Let Us Know When He Volunteers to Be Part of the 90%Proving once again that there are some things
so stupid only an intellectual could believe them:
A University of Texas professor says the Earth would be better off with 90 percent of the human population dead.
"Every one of you who gets to survive has to bury nine," Eric Pianka cautioned students and guests at St. Edward's University on Friday. Pianka's words are part of what he calls his "doomsday talk" - a 45-minute presentation outlining humanity's ecological misdeeds and Pianka's predictions about how nature, or perhaps humans themselves, will exterminate all but a fraction of civilization.This is of course is a flavor of misanthropy. And the depths of his idiocy are revealed here:
To Pianka, a human life is no more valuable than any other - a lizard, a bison, a rhino. And as humans reproduce, the demand for resources like food, water and energy becomes more than the Earth can sustain, he says.I seem to remember one of the PETA kooks claiming that a dog is a pig is a rat is a boy, which obviously raises the question of what he would think if somebody killed his son.
Pharyngula is concerned that
there are death threats, and hastens to clarify:
The accounts from people who were there agree that Pianka was not encouraging the "unleashing" of viruses on people, but was warning of a likely natural result (and apparently, mentioning that this would be a great thing for the biosphere as a whole, despite its dire consequences for us).By the same logic, if somebody were to kill Pianka, it would be a great thing for the biosphere as a whole, despite its dire consequences for him. (Kidding!)
The blogger cited in the article who approved of
Pianka's lecture is here.
Dr. Pianka's talk at the TAS meeting was mostly of the problems humans are causing as we rapidly proliferate around the globe. While what he had to say is way too vast to remember it all, moreover to relay it here in this blog, the bulk of his talk was that he's waiting for the virus that will eventually arise and kill off 90% of human population. In fact, his hope, if you can call it that, is that the ebola virus which attacks humans currently (but only through blood transmission) will mutate with the ebola virus that attacks monkeys airborne to create an airborne ebola virus that attacks humans. He's a radical thinker, that one! I mean, he's basically advocating for the death of all but 10% of the current population! And at the risk of sounding just as radical, I think he's right.
