That’s the idea coming from a professor at the University of Texas. And we’re not talking about off’ing just a few people – nope. He suggest 90 percent of the population would be a good start.
“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.
Though his statements are admittedly bold, he’s not without abundant advocates. But what may set this revered biologist apart from other doomsday soothsayers is this: Humanity’s collapse is a notion he embraces.
Indeed, his words deal, very literally, on a life-and-death scale, yet he smiles and jokes candidly throughout the lecture. Disseminating a message many would call morbid, Pianka’s warnings are centered upon awareness rather than fear.
“This is really an exciting time,” he said Friday amid warnings of apocalypse, destruction and disease. Only minutes earlier he declared, “Death. This is what awaits us all. Death.” Reflecting on the so-called Ancient Chinese Curse, “May you live in interesting times,” he wore, surprisingly, a smile.
According to Pianka, 5.8 billion people should be systematically killed. That’s right, good ‘ol fashioned Genocide. Incredible? Yes. Thankfully, there are still a few right minded people in this world.
But don’t tell local “citizen scientist” Forrest Mims to quietly swallow Pianka’s call to awareness. Mims says it’s an “abhorrent death wish” and contends he has “no choice but to take a stand.”
Mims attended the educator’s doomsday presentation at the Texas Academy of Science’s annual meeting March 2-4. There, the organization honored Pianka as its 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist — another issue Mims vocally opposes.
“This guy is a loose cannon to believe that worldwide genocide is the only answer,” said Mims, who filed two formal petitions with the academy following the meeting.
Joining the crusade, James Pitts, who received a Ph.D. in physics from UT-Austin, became the second to publicly chastise Pianka when he filed a complaint Saturday with the UT board of regents. He insists a state university is no place to disseminate such views.
He writes:
“Pianka’s message does not fall within the realm of his professional competence as a biologist, because it is a normative claim, not a descriptive one. Pianka is encouraged to use his ecological expertise to predict the likely consequences of certain technological and reproductive strategies, but to evaluate some as good, bad, or worthy of prevention by genocide is the realm of philosophy or political science, not science. His message falls no more within his professional competence than it would for a physicist to teach religion in class or a musician to encourage racism.”
The most dangerous thing about Pianka is that he’s currently employed and paid to instruct young minds. What’s to stop these younglings from becoming supporters of their professor and his wacko “Final Solution”? Apparently, his former students have already weighed in. They think he’s the bees knees.
Most of Pianka’s former students are bursting with praise. Their in-class evaluations celebrate his ideas with words like “the most incredible class I ever had” and “Pianka is a GOD!”
Mims counters their ovation with the story of a Texas Lutheran University student who attended the Academy of Science lecture. Brenna McConnell, a biology senior, said she and others in the audience “had not thought seriously about overpopulation issues and a feasible solution prior to the meeting.” But though McConnell arrived at the event with little to say on the issue, she returned to Seguin with a whole new outlook.
An entry to her online blog captures her initial response to what’s become a new conviction:
“[Pianka is] a radical thinker, that one!” she wrote. “I mean, he’s basically advocating for the death for all but 10 percent of the current population. And at the risk of sounding just as radical, I think he’s right.”
Today, she maintains the Earth is in dire straits. And though she’s decided Ebola isn’t the answer, she’s still considering other deadly viruses that might take its place in the equation.
“Maybe I just see the virus as inevitable because it’s the easiest answer to this problem of overpopulation,” she said.
Congratulations Mom and Dad! Aren’t you glad you forked over tens of thousands of dollars to pay for an education like the one being provided by Professor Pianka and his accomplices at the University of Texas? Oh, and let’s not forget about tax payer money that funds the grants and the student loans which enable these individuals to hear, digest, and conclude that this crap might actually be legitimate.
Pianka is quite a character. On his website, he’s known as “The Lizard Man”. His biography is written in the form of an obituary. He lived in the desert for 10 years, alone. He likes to think of himself as a hermit. He has posted pictures of himself standing next to a bull he calls “Lucifer”. He publishes his university owned email address as being hosted by heaven/hell.com. When clicked upon, the address actually resolves to pianka@mail.utexas.edu. Obviously, a strange attempt at humor. I wonder what the University thinks about that?
Wanna know what worries me most? There are thousands of Pianka’s in the U.S. teaching our kids to hate America, devalue God given life, reject Judeo-Christian values, and adopt a world-view based in moral relativism. Why do we willingly relinquish and hand over control of future generations to these radicals? Nevermind mass human extermination, I propose we save the earth from people like Pianka.
UPDATE: Pianka receives threats after being outed by Drudge.
If he really believes this, then he should lead the way.
Dr Doom Plans to Save Earth by Wiping Out 90% of Humans
I am so shocked, I don’t find the right words. I’d like to hope it’s a hoax… one scientist can go mad, but the entire Texas Academy of Science giving a standing ovation to this nutcase would-be mass murderer? WTF?
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Open up your minds people!! Try to think for yourself. Death is NOT the worst thing that could happen to you. I think that he is saying that mother earth will wipe out the appropriate amount of humans so she can live on. You can not deny that humans are destroying the earth.. anyone heard of global warming?
The Earth will take care of herself, if that means killing off invaders, I mean humans, than so be it. She is already doing so with the hurricanes and other natural disasters, and it won’t be too long until a virus comes around that will kill off alot of the humans.
Personally, I find that it would be interesting to go to one of his lectures.
Global warming caused by humans, is a fallacy used as an excuse to do what he proposes, kill and sterilize us, through food, water and the air, so there. We are not enemies of Earth, we are brilliant beings, so upgrade your brain matter, because one day it may matter.
Humans are greasy, self-important, paranoid primates who have no more right to exist and survive then any other species of plant or animal. We contribute absolutely nothing to the cause of life on Earth while doing everything we can to destroy it. Our extinction will be noteworthy because we will be the only species to have actually deserved oblivion on a purely moral basis. In other words, we deserve extinction. We’ve truly earned it. And with each passing day, we make it clearer and clearer just how much this poor planet deserves a life free of human filth, selfishness and bloody-mindedness.
hahahaha…that gave me quite a laugh! I’m currently a student in Pianka’s Evolutionary Ecology class at UT and…well, this is just a bunch of bull.
“According to Pianka, 5.8 billion people should be systematically killed. That’s right, good ‘ol fashioned Genocide.”
I’ve talked to Eric about the subject a lot over the course of this semester and I assure you, he does not support this all. He does say things like:
“A sustainable global human population in which everyone could live comfortably would be around 500 million people.”
I think we could probably go a little higher than that actually but when you ask him how we could get our population down, he does not say genocide. (Actually, genocide is the systemcatic killing of a particular race or group of people…so I think it just remarks on the author’s stupidity in that they see the the random killing of 5.8 billion people as a form of genocide…can you think of a group of people that consists of 5.8 billion individuals? Pretty retarded, huh?) What he says is:
“I think we just have to make it really politically incorrect to have more than 2 children.”
Uh oh…leave it up to Dr. Doom to throw around terms like “politically incorrect”! And he has a point. I read the other day that the average woman in Nigeria has 6 children in her lifetime. Let’s do a little math for a second:
A woman has 6 children each of who has 6 more children each of who has 6 more children…etc.
1–>6–>36–216–>1296–>7776–>46656–>279,936–>1,679,716–>10,077,696–>60,466,176…u get the idea…
Exponetial growth is a bitch! But this is basically what humanity’s population has done in the last 500 years (a death rate in our population cuts back on the rate of growth). I mean, I think it’s pretty clear TO ANYONE that our population can’t increase forever, so what can we do about it? Well…i guess maybe the most MILD solution would be…
“I think we just have to make it really politically incorrect to have more than 2 children.”
Oh, that Dr. Doom!!!
The earth is going to hell in a handbasket at a rapid rate. It doesn’t really matter if you believe it or not but when the shit starts hitting the fan get as far away from civilization as you can.
If there were no humans, the earth wouldn’t be doomed. We are the most destructive force in the world, maybe in the universe. It’s in our nature to destroy everthing we come into contact with, we wage war, litter, pollute and yet we don’t care. We act like it. Simply There’s no way that we can stop this unless there’s no humans. Every solution we try to make, well fail. Our disturtive nature well never change and so the earth will die along with us.
ive been preaching this for years about time some other smart people began to face the obvious
We kill billions of life forms every year for selfish reasons. One of our more legitimate reasons for killing animals is population control. Right now we are overpopulating the earth. The vast majority of humans need to die in order for the planet, and ultimately us, to survive. This is necessary, because we are parasites. We do not fit into our environments. We simply use up all resources and move on to the next location. We must do something different, despite whether we like it or not.
If there is one thing we know about human history is that we do not learn from human history and we are very reluctant to change-especially our ‘wonderful lifestyle’. Humans will not alter the way they live just to save the planet-even when the waves are hitting our front door. Out of control population growth, out of control pollution, destruction of the natural world- if u do not agree that this planet NEEDS a massive reduction of population in order to survive then u have your head up your arse. The evidence is undeniable. Hopefully nature will squash us out of existence ‘cos we deserve it. We cull other animals when they are in plaque proportions, why not cull the most destructive animal. The poor simpleton refuting the professor needs to open his mind, look beyond his precious self and next time do his homework
Introducing yet another crazy follower of the government’s “People are going to destroy the planet” scheme.
Global warming? load of crap. Why was it called climate change again? oh because the world wasn’t getting warmer. How do we tell if the world is getting worse or not? Isn’t it interesting that humans are living much longer than they did back in the day?
Why is it that the world is so precious that with a small bit of carbon dioxied (which, by the way, trees and plants need to LIVE) would actually destroy the planet? C’mon, it’s like the world was set up to fail!
Open your eyes to the truth! Carbon dioxide is everywhere! Without it, earth wouldn’t be able to support life!
I am not a student of pianka, but did study biology. Pianka is right.
Punditguy, wake up and smell the coffee you reactionary, probably religious (as most of you sort if idiot are religious) twat. Bet you are anti-choice.
‘citizen scientist’ Forrest is no scientist. Clearly,
Our species cannot continue to reproduce and consume at the rate we currently are. It is not sustainable, and unless we make some big changes we are headed for a collapse.
Not having more than 2 children would be a start.
Naomi, you were probably exposed to too much carbon dioxide Olin the womb which is shy you continue to spout such crap.
I would like nothing better than to start a cull, beginning with specimens like our author, dann, Naomi, Zoli, and jd Watson.
I am with him all the way. Not off-ing people but simply just lowering the earths population for comming generations survival. Stop putting money into curing cancer and put that money into researching for instance the endangered fish speciaes (wish we have no idea how bad it actually is).
Mutating the HIV virus to go airborne would do the trick. A virus that has decades to be transmitted before it kills the hosts is necessary to become a pandemic. Maybe 10% of the world population would have natural immunity or would be isolated enough to avoid exposure.
Forcibly sterilizing most people isn’t practical. Most other scenarios I can think of don’t work. A geek in a lab might be able to make a little tweak to a virus, and release it into the central air system of an international airport. I know it sounds harsh, but I am willing to die to save biodiversity.
WE are the disease, the earth is sick. I don’t wish to see all of humanity wiped out, just most of it.
Poison Ivy would be proud. Oh wait this isn’t a comic book? Its real life you say? Well then ****. That mans a nut. O_o
Humans were men’t to be the caretakers of this one of a kind planet and all the innocent creatures that existed here before humans. From a pragmatic point of view the majority of humans are just abusers of Earth using her for there own selfish wants. People worship so called gods that they can not even prove existed, but the real living breathing God of all living things, Nature is over looked by the simplest of act of destruction procreation. People pretend its so special and to love there children when bringing them into this society subjects them to a life of organized chaos. This planet is just a large island when will it be time to admit that senseless breeding of humans and governments greed will inevitably be the down fall of this Planet.
Earth First No Compromise In The Defence Of Mother Nature.
This will happen by natural means much sooner than people want to believe. The reason for the population explosion was a result of technological advances, most notably the introduction of oil, which there is no replacement for, we use it in plastics, as well as fertilizers that allow for modern day agriculture to produce enough food to support the population. The problem is that because the oil has been drying up for the last 2 decades and we are trying to cut pack by using less of the oil, we eventually will not be able to extract enough of a finite resource that our modern day society is based on. Without the petroleum based fertilizers and pesticides there is simply no way to produce enough food for everyone alive today. Civilization will collapse when the demand for oil exceeds the supply, and there is nothing that can be done about it, it will happen, it is a limited resource, so just enjoy life while you are around.
I must say that he has got a point. We are heavily over populated. There isn’t enough to satisfy everyone in the world. Not enough jobs and the resources will not last forever. If this does not happen, all these Apocalypse stories will come true. The world isn’t big enough to handle the human race anymore. If people want to implement birth control, people freak out and say it is against human rights. Human rights will still be the death of us all. So if you don’t want to stop making kids or try reducing the population, I do not see any damage, forced extinction will make, except for the good. I know this is harsh, but if you live where I live (South Africa), you will see what I mean.