Did a well-known scientist call for humanity's destruction? (UPDATE)

Recently, a reader directed our attention to an astounding story on the Citizen Scientist site -- a story which, I am told, achieved much notoriety when Drudge linked to it. (The Citizen Scientist page is part of the Society for Amateur Scientists.) Writer Forrest M. Mims III attended a meeting of the Texas Academy of Science at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, roughly a month ago. At this meeting, a famed evironmental scientist -- Dr. Eric R. Pianka -- decried the current over-populated state of the planet Earth.

After forbidding the use of video cameras and other recording devices, Pianka (supposedly) outlined a rather extreme method for dealing with this problem: Mass extermination.

He then showed solutions for reducing the world's population in the form of a slide depicting the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. War and famine would not do, he explained. Instead, disease offered the most efficient and fastest way to kill the billions that must soon die if the population crisis is to be solved...

AIDS is not an efficient killer, he explained, because it is too slow. His favorite candidate for eliminating 90 percent of the world's population is airborne Ebola (Ebola Reston), because it is both highly lethal and it kills in days, instead of years...

After praising the Ebola virus for its efficiency at killing, Pianka paused, leaned over the lectern, looked at us and carefully said, "We've got airborne 90 percent mortality in humans. Killing humans. Think about that."

Pianka's plea for radical depopulation received a standing ovation. Or so it is said.

After reading this report, I could not help wondering: Is it true? Could a leading environmentalist actually have called for the used of germ warfare to destroy most of the human race? And could this blood-curdling cry have received warm applause from an audience of scientists?

In the dark realms inhabited by the most paranoid conspiracy buffs, stories of mass depopulation schemes have long circulated. These claims have an appeal which crosses ideological boundaries. For those on the left, scenarios of this sort seem the natural outcome of a very real history of racist oppression, while those on the right tend to embrace any claims which portray environmentalists as insensitive to human suffering.

Time, I felt, to separate rumor from fact. I decided to do some checking.

Specifically, I wrote to Dr. Pianka. Here (reprinted with his permission) is his reply:

Thank you for checking with me before you add more fuel to this fire. That SAS website and accompanying "Dr. Doom" article is complete bull. Of course, my views were twisted and sensationalized by some very irresponsible fundies. No video camera was present and certainly no video camera-person was "thrown out" as reported over and over again. One other obvious thing, they mistook irony, levity and hyperbole for "glee"! Nobody in his right mind could possibly be gleeful about this awful human predicament.

This is a pure figment of some slandering fool's imagination, intended to make me into a scapegoat (actually, I have been "swift boated" in an attempt to make lay persons distrust scientists). It is scary what a few fools can do in one day on the internet. This was an organized and highly synchronized attempt intended to ruin my reputation. The Sequin Gazette piece was scheduled to run almost exactly when the "Dr. Doom" site went on-line and the entire thing was shunted off to the Drudge Report as long planned. This is an ongoing example of the Discovery Institute's conspiricy to defame scientists and to make lay people distrust science.

The blogosphere is truly worldwide -- I have received hate emails from all over the world, including some death threats (one called "Greetings" is attached). I am truly amazed at how polarized people can be, not to mention how many of them believe what they read on some blog website without checking any alternative sources.

I was somewhat gratified to receive a couple dozen apologies from people who said that a few days ago they had sent me nasty emails only to realize that they had been manipulated by the religious right, and they were sorry and would never do it again without cross checking sources.

I do not read my speeches (they are extemporaneous) and thus do not have a written transcript of exactly what I said, but my 50 minute talk was about the Vanishing Book of Life on Earth -- basically about the continuing destruction of natural habitats and other species by humans. Only the last 5-10 minutes were devoted to human overpopulation and that was been taken totally out of context. Someone taped the last few minutes of my talk and some of the question and answer session (transcript of this attached).

Dr. Pianka sent me a good deal of supportive material. I could summarize it, but I don't think I need to do so. His response, as given above, should suffice. He strikes me as quite sensible and convincing.

Dr. Pianka may well be correct in his suspicion that religious rightists intentionally twisted his words to fit their ideological template. Many conservative writers pretend that all environmentalists view human life with Olympian disdain. While the fundamentalists' dismissive attitude toward science is nothing new, I do wish that they would show less contempt for the commandment against false witness.

Update: The right-wing blogosphere is a separate universe. Until I googled the matter, I had no idea how big a controversy, both on the net and on talk radio, Pianka's speech had sparked. This mass outrage originated with a couple of writers who willfully misunderstood and misreported what the scientist had to say. In his lecture, Pianka argued that overpopulation would create epidemics, because nature has its own harsh-yet-effective corrective mechanisms. His critics transformed a warning into a recipe for action; in their hallucinations, a prediction became a prescription.

I have no way of knowing whether Dr. Pianka has accurately foreseen nature's reaction, although I certainly hope he is wrong. Even if he is, nothing excuses the actions of those demagogues who twisted his meaning in order to rouse a rabble.