> Scientists cheer holocaust wish
>
> Texas academy honors professor who wants
> 90% of human race exterminated by ebola
>
> Posted: April 2, 2006
> 5:45 p.m. Eastern
>
> What would happen if a world-renowned scientist and evolutionary ecologist told
> hundreds of his colleagues that 90 percent of the human race needed to be wiped
> out by exposure to ebola or some other deadly virus?
>
> Apparently, according to a scientist who claims to have witnessed such a
> remarkable event one month ago, the fiend would get a standing ovation and an
> award.
>
> That's the story being told by Forrest Mims III, a member of the Texas Academy
> of Science, chairman of its environmental science section and editor of the
> Citizen Scientist.
>
> The speech Mims heard was delivered by Eric R. Pianka, a lizard expert from the
> University of Texas. It is recounted in detail in the latest issue of the
> Citizen Scientist.
>
> "We're no better than bacteria," Mims quoted Pianka as saying in his
> condemnation of the human race, which, he claimed, is overpopulating the Earth.
>
> The only way to save the planet for the rest of the species is to reduce the
> human population to 10 percent of its current number.
>
> "He then showed solutions for reducing the world's population in the form of a
> slide depicting the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse," writes Mims. "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. Pianka then displayed a slide showing rows of human skulls, one
> of which had red lights flashing from its eye sockets. 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. However, Professor Pianka did not mention that Ebola victims die a slow
> and torturous death as the virus initiates a cascade of biological calamities
> inside the victim that eventually liquefy the internal organs."
>
> Pianka notes in the online syllabus for his Diversity and Ecology class that the
> deadly form of Ebola – Ebola zaire – that has killed nine out of the 10 people
> infected currently only spreads by direct contact with infected blood, while
> Ebola reston, the close relative that currently kills only monkeys, is an
> airborne virus. Evolution, he says, will in time result in an airborne form
> fatal to humans.
>
> Mims notes that when Pianka finished his remarks, the audience of fellow
> scientists and students burst out in sustained applause.
>
> During a question-and-answer sessions, the audience laughed approvingly when
> Pianka offered the bird flu as another vehicle toward achieving his goal. They
> also chuckled when he suggested it was time to sterilize everyone on Earth.
>
> "What kind of reception have you received as you have presented these ideas to
> other audiences that are not representative of us?" asked one member of the
> audience.
>
> "I speak to the converted!" Pianka replied.
>
> Mims said he spoke glowingly of the police state in China that enforces a
> one-child policy.
>
> "Smarter people have fewer kids," Mims quoted Pianka as saying.
>
> Following the question-and-answer session, Mims says "almost every scientist,
> professor and college student present stood to their feet and vigorously
> applauded the man who had enthusiastically endorsed the elimination of 90
> percent of the human population. Some even cheered. Dozens then mobbed the
> professor at the lectern to extend greetings and ask questions."
>
> Mims notes five hours later, the Texas Academy of Science presented Pianka with
> a plaque in recognition of his being named 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist.
>
> "When the banquet hall filled with more than 400 people responded with
> enthusiastic applause, I walked out in protest," he writes.
>
>
>
>