|
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
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Meeting Doctor Doom
Forrest
M. Mims III
Copyright
2006 by Forrest M. Mims III.
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 torturous 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
Link: http://www.sas.org/tcs/weeklyIssues_2006/2006-04-07/feature1p/index.html
| 