Eric Pianka -
Scientist and Intellectual
I know this isn't the typical Infidel news, but this may be the most stunning thing I have ever heard, and I feekl I need to share it with you:
What would happen if a world-renowned scientist and evolutionary ecologist told hundreds of his colleagues that 90 percent of the human race needed to be wiped out by exposure to Ebola or some other deadly virus?
Apparently, according to a scientist who claims to have witnessed such a remarkable event one month ago, the fiend would get a standing ovation and an award. That's the story being told by Forrest Mims III, a member of the Texas Academy of Science, chairman of its environmental science section and editor of the Citizen Scientist.
The speech Mims heard was delivered by Eric R. Pianka, a lizard expert from the University of Texas. It is recounted in detail in the latest issue of the Citizen Scientist.
"We're no better than bacteria," Mims quoted Pianka as saying in his condemnation of the human race, which, he claimed, is overpopulating the Earth. The only way to save the planet for the rest of the species is to reduce the human population to 10 percent of its current number.
"He then showed solutions for reducing the world's population in the form of a slide depicting the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse," writes Mims. "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."
Pianka notes in the online syllabus for his Diversity and Ecology class that the deadly form of Ebola – Ebola zaire – that has killed nine out of the 10 people infected currently only spreads by direct contact with infected blood, while Ebola reston, the close relative that currently kills only monkeys, is an airborne virus.
Evolution, he says, will in time result in an airborne form fatal to humans. Mims notes that when Pianka finished his remarks, the audience of fellow scientists and students burst out in sustained applause. During a question-and-answer sessions, the audience laughed approvingly when Pianka offered the bird flu as another vehicle toward achieving his goal.
They also chuckled when he suggested it was time to sterilize everyone on Earth. "What kind of reception have you received as you have presented these ideas to other audiences that are not representative of us?" asked one member of the audience. "I speak to the converted!" Pianka replied. Mims said he spoke glowingly of the police state in China that enforces a one-child policy.
"Smarter people have fewer kids," Mims quoted Pianka as saying. Following the question-and-answer session, Mims says "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."
Mims notes five hours later, 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," he writes.
6 comments:
Ever seen 12 Monkeys? This guy reminds me of the long-red haired guy with those vials the wreak utter destruction on the whole planet.
Who knows? The real threat to the future could be some biological professor bent on culling the human population.
Well, this guy really is a "distinguished Texas scientist" and is fully deserving. But, before anyone thinks I have gone off the deep end, let me explain. The Texas part seems ok. The scientist part seems quite weak. But, "distinguished," now that flies and deserves special recognition. If the innards of UT in Austin were not so far left as to be adjacent to Red China and the Putin Russia, they would have tarred and feathered this man, and even set his beard on fire: meeting the "distinguished" with the "deserved."
Call this award a cultural temperature taking, and it shows that the intelligentsia are still sick.
Well, one thing you can say about him is that he is very selective about his "science," and selects date to fit into his wishes. Not a great "people-person," huh?
Also not exactly a Capitalist.
It is true, upon examination, that the birthrate of any species is in inverse proportion to the likelihood of survival of the offspring. Mother Nature is no fool, after all.
Shad, for example, and corals, have masses and masses of offspring, because so few (even sometimes none out of a particular batch) survive. Typically, beyond fertilization, there is no parental involvement in the care of the offspring. The only energy expended by the parents is producing the offspring - there is no "biological cost" to the adults beyond production.
The greater the length of time and the quality of parental care, the more the "cost," biologically, to the parents. But the payoff is that the more nearly the parents' care is able to assure the survival of the offspring, so the "cost-benefit" to the adult is worth the investment, in terms of passing on his/her genes and, as a spin-off, in keeping the species alive.
Human beings spend a very long time caring for their offspring. In poor countries though, where the quality of care is not up to par with that in wealthier countries (e.g., medical care is not as good or as available, food is not as abundant, education is available to fewer people, fewer manufactured goods that improve survival are available, etc.), you find that the reproductive rate is higher. This explains, in no small way, the entrenched custom in Islamic countries to have as many babies as possible. In these countries, the entrenchment has become so complete that it is a virtual religious obligation. It also explains the population density of countries like Mexico.
So long as a social system does not allow the individual the freedom to think, invent, create, and produce, it will have a problem of "overpopulation" in response to it. Such systems simply are not able to provide enough to assure that most offspring will survive.
The answer to the problem of populations that outpace the capacity of their social systems to produce enough to assure is the survival of most of their children isn't to forcibly destroy the "excess."
The answer is to adopt a social system that can produce whatever is necessary to assure the surival of most of its children, obviating the biologically-driven desire for more and more children.
The greatest social system ever developed, one that meets that criterion, is Capitalism.
Capitalism is based on respect for individual rights and all that it subsumes, up to and including things like innovation, creativity, freedom to think, productivity, restriction on government intervention into the affairs of people EXCEPT to prevent violation of individual rights.
In a capitalist society, or at least those societies with some elements of capitalism, the growth rate is consistent with the ability of the economy to provide for survival. In places like the Soviet Union and France, populations decreased not because of capitalism, obviously, but because the parents were so exhausted and depleted that by having more children, they are putting their own survival at risk (that's another story), and can no longer justify having more children.
China, on the other hand, has historically been poor, and only in recent times has the communist government lightened up controls enough to permit some economic progress. Instead of going the whole nine yards, and becoming a Capitalist society, they are showing their totalitarian nature with draconian attempts to control population levels.
If Capitalism were fully adopted, the birthrate would begin to fall naturally, as decisions to have fewer children were made by parents, not the government.
This dumbcluck says smart people have fewer children. Too bad his own parents weren't a bit more intelligent...
And if he wants to cut down the numbers, why not start by looking in the mirror? Of course, what these people really mean is not fewer people of ANY sort: just fewer of the 'plebs'. The self-appointed elite are to survive, naturally.
All he needs is a good whipping to help unclog the space between his ear passages!
I picked up this story. It fits nicely with the things I write on ecology and fascism, gnosticsim and fascism, and the history of rational agriculture.
Wow, am I ever a fun and well-rounded guy.
Does belief in islam have biogenetic roots?
Couldn't someone engineer some version of the virus that only attacks hosts with faulty mental state such as propensity to believe false religios notions?
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