Dr. Doom: Saving the Earth with Ebola

These articles feature one seriously mad scientist if he believes what he is saying. Eric Pianka an evolutionary ecologist who advocates the extermination of 90% of humanity through the use of airborne Ebola Zaire virus.

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.

During a speech at the 109th meeting of the Texas Academy of Science at Lamar University in Beaumont on 3-5 March 2006 he publicly advocated using airborne Ebola to reduce the human populace to 10% of its current level. He is literally wishing a slow and painful death upon humanity. During the speech he received a standing ovation from the audience comprised of students and scientists. To me this smacks of utter insanity. I think it would be better to go read Critical Path by Buckminster Fuller then you realize that it's not so much overpopulation that is causing the problem but poor management.

Apparently he's being investigated by the FBI over the remarks.

Link to editorial on The Citizen Scientist
Link to story about the 109th meeting of Texas Academy of Sciences by Forrest M. Mims III
And two articles from the Austin American-Statesman, here and here