin, TX
78701-2981. Telephone: 512-499-4402. Fax: 512-499-4425.
E-mail the President
of the Texas Academy of Science here. Or write Dr. David
S. Marsh, President, Texas Academy of Science, Headquarters, USAF/DFB, 2355
Faculty Drive, Suite 2P389, United States Air Force Academy, CO 80840-6226.
Telephone: 719-333-6031.

All of the people who wrote in on this should be commended. It is not everyday that someone goes out and trash-talks fellow scientist Well, it does happen every day. But they found special circumstances to call him on advocating terroristic activities. It is scary that an acadamecian would promote the near annihilation of the human species. (Granted, we would survive and live on but advocating 5 billion deaths is unimaginable.)

Pleas get the word out on this. Everyone should know about this psycho scientist, and his cultist followers.