This story is so amazing/silly/horrifying that it’s taken a few days to sink in. Short version: Dr. Eric Pianka of the University of Texas, an internationally recognized ecologist, goes around giving talks warning that the Earth is in major trouble. We’re headed for an ecological disaster, and human beings in particular are in serious danger of being wiped out by a deadly virus like Ebola, perhaps leading to the death of 90% of our current population. It might even be good for the environment over all (although bad for us, obviously). He’s an alarmist, no doubt about it, but it’s better to hear about such disaster scenarios than to simply ignore them.
And then — and here’s the part that is so bizarre that it takes a while to really believe it — “citizen scientist” and creationist Forrest Mims apparently heard Pianka give a talk, and decided that Pianka is advocating that we release a virus to kill 90% of the Earth’s population. Completely untrue, of course; just a simple-minded and mean-spirited twisting of the guy’s words. Even from the original story, you could tell that there was a serious disconnect between portrayal and reality — the actual quotes from Pianka didn’t measure up to the surrounding alarmist hysteria.
But the right-wing/creationist blogosphere has gone completely nutso over this. I thought my fellow left-wing/scientific friends might be exaggerating the reaction a bit, but it’s true — dozens of posts about the crazy “Dr. Doom” who longs to bring down our civilization through bioterrorism. ID advocate (and tireless defender of academic freedom!) William Dembski has taken the obvious step for someone who is unhinged but nevertheless concerned — he has reported Pianka to the Department of Homeland Security. A good summary of the craziness has been written by Nick Matzke at the Panda’s Thumb; more coverage from PZ Myers (and here), Ed Brayton, Wesley Elsberry (and here), and DarkSyde (and here).
There’s a lesson here, although damned if I can figure out what it is. PZ thinks that these people are just anti-academic, and that it’s part of a campaign to discredit the very notion of expertise. But I suspect that it’s less calculated than that — we’re talking about folks who find it completely plausible to imagine that liberal biology professors are eager to wipe out most of the human race. The basic cognitive short-circuit seems to be an inability to understand the difference between a sentiment of the form “A human population of one billion is more ecologically sustainable than one of six billion” and something like “I would like to personally murder five out of every six living people.” It’s the right-wing equivalent of people who think that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated by Halliburton and/or the Mossad. Except that it’s not a fringe movement; the buzz is all over the right hemiblogosphere, and was straightforwardly reported by Matt Drudge and others.
Next time I mention that a decay of our vacuum state via bubble nucleation could wipe out life on Earth, I’ll make sure there aren’t any creationists in the audience. I can’t imagine explaining that to the Department of Homeland Security.
This is a simple story of IDers masquerading as scientists. The aim of these masqueraders is to exterminate real scientists. Would the real scientists please stand up?
Dear Cynthia,
Eric Pianka is not only a weird and morbid man but also a highly accomplished and cited biologist – an evolution expert and a lizard expert. See
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22eric+pianka%22
Your explanations won’t work. At any rate, it is kind of amusing that with the exception of Wolfgang, everyone else here needs at least 50 hours to understand that Pianka really thinks that the death of 5.8 billion people by Ebola, which should occur soon, will really improve the ecosystem. All those who have no problems with reading and understanding could have learned it within 2 minutes after they started to write my text about it.
I wonder how many more days or years most of you guys need to decide what is the right politically correct answer to the question whether 5.8 billion people should be replaced by 5.9 billion bacteria – the latter are more valuable according to Pianka’s egalitarianism. What I am confident about is that there is a unique answer that all of you will eventually agree upon, even though none of you knows the answer by now.
Good luck
Lubos
Lubos, you have yet to priovide any convincing evidance. maybe thats why we find it hard to accept. you know, being scientist, fact are important. the only thing you have done is cited some rediculous internet news sites, and google scholar (beta). the only to sources i have seen with huge amounts of credibility where your CNN and ABC news articles, both of which quote a creationist quoting Pianka, not pianka himself. oh and two students on a professor review site. of which he has probly had 100’s of students and it sounds most of them love his class and him. i am under the assumtion most people are sane, and if you could prove that Pianka actualy advocated the slow painful death of billions of people that i will join you in your crusade against him. but the problem is he didnt. he said there is potential, and he may have even made a joke about it. but you know what? jokes, as morbid as they are, are jokes and nothing more. i personaly find dead babie jokes to be hilarious, but i dont advocate the murduring of babies for amusment.
just because Pianka hates the damage we as a humane race have done to this planet does not make him a threat to our society, nor is it worth ruining his reputation as a, and i quote “evolution expert and a lizard expert.”
also, why was he aplauded by a huge group of people who i am sure most of which where sane. probly not because he advocated the death of billions, but because he is a powerful speaker and an expert in his field.
oh and science makes many great points.
Spatulated, thanks for coming to my rescue by challenging Lubos Logic.
Lubos Motl’s Reference Frame anagrams to Forms a Cerebellum Softener.
The new “reference frame”
Take whatever position Lubos has articulated, rotate it 180 degrees and you are probably right.
Elliot
Elliot, highly perceptive use of reference framing!
No problem Cynthia, i got your back! heh
It seems that nobody has the actual quotes of Pianka, so any “proof” about his motives based on this particular lecture is built on second-hand information.
However, if you accept the premise that humanity is not currently keeping a sustainable life style due to the sheer number of us around, then you can interpret Pianka as follows:
1. Humanity should survive.
2. Humanity needs an ecosystem that satisfies certain criteria.
3. Overpopulation threatens to push the ecosystem outside this regime.
4. Population reduction is inevitable either via natural causes or via human intervention.
5. Given humanity’s track record, it’ll probably be natural causes.
Let’s just hope that natural causes leave enough humans around to start the whole circus again (this time without monotheism please).
I’ve read Pianka’s speech, and he’s no raving lunatic. It is false to claim he urges that anyone die.
Quite to the contrary, Pianka laments the destruction of our planet, and the consequent destruction of humans. Anyone with an ounce of rationality would understand that from the speech.
Hey, this is Texas. I don’t care how liberal a group of Texans you have, we sing the Star-Spangled Banner and salute the flag, love our country, apple pie, especially Mom, our spouses and the kids, and we don’t urge the death of billions. There were, by Mims’ account, a couple hundred Texans at that meeting. If Pianka got a standing ovation from that many Texans, you can bet your life that he was not advocating anyone’s death.
The slandering and sliming of Dr. Pianka is just the latest episode in the right-wing’s war on science. Shame on them.
It could spread to the U.S.
Ha, I like that.
Never mind about the rest of the world, bird flu could affect the USA!!
I know you probably didn’t mean it that way, but when you phrase it as if the worse thing that could possibly happen is if the disease spread to America…
Personally, I think that a natural occuring virus as got no chance of killing 90% of the worlds population, a virus gains no evolutionary advantage by killing a massive amount people in a small amount of time. It is also very unlikey that such a reduction would have any benefit for the planet, I believe such a reduction has happen before and may very well have created the overpopulation problem in the first place. The 10% left over could create a race, that could be immune to most viruses, and within 100,000 years you would have an even bigger population problem.
The only type of virus that could come close to the 90% kill rate, would be one that remain dormant inside every person. Then when every person it can infect, is infected, it would activate using our comuncation system or entanglement. killing everyone in 48 hours, all around the world…
The bubonic plagues that killed so many peolpe in europe crowed citys, from what i have read were probably cases Ergotism. Most of the plauges occured after a massive amount of rain and flooding, which would have infected the grain. I have read an account of people going crazy, in these outbreaks of so called bubonic plagues.
From what I have seen today, is that viruses are using our immune systems and turning it against us, by the looks of it, viruses have change tactics. It really not the hard to fiqure out why.
let say that; if a virus that can kill 90% of everyone on the planet, by boosting the immune system, was to infect the globe then the only people to survive, would if fact already be infected by AIDS or HIV, who would then die them selfs many years after. I would say we would in fact be facing extinction or a reduction of 98%. leaving about 128 million peolpe if we are lucky.
Extinction in a natural fact, it is more probable that man, will become extinct rather than survive to see the human race leave our solar system, for another.
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