Dr. Pianka’s Supporters Attack

UPDATE 2 (Apr 7, 2006/ 12:15 PM): I added my second reply to Perez below (it finally arrived to my inbox.) I haven’t received another reply from her, so I assume she’s dodging the questions. I will post any reply if she does send anything. David Marsh, the president of the Texas Academy of Science (the group that Pianka spoke to and gave him their award), has stated that Mims has mischaracterized Pianka’s views, but according to this report, the reporter couldn’t get Marsh to give him even ONE example of how Mims distorted or mischaracterized what Pianka said…nor would he give any examples in the written statement he supplied to the reporter for the article.

Marsh, it seems, is being just as dishonest as Kathryn Perez. Neither of them can give a single example of how Mims mischaracterized Pianka’s views or his speech. Both of them and others joining them are taking part in a witch hunt, trying to destroy Forrest Mims for God only knows what reason. My guess is they’re both just as radical as Pianka and will do anything to destroy the sane scientists out there who are against their warped views. I could be wrong, but the refusal to answer simple questions or give even a single example of how Mims mischaracterized Pianka is VERY telling of both of them.

I will update if anything else comes up…

UPDATE: Nancy Pearcey has the transcript from Pianka’s March 3, 2006 talk.
[NOTE: I just realized, this is a transcript of the last few minutes of Pianka's speech, right after his talk about ebola and overpopulation. Hopefully a full transcript will be released...]

Kathryn E. Perez, a postdoctoral fellow with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill department of biology, is on the attack. She has come up with a petition attacking Forrest Mims of “dishonesty” and spreading “misleading propaganda” in regards to his article on the speech by Dr. Pianka where he supported the idea of 90% of the US population being wiped out.

I E-Mailed Ms. Perez with the following (I wasn’t happy with her attacks, as you can tell):

I read your comments in the IHED report on the web concering Dr. Pianka.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/04/06/science

You weren’t at the talk, I assume from your comments, yet you accuse
Mims of propaganda and dishonesty. Since you were not there, you’ve
hardly any right to claim this.

There were others at the talk who agreed with Mim’s assessment of the speech.

Brenna McConnell runs a blog online, and she said she agreed with
Pianka- that the world would be better off with 90% of humans gone.
She’s a SUPPORTER who says that Pianka DID say what Mims claims. She
was actually AT the talk, unlike yourself. Are you ready to call
her, who agrees with Pianka, a liar?

I found these two following student reviews of Pianka:

http://www.zo.utexas.edu/courses/bio357/357evaluations.html

“Though I agree that convervation biology is of utmost importance to
the world, I do not think that preaching that 90% of the human
population should die of ebola is the most effective means of
encouraging conservation awareness. I found Pianka to be
knowledgable, but spent too much time focusing on his specific
research and personal views.”

“I don’t root for ebola, but maybe a ban on having more than one
child. I agree . . . too many people ruining this planet.”

Are you ready to call Pianka’s students liars now?

YOU, sadly, are the one spreading propaganda, and your statements are
an embarassment to your school and the field of science in general.
Next time, try dealing with the facts as opposed to attacking others
as liars.

Hopefully others commenting on this matter will think before they
speak. I think you owe Mims an apology, but from someone who blasts
off baseless attacks as you do, I won’t hold my breath waiting for
it. All I can personally do is E-Mail the article to Mims so that he
knows there are some out there, like you, who are spreading lies
about him, and hopefully doing so will stop others from attacking him
with bogus claims they cannot back up. You, Ms. Perez, are the
reason why so many people distrust much of what scientists say today.

She replied with this short statement:

Actually I was at the talk and we apparently disagree on the content and
interpretation.

Kathryn Perez

I was wrong that she wasn’t at the talk. Her comments seemed to suggest she wasn’t there but was looking for those who were there. That doesn’t change anything tho, in my opinion. Fact is- she disagrees with Mims’ interpretation and others agree with Mims. Yet, she’s not attacking anyone BUT Mims.

Now, she didn’t answer any of my questions about Brenna McConnel and the fact that even Pianka’s students in their reviews of his class seemed to agree with Mims that Pianka would be pleased with the idea of 90% of the world’s population being decimated by a virus.

In my experience, when you dodge questions, you’re hiding something, but we will see.
Also, I find it disturbing that she tells me it was simply a disagreement on how they interpreted the speech, yet in her petition she says Mims was guilty of “dishonesty” and was spreading “misleading propaganda.” A disagreement over the intrepretation of something is quite different than being dishonest and spreading misleading propaganda, I’m sure we can all agree on that point!

Here is my reply to Perez’s reply:

So now you’re saying it was merely a disagreement on the content and interpretation. Since you now say that, would you like to apologize to Mims for calling him dishonest and spreading propaganda? Surely, we can agree that a mere disagreement on interpretation is quite different from dishonesty and propaganda, no?

I pointed out one Pianka supporter that disagrees with YOU and thinks Pianka was happy with the idea that 90% of the population might be wiped out. She says she agrees that a 90% reduction would be a good thing, and even said that she loves her grandparents but that they’re only alive due to human technology and humans playing God.

So, you would also say that you disagree with her interpretation, but would you call her a liar, or is that just held for those who don’t support Pianka?

If Brenna McConnell agrees with Mim’s interpretation, will you consider adding her name to the petition of someone spreading propaganda? She DID post these comments to her public blog for everyone to see…little difference between that and Mim’s website posting. Nearly the same thing. So, you will be adding her name to the petition to be consistent with your attacks?

Are you now retracting your attacks on Mims as being dishonest and spreading propaganda, since in this reply you simply say it’s a disagreement with the interpretation, and these are two totally different things to say?

Since you didn’t answer the other questions about Pianka’s students who interpret his speeches the same way Mims did, or McConnell who agrees with Mim’s interpretation, I guess we can assume you are calling them liars as well. I’ve really no other choice but to assume that since you refused to answer the questions.

Before I post to my website about this, I thought I’d allow you to either retract your claims of Mims being dishonest…or allow you to add McConnell to your petition as she has publicly posted to her website that she ageres with Mims’ interpretation. At the same time, can I ask why you aren’t requesting an opposing point of view, asking for comments from those who were at the talk and AGREED with Mims’ interpretation?

PS

Here is Brenna McConnell’s quote:

“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”

She has apparently deleted her blog, but the google cache of the post she made disagreeing with you, tho supporting Pianka’s ideas is here-

(GOOGLE CACHE)

I will quote her comments on Pianka further below.

I will await a response.

Joshua Taj Bozeman

http://www.thebluesite.com

MCCONNELL’S POST ON PIANKA:

Dr. Pianka was named the 2006 Distinguished Scientist by the Texas Academy of Science. He’s an ecologist, a “doomsday ecologist” as he puts it, with a CV several pages long and results that have changed the way ecologists think, forever. And damn is he ever entertaining to listen to.

Dr. Pianka’s talk at the TAS meeting was mostly of the problems humans are causing as we rapidly proliferate around the globe. While what he had to say is way too vast to remember it all, moreover to relay it here in this blog, the bulk of his talk was that he’s waiting for the virus that will eventually arise and kill off 90% of human population. In fact, his hope, if you can call it that, is that the ebola virus which attacks humans currently (but only through blood transmission) will mutate with the ebola virus that attacks monkeys airborne to create an airborne ebola virus that attacks humans. He’s a radical thinker, that one! I mean, he’s basically advocating for the death of all but 10% of the current population! And at the risk of sounding just as radical, I think he’s right.

Humans are far too populous. We’ve used up our resources, and we’re destroying the Earth at an accelerated pace. The more technology we create, the more damage we’re capable of doing. We now consider keeping the forest natural to save a species of catepillar more important that using that space for humans to live and till. And I’m in complete agreement with that. It’s the harsh reality that many people alive right now should be dead. And even harsher to think that the world would be better off with them dead too. My grandparents, who I love dearly and am so incredibly thankful to know, are honestly being kept alive only through the technology that we have created via medicine. The same goes for the millions of other old folk alive and kicking and will continue to do so for another 5-10 years, using up more resources. Or think of all the babies being born every hour with abnormalities that 50 years ago would have kept them from living. Now, those lives can be saved, and we pat ourselves on the backs at how smart and charitable we are as a species that we can create and sustain life. For those against cloning, etc because it’s “playing God,” how is this any different?? Life has a built-in mechanism that keeps species from becoming too overpopulated, and it wasn’t until humans started messing with the system that it went out of whack. Now that we’ve killed off the majority of all top predators, we now must take on the duty of keeping populations in check and at the same time, allowing other species a fair chance at reproduction.

It wouldn’t have been so bad 15-20 years ago when we reached that threshold of sustainability if we as humans would have learned to control our population size then. But instead, we saw the Earth’s resources as unlimited and our authority over them exclusive, and we continued to reproduce when we should’ve stop. Dr. Pianka made a very profound comment during his presentation; he said that China has the right idea by limiting reproduction at 1. We’re past the point of replacement reproduction as a species. We’re too many for the number we’re at now! We need to decline in population. A virus is probably the fairest method of extermination (though still not completely fair, I admit) because it’s nondiscriminatory as to whom it targets. Rich, poor, black, white, brown, nice, mean, religious, agnostic – we’d all be targeted equally. The only difference is who can afford medicine and even then, if it’s a mutated virus that strikes fast, humans would have only the tiniest of a chance to find a cure in time so money wouldn’t matter.

It’d be nice if humans could learn to manage our population as successively as we’ve learned to manage the population of literally every other species on this planet with whom we share. We’re very skilled when it comes to killing off deer, snakes, rabbits, and fish for population control. But we’re a stupid species when it comes to managing ourselves. An insightful observation was made during the talk that education should be the key to learning how to take care of the Earth, but the problem is that the educated have fewer children and the uneducated have many children. So eventually, the uneducated will take over the Earth. It may have already happened.

I have asked her to be consistent in her attacks and put Brenna McConnell’s name on the petition as well as Mims. I say that due to the fact that Brenna McConnell posted to her blog that she thought that Pinaka was INDEED supporting the idea and pleased with the thought of 90% of the world’s population being killed off. She said that she even agrees with Pianka…that she thought this might actually be a good idea and good for the world.

Here is part of McConnell’s post about Pianka’s speech and her agreement with him that 90% of the population being killed off would be good for the planet. I should note, she deleted her blog yesterday, but I have the google cache of her page and copied it to my hard drive.

McConnell was the Pianka supporter I posted about before:
http://thebluesite.com/?p=826

Dr. Pianka’s talk at the TAS meeting was mostly of the problems humans are causing as we rapidly proliferate around the globe. While what he had to say is way too vast to remember it all, moreover to relay it here in this blog, the bulk of his talk was that he’s waiting for the virus that will eventually arise and kill off 90% of human population. In fact, his hope, if you can call it that, is that the ebola virus which attacks humans currently (but only through blood transmission) will mutate with the ebola virus that attacks monkeys airborne to create an airborne ebola virus that attacks humans. He’s a radical thinker, that one! I mean, he’s basically advocating for the death of all but 10% of the current population! And at the risk of sounding just as radical, I think he’s right.

Humans are far too populous. We’ve used up our resources, and we’re destroying the Earth at an accelerated pace. The more technology we create, the more damage we’re capable of doing. We now consider keeping the forest natural to save a species of catepillar more important that using that space for humans to live and till. And I’m in complete agreement with that. It’s the harsh reality that many people alive right now should be dead. And even harsher to think that the world would be better off with them dead too. My grandparents, who I love dearly and am so incredibly thankful to know, are honestly being kept alive only through the technology that we have created via medicine. The same goes for the millions of other old folk alive and kicking and will continue to do so for another 5-10 years, using up more resources. Or think of all the babies being born every hour with abnormalities that 50 years ago would have kept them from living. Now, those lives can be saved, and we pat ourselves on the backs at how smart and charitable we are as a species that we can create and sustain life.

From Google cache of McConnell’s post agreeing with Pianka:
GOOGLE CACHE

I will be awaiting Perez’s reply to my questions (and I will post my reply to her when I receive it). Also, you can check out Perez’s site here-
http://www.unc.edu/~keperez/