"We're no better than bacteria"

Making Jack Kevorkian sound like Arthur Schweitzer, University of Texas evolutionary ecologist Dr. Eric R. Pianka recently told a conference at the Texas Academy of Science that he "enthusiastically advocated the elimination of 90 percent of Earth's population."

The professor, also an expert on lizards, said the Earth as we know it will not survive without drastic measures.

Then, and without presenting any data to justify this number, he asserted that the only feasible solution to saving the Earth is to reduce the population to 10 percent of the present number.

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.

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.

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."

Well, if you feel so strongly about this, professor, why don't you and all your family members lead the way? Too many sleeping pills, a fume-filled garage, a head-first plunge off the Golden Gate bridge ... there's plenty of options. But I'm sure he factors himself among the 10 percent who survive.

Like most extremists, Pianka is all talk and no action. Displaying an all-too familiar intellectual arrogance, the prof wouldn't let his lecture be taped because he thinks the general public isn't ready for his ridiculous assertions. Unfortunately, about 400 scientists were.

According to one who was present at his speech, "When Pianka finished his remarks, the audience applauded. It wasn't merely a smattering of polite clapping that audiences diplomatically reserve for poor or boring speakers. It was a loud, vigorous and enthusiastic applause."

If they were consistent, they would've all ordered out for some cyanide-flavored Kool-Aid.

Some other nuggets from the genocidal professor:

*He spoke glowingly of the police state in China that enforces their one-child policy. "Smarter people have fewer kids." He said those who don't have a conscience about the Earth will inherit the Earth," ... because those who care make fewer babies and those that didn't care made more babies." He said we will evolve as uncaring people, and "I think IQs are falling for the same reason, too."

*"You know, the bird flu's good, too."

*One of Pianka's earliest points was a condemnation of anthropocentrism, or the idea that humankind occupies a privileged position in the Universe. He told a story about how a neighbor asked him what good the lizards are that he studies. He answered, "What good are you?"

(Apparently Darwin has been disavowed by the left, too. Doesn't "survival of the fittest" still mean something?)

No doubt Pianka will hide behind the Ward Churchill shield of academic freedom. I don't think he should be fired; why make a martyr out of a lunatic? But he should be isolated, not idolized.