News Weekly, April 15, 2006

A Texas scientist advocates killing nine-tenths of the world’s population by an airborne Ebola virus, writes John Ballantyne.

An award-winning Texas scientist was given a standing ovation after he advocated the extermination of 90 per cent of the Earth’s population by an airborne Ebola virus.

The University of Texas evolutionary ecologist, Dr Eric R. Pianka, was addressing the 109th meeting of the Texas Academy of Science at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, in early March, after the academy had named him 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist.

Present at Pianka’s speech was Forrest M. Mim III, a popular science writer and editor of the bi-weekly journal, The Citizen Scientist. He reported:

"Something curious occurred a minute before Pianka began speaking. An official of the Academy approached a video camera operator at the front of the auditorium and engaged him in animated conversation. The camera operator did not look pleased as he pointed the lens of the big camera to the ceiling and slowly walked away.

"This curious incident came to mind a few minutes later when Professor Pianka began his speech by explaining that the general public is not yet ready to hear what he was about to tell us. Because of many years of experience as a writer and editor, Pianka’s strange introduction and the TV camera incident raised a red flag in my mind … I grabbed a notepad …" ("Meeting Doctor Doom", The Citizen Scientist, March 31, 2006).

Pianka began his speech by condemning anthropocentrism, or the idea that the human race occupies a privileged position in nature. He exclaimed, "We’re no better than bacteria!"

He argued that the sharp increase in the human population since the onset of industrialisation was destroying the planet. He warned that Earth would not survive unless its human population was reduced to a tenth of its present number.

Read more at SCIENCE: Scientist calls for death to humanity (John Ballantyne).