Science is our only hope.

http://www.sas.org/tcs/weeklyIssues_2006/2006-04-07/feature1p/index.html

Confirmed...

http://brenmccnnll.blogspot.com/2006/03/dr.html

Commendations...

http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/%7Evaranus/evaluations.html

Really like the following...

'This is the closest thing this university has to a true religion course and Pianka is the perfect preacher. In other science courses we are taught to look at things specifically and therefore lose the big picture. In this class we study the big picture. "Why are we here?" That question is answered in evolution. Everyone should be required to take this class to "spread the word.'

Easy.

90% cut, 600 million remaining, is too deep a cut to sustain technolgical civilization.

Stop all manner and means of State-mandated charity. The problem will solve itself at zero cost with zero effort. Think of it as evolution in action. If things spill over, support evolution - shoot back.

Let's run some numbers. China has 1.5 billion people, India has 1.1 billion people, Africa has 900 million people, the US has 300 million people, the planet has 6+ billion people. Now then...

China keeps 300 million useful people
India keeps 200 million useful people
Africa keeps 50 million useful people
The US keeps 150 million useful people.
----------------------------------------
World population drops to half, 3 billion people, and nobody is missed. Now trim Central and South America plus Arabia, Europe, Russia, and Southeast Asia: no unproductive pensioners suckling the public teat, no welfare cases. 4+ billion parasites are gone overall, leaving 2- billion productive human beings.

That would be wonderful! Simply stop sending Welfare checks. The useless will starve.

Such a sweetheart.

Oh Uncle Al. Lovely to hear from you. And the best they can manage is a weak 'sweetheart'. That's because they know you make sense. Let one of them argue you...won't happen. Hitler's only problem was he didn't have the stats. If he'd had Google and made his case like you, history would have remembered him differently. A man before his time?

And you're spot on. Ebola's far too indiscriminate. Might kill all the scientists and leave all the scum. Welfares better.

Easy.

I know I have some double-ought here somewhere.

First we get outright unashamed racism and now we are treated to Dr. Mengele humanitarian.

The problem you guys don't seem to want to acknowlege (Uncle Al and now Easy Life) is that you won't be the one's determining the criteria by which decisions are made as to who goes into the ovens.

You might want to look up the origins of the phrase:
"The Revolution Consumes her Children"

It was Malthus, was it not, who first sounded this alarm? (Nineteenth century I believe).
Advances in food production tech and medicine have
held the problem at bay up till now, but there are
limits to how long this can continue.
Some form of population control is going to be
neccessary.
Though the ones proposed are unattractive if we don't chose some controls, nature will eventually
impose them, and we will probably not appreciate
her choices either.
Pragmatist

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." - Aldous Huxley

Pragmatist ... I think you've earned your handle. Well said.

We will someday be able to control nature if we survive that long ... but that someday is not within our lifetimes.

There are some who apparently are unable to distinguish between quality and quantity when thinking about life.

One proof of our species' intelligence would be if we did what no other species appears to have ever done: Intentionally and consciously limited its population.

--------------------------------------------
Facts do not cease to exist because they are unpleasant or inconvenient.
~ DA Morgan

When you lose your humanity, you cease to be human.

You folks salivating over the idea of the deaths of billions (not your deaths, only the undesirables) aren't talking about saving Earth. Earth doesn't give a damn. As far as we know, the only things that give a damn are people. Drop the *give a damn* from humans, and the species is worthless. I'd prefer to go with the other 90% than live with worthless scum.

It is for immoral people like yourselves that organized religion exists. Some apparently need the threat of an eternal spanking to keep them in line. As a species, we have not evolved enough to free ourselves from it.

Life won't cease to exist if we overpopulate and die out. It just won't include the likes of you. Maybe the next intelligent species that arises, millions of years from now, will piece together our follies and take a lesson from them.

Hear hear!

But I'm not sure I'd call Uncle Al and Easy Life immoral ... rather amoral and self-centered.

How quickly the lessons of history are lost. Today they advocate the removal of the undesirables. Tomorrow THEY will be the undesirables and it is they and theirs that will be fed to the ovens.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

Hey stupids, Uncle Al doesn't advocate the REMOVAL of anybody. Stop all State-mandated charity and the problem spontaneously resolves itself with zero effort and at zero cost. Think of it as evolution in action - a totally blind, non-discriminating, racially neutral selection of the deserving and the undeserving. Earn or starve. If you choose to place a large rapidly growing population in a desert, die. Don't come here illegally or we will kill you.

Do you maintain that Caucasians are intrinsically superior to Darkies, therefore the Darkies cannot compete without charity? White trash is invited to work or starve on an equal basis. So are Catholics on their knees before their gods as opposed to Protestants who bend their backs to create and secure a decent life. Northern Ireland is about demanded charity vs. earned goods. What "compromise" would you impose?

Where does it say that "compassion" is the root-level password to my wallet? YOU support Africa out of your own wallet. Uncle Al is going to purchase a standing rib roast for his own family using his own earnings.

A liberal feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he pays off with somebody else's money.

All the world needs is widespread individual restraint by choice, restraint in both consumption and pregnancy (wisdom in action). Pianka is part of the education process that will someday be our saving grace.

Woah Boy!!! Listen to yourself will ya!!! Just take a step back and listen to the sound of unadulterated nonsense. Learn to think straight. Your words were grammatically correct but they still made no sense. Drop the anthropomorphic carp. Go on...Define Human...Define Humanity!!! "When you lose your humanity, you cease to be human." Please take back that meaningless drivel. Have it both ways if you want in your private little fantasy world, but don't try to push it on the rest of us. You admit on one hand that we're worthless and of no greater value than any other species and then you try and make a case for virtues like 'our humanity'. Crooked thinking if I've ever seen it. Just admit we're pieces of animated meat and let?s cull the herd ?cos it got too big. And why bring organized religion into the discussion?what, now you want to use it ?cos you can?t face the truth. Your thinking is all over the place. Ain?t nothing to do with religion.

And did you notice no one put a coherent argument to Uncle Al. You chose to go the weak and meaningless route and just attacked his 'humanity'. Well I attack your tenuous grip on reality. DO YOU HAVE AN ANSWER TO HIS STATEMENTS OTHER THAN FEELING AFFRONTED? No...didn't think so. Then stop whining.

Its So, Easy.

Uncle Al:

My first comment, "Such a sweetheart," was directed toward Pianka's ideas. The second was in response to both Easy Life and his/her support of Pianka.

To be honest, I didn't read your rant until now. Unlike Easy and Pianka, who seem to be concerned with the global ecosystem, your main concern is evidently your wallet. It appears you missed the whole point.

Easy Life: Spoken like a true sociopath.

CARP...If they hand me the Kool-Aid, I'll drink it. What makes you think I'm so special? What makes you think your special? You're just another gob suckling on the teat of this planets ever dwindling resources. What inalienable rights do you have, Mr Morgan?

Easy.

Ah, that razor sharp riposte has certainly proven me wrong. More like the death rattle of the 'double thinker' unwilling to face reality. Don't waste 1s and 0s unless you have something worth writing.

Easy.

Hahahahahahaaaaaa!!!!! You have admitted that we are no more miraculous than bacteria, and no more entitled to be called special than any other animal. So what do we do with rabbit populations when they run out of control...release myxomatosis, thats what. Now give me a good reason why we shouldn't cull Homo Sapiens in the same way as we do with Oryctolagus Cuniculus!!!!

Easy.

If you can't understand what I wrote, the failing is not mine. Perhaps learning more than one definition of the word humanity would help.

Yes, we are animals. One of the few things that seperate us from the rest is our capacity for benevolence, IMO. You don't feel that way, and that's all fine and good, unless it becomes my problem. Pianka and his disciples sound as if they'd like it to be my problem.

I've said all I intend to say on this topic, and have no interest in joining you in your name-callng war. Bye.

Easy Life wrote:
"Now give me a good reason why we shouldn't cull Homo Sapiens in the same way ...."

Only one? No problem.

Knock. Knock.
Let me see your papers
Your papers are not in order.
You need to come with me right now.

For others who can still be saved:
http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~trent/ochs/lyrics/knock-on-the-door.html

Play your emotional Jewish card and I'll raise you. Now you tell me why at the least we shouldn't forcibly sterilize stupid and lazy people. The dunces are the ones breeding like rabbits in the Western world while we dutifully send them their welfare checks. Your taxes pay for stupid people to breed intelligence out of the population. Yeah that's so what we need...a world full of little Jorge Bush's.

Easy.

Why is welfare and unemployment always equated with laziness and such. I will grant you that a percentage of people who are on welfare are abusing the system but many are not.

If you read stories about the increasing numbers of people who are showing up in soup kitchens are applying for WIC you may realize that they are people who are hard workers and intelligent. However their employment does not pay them enough to make all the ends meet even if they have only two kids.

I will mention the old saying that I think DA is trying to get out...Who decides, who decides?

Who decides what stupid is? Grades in school? Many geniuses aka Einstein did horribly in school.
Does lazy mean they do not have a job? Ok, a disabled vet who cannot work due to injuries? Are they lazy? Or what about Stephen Hawking? How long did it take him to be able to publish his works? I am not sure of his economic situation before he became world renowed but perhaps there was some government handout involved.

What are your criteria for stupid and lazy and I can show you examples where if we used your program society would have lost a great influence.

Tell me, what good were all the people of great influence when we have still managed to screw this planet, deplete fish stocks, wage war on nature, and generally make things difficult? When GW kicks in and rising sea levels give us less livable land, with more desert or permafrost...and the burgeoning world population (an extra 3 billion in the next 40 years). You got a recipe for freakin mayhem. Someones gotta decide what's what before people end up scratching each others eyes out for a sniff of real estate or a lick of disease free water. There will come a time when your philosophical sensibilities will be irrelevant.

Easy.

So you don't have any reasonable grounds to disagree, just a little matter of the methodology.

Easy.

I would think methodology would be a reasonable ground to disagree. I am quite sure everyone has days where "just kill everyone" sounds like a great option. Problem being, it's been tried and has only succeeded in making things worse.

Question: What great accomplishment came out of Hitler's program?

I am not pulling a "Jew card" just simply asking if you can give me one example how any form of genocide has helped the state of the world.

Now, back to reality. All power to idealize humanity will ultimately corrupt and destroy those who are implementing the program. I hate Bush and his evil cohorts as much as you do. The problem is not Bush, it is those behind him that have patiently pulled the strings, kissed up to the right people and spread the money correctly who have destroyed our country and our world. It is not the stupid people that worry me, it is the power-hungry, self centered, megalomanical, intelligent power brokers behind the stupid front man that we have to destroy.

Don't let the Bush smokescreen pull the focus away from who is really in charge. Cheney and the companies he is beholden to.

At age 13, Pianka was seriously injured in a bazooka blast in the front yard of his childhood home in Yreka, California.

Well, I think that explains about everything...

But seriously, some people in this forum seem to be expressing their own distorted opinions based on what seem to be some gross misrepresentations of Pianka's lecture at Texas Academy of Sciences.

Point 1: Pianka certainly has personal opinions on the human race, but this is far from him saying that a majority of the world?s population should be exterminated. Point 2: During the lecture in question, Pianka was, apparently, only making the claim that 90% of the population would some day fall fowl (ha, ha!) of an airborne disease such as Ebola or something like avian flu. Subsequent to the lecture some real brain-boxes (the main culprit being Discovery Institute member Forrest Mims) added 1 and 2 together and got the Third Reich (which, I suppose, is numerologically correct, if you happen to be into that kind of thing).

Of course, I wasn?t at the lecture and can?t vouch for what he said at the time (who knows, perhaps Pianka presented his lecture in a satirical manner that was just a little too subtle for some folks to comprehend), but I can read what Pianka is saying now.

Here?s an excerpt from a statement Pianka made on his UT website after the subsequent controversy that arose after his lecture:

I have two grandchildren and I want them to inherit a stable Earth. But I fear for them. Humans have overpopulated the Earth and in the process have created an ideal nutritional substrate on which bacteria and viruses (microbes) will grow and prosper. We are behaving like bacteria growing on an agar plate, flourishing until natural limits are reached or until another microbe colonizes and takes over, using them as their resource. In addition to our extremely high population density, we are social and mobile, exactly the conditions that favor growth and spread of pathogenic (disease-causing) microbes. I believe it is only a matter of time until microbes once again assert control over our population, since we are unwilling to control it ourselves. This idea has been espoused by ecologists for at least four decades and is nothing new. People just don't want to hear it... I do not bear any ill will toward humanity. However, I am convinced that the world WOULD clearly be much better off without so many of us... We need to make a transition to a sustainable world. If we don't, nature is going to do it for us in ways of her own choosing. By definition, these ways will not be ours and they won't be much fun. Think about that.

I love the last few sentences. Everytime the hurricane season gets worse, or there are unexpected droughts or floods all I think of is that we are a plague of sorts and Nature is trying it's darndest to control us.

The silly thing is that if we chose to live with smaller houses, less urban sprawl, in intelligently designed communites (NOT HOUSING COMPLEXES) with a bit of forethought to efficiency we would not have most of the problems we do.

In Arizona there is a place designed by an Italian visionary architect, the name of the place is called Arcosanti. For those of you interested in truly revoltinary ideas for change google it and be amazed.

They're the same reasons that we don't eat each other

The report says that the camera man filming the event was asked to stop. "The general public are not ready to hear this". Piankas now getting death threats and he recants. It was never supposed to be public, just for the benefit of those who may one day have the keys to the fridge where they keep the ebola.

And as for "the same reasons we don't eat each other." WHAT????

As the Big 'yin Billy Connolly said..."Why don't we eat each other? The world's low on food and high on people. Makes sense, we solve the food and population problem in one go. If everyone ate one person we half the population. I'll eat someone you don't like and you eat someone I don't like. Where's the damage in that?"

The man's gotta point... do you think welfare scroungers taste any worse than cows?

Easy.

Ah, yes, why consider the simple explanation when you can go straight to a convoluted conspiracy theory.

Good to see we have yet another TFH in our midst.

Alright..I give in. Pianka was probably the victim of Forrest Mimms III who was probably jealous that Pianka was receiving the Distinguished Scientish award. For the record I was playing the Devil's Advocate and creating a lively debate. I was going to see how far I could take it...probably advising us to eat those on welfare was the lowest I could manage. Sorry Soilguy for my insults, they weren't sincere.

From another website...I've known of Forrest M. Mims III for some time (at least since flap over his dismissal from Scientific American years ago) and he seems to be a character (at least). Based on that and apparent absence of corroborating accounts, I (at this time) believe this to be a more accurate account. [Note also that Dr Mims has petitioned to have the distinguished scientist award revoked even though the award has nothing to do with Pianka's overpopulation beliefs and despite the fact the Mims himself was booted from SA for beliefs not related to his columns.]

Pianka does not advocate forcible population reduction...neither do I. Uncle Al comes pretty damn close though.

Easy.

OMG...just noticed some buffoon has awarded me five stars. I hope it wasn't for my comments written under my alter-ego Dr Mengele. Must have been Uncle Al.

Easy.

Easy, I rated you with the five stars in spite of what you were posting. I think everyone should start off with five stars.

Is Uncle Al a fictional character? Does anyone know?

Uncle Al is as real as you are though I'm not sure I'd want him as my uncle. ;-)

Justine. I appreciate that. You are obviously not a bufoon. I have spent time reading posts and getting a flavor of people here. It's self evident that you have more than a common share of both humanity and humility.

Easy.