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02
April 2006
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.
Members
of the media may call Dr. Shawn Carlson at 401-487-1462.
Link: http://www.sas.org/tcs/weeklyIssues_2006/2006-04-07/editorial-p/index.html
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