UT scientist to 90% of you: die horribly

DallasBlog.com | Scott Bennett:

“Have you ever heard of Dr. Eric Pianka? No? Well you might want to learn a bit more about him. Why? Because he reportedly wants you to die. Specifically he wants you to die of Ebola virus. ”

Ed Cognoski responds:

Scott Bennett passes on hearsay quotes reported by Forrest Mims to the effect that Dr Pianka wants you to die. Mike Sivertsen, a Dallas Blog reader, repeats hearsay quotes attributed to Dr Charles Wurster to the effect that "People are the cause of all the problems. We have too many of them. We need to get rid of some of them." Dr Wurster has repeatedly denied making the alleged comments. I suspect the hearsay about Dr Pianka advocating mass human death is similarly misrepresented.

In the Seguin Gazette story on the speech in question, Jamie Mobley reports that Dr Pianka denies that he is advocating human death. Maybe he is only predicting such a catastrophe as nature's way of restoring balance to human overpopulation. Smiling as he says it, perhaps. Bad enough, right? So, why try to make what he said sound worse that it is already, when verbatim quotes should be enough to condemn him? Perhaps because Forrest Mims is as biased as Dr Pianka only in the opposite direction. Check out his biography. The two sound like they are made for each other.