From the mouths of students
by KrauzeBefore reading this post, be sure to read our retraction of this story.
Nicholas Matzke is Public Information Project Director at the NCSE, an activist organization against intelligent design. In the comments, he's dismissing Forrest Mims' account of a talk given by Dr. Eric R. Pianka, in which Pianka allegedly advocated killing 90% of the human population with airborne Ebola. Matzke label's Mims' account a "classic case of religious-right self-delusion" and portrays him as making "paranoid accusations".
Now, I don't know what Dr. Pianka said. I wasn't there when he gave his talk, and the university academy apparently chose to turn off the cameras. So, since I can't hear Dr. Pianka's words myself, I've decided to do the next best thing: Find accounts from other people who have heard him speak. Read them beneath the fold and judge for yourselves.
Some course evaluations from 2004, from students having taken his classes:
"I don't root for ebola, but maybe a ban on having more than one child. I agree . . . too many people ruining this planet."
"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."
Brenna, who heard the presentation:
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. [...]
Dr. Pianka made a very profound comment during his presentation; he said that China has the right idea by limiting reproduction at 1. [...]
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.
Over at Pharyngula, some old students of Dr. Pianka are commenting on Brenna's post:
"I took Evolutionary Ecology from Dr. Pianka a few years ago. He'd frequently get sidetracked onto:
1. Cool Australian lizards.
2. His buffalo.
3. How much he disliked his neighbors who kept killing rattlesnakes.
4. How some horrible disease is going to wipe out huge chunks of the population any year now, and how pleased he will be when that happens.So, yep, sounds like Dr. Pianka to me. The quotes in the article all sound pretty familiar."
"when I was at SUNY Stony Brook, Pianka gave a similar talk where he said the same offensive crap. What Tiger Spot said sounds right, except we got the 45 minute version. My recollection is that it didn't go over very well. He does know his lizards however."
John says that Dr. Pianka was just warning about mass death at the hands of Ebola, not advocating it:
Unless we stop having so damn many babies, there's going to be mass death one way or another (with Ebola mentioned as one possibility and nothing more), and that will suck a lot more than just using contraceptives and controlling our population rationally. As if we were rational human beings instead of animalistic breeding machines.
This is not a difficult concept to grasp.This is what the guy said. The guy did not say, as an influential lecturer at a science convention to an audience of 300 PhDs and future PhDs, "I wanna kill everybody with ebola".
More about Dr. Eric Pianka:
April 3rd, 2006 at 6:32 pm
Your post is irresponsible. Others who have heard Dr. Pianka speak on several occasions affirm that Dr. Mims' account is in error. Your search for the very few who come close to corroborating Mims's account is quite irresponsible.
The charges Mims levels are serious — William Dembski thinks them criminal. Consequently, irresponsible spreading of the rumor in a forum such as this is defamatory. You need to do more checking before publication.
Might I recommend a good, basic course in libel? You need it, especially now.
Comment by edarrell — April 3, 2006 @ 6:32 pm
April 3rd, 2006 at 7:06 pm
If this guy thinks over population is such a problem why doesn't he lead by example and kill himself ?
What a hypocrite.
Comment by thesciphishow — April 3, 2006 @ 7:06 pm
April 4th, 2006 at 1:52 am
Eddarrell is (as usual) confused. I did not "search for the very few who come close to corroborating Mims's account". Prior to writing my post, I did a blog search for "Pianka", and included all posts that claimed to have heard Dr. Pianka speak, whether or not they supported Mims' account. In fact, had Ed bothered to read the post he's attacking, he would have seen that one of the links undermine Mims' account, claiming that Dr. Pianka was just warning of an ecological disaster.
If Ed has any links to other accounts from people who heard Dr. Pianka speak, I'll be happy to add them to my post.
Comment by Krauze — April 4, 2006 @ 1:52 am
April 4th, 2006 at 4:23 am
Well, the truth has come out, and we've now seen your true colors here at TelicThoughts. Just another wingnut blog I guess.
Comment by Nick Matzke — April 4, 2006 @ 4:23 am
April 4th, 2006 at 4:28 am
Forrest Mims: 'crazy kook', says Pianka
The wingnut echo chamber has recently gone insane over the idea that Eric Pianka, an distinguished and much-loved ecologist at UT, advocates mass genocide by ebola in order to bring down world population. The allegation was leveled by disgruntled…
Trackback by The Panda's Thumb — April 4, 2006 @ 4:28 am
April 4th, 2006 at 5:32 am
Hi Nick,
"Well, the truth has come out, and we've now seen your true colors here at TelicThoughts."
So, by actually investigating this story and linking to various accounts of the speech, I'm showing my "true colors" Gee, thanks Nick.
Comment by Krauze — April 4, 2006 @ 5:32 am
April 4th, 2006 at 5:42 am
BTW Nick, why did you send a trackback to this post, when your PT post doesn't actually link to it? In fact, why didn't you link to this? Perhaps because it threw a wrench into your "this story was invented by religious-right kooks"
Comment by Krauze — April 4, 2006 @ 5:42 am
April 4th, 2006 at 6:02 am
Pianka's not calling overpopulation irresponsible. He calls deficit spending and irresponsible use of fossil fuels irresponsible.
In short, Pianka adopts the view God had when God commanded Adam and Eve to be stewards of the Earth, and again when God commanded Noah to spread stewardship after the flood.
Are IDists adverse to reducing budget deficits, conserving natural resources, clean air and clean water? Say it ain't so.
Comment by edarrell — April 4, 2006 @ 6:02 am
April 4th, 2006 at 6:07 am
Krauze, you failed to mention any of Pianka's books, any of his research kudos, and you somehow missed all the positive comments about him.
Maybe you did an inadequate search. I wouldn't blame you for that. But the smell test isn't in your favor: There was an audience of 200 to 400 Texans giving Pianka a standing ovation. Texans, Krauze. Down here were, even among the environmentalists, "gun control" means "steady aim" and land is precious even during and after oil mining, nobody gets a standing ovation from any group by doing the things Mims accuses Pianka of doing.
The speed with which you IDucks jumped on this bug is another clue — if you didn't shoot first without aiming, there's always a chance someone with a cooler head might explain what really happened at that speech. Blogging is nothing if not beating the competition to the punch.
In the old days, we called it "yellow journalism" after a comic strip called "The Yellow Kid." It's still yellow journalism, but the yellow comes from different sources.
You don't have the facts right. Shame on you.
Comment by edarrell — April 4, 2006 @ 6:07 am
April 4th, 2006 at 6:10 am
Hi Ed,
"Are IDists adverse to reducing budget deficits, conserving natural resources, clean air and clean water? Say it ain't so."
As I also told Art, I'm sure it would be fun to discuss the science behind Dr. Pianka's doomsday scenario. But let's remember what Nick said: "I suspect all we're going to get is strained rationalizations, conspiracy theories that this is a coverup, and attempts to change the topic to the scientific questions."
So, let's stay on topic, shall we? Let's start with the fact that Nick, in his post uncritically voicing Dr. Pianka's claim that the "90% should die from Ebola" story is just a figment of Mims' imagination, didn't link to this post. Is that something you'd like to discuss, Ed?
Comment by Krauze — April 4, 2006 @ 6:10 am
April 4th, 2006 at 6:10 am
What camera was turned off? Who ran it? Who asked that it be turned off? The speech was not at the University of Texas, so it's unfair to say "the university asked that it be turned off," if you mean UT. In any case, you don't have the facts to support your claim.
Yellow journalism.
Comment by edarrell — April 4, 2006 @ 6:10 am
April 4th, 2006 at 6:15 am
If ebola becomes an airborne virus, Krauze, what percentage of people who get it will die? That's not advocacy of the calamity; it's reporting what the stakes are.
Do you disagree? Are you now claiming ebola is not deadly?
No, you don't want to discuss the science because the science makes your claims look silly, and false. Pianka didn't "advocate" that ebola should kill, only that it could — the history of humans on this planet is that pandemics come along and do it.
But you, making a saint out of Santayana, want to make it appear as if simple observations of history and accurate reporting of science are something quite different.
Do you know what Pianka said? No. Did you bother to check out his publications to see whether he might have a basis for such statements? No. Did you bother to call Pianka to get the facts right? No.
You've got a jaundiced eye on this issue. Do you carry libel insurance? The three elements of libel are publication, identification, and defamation. You can mitigate damages with a retraction.
Comment by edarrell — April 4, 2006 @ 6:15 am
April 4th, 2006 at 6:55 am
Hi Ed,
You write as if I've been claiming that Dr. Pianka was advocated killing 90% of the human population with Ebola. But as even a cursory reading of my post will show, this is wrong. As I make clear, I'm reacting to Nick's claim that Forrest Mims' account was simply the result of a "religious-right self-delusion". So I surveyed the blogosphere and discovered that Mims wasn't the only one who thought he heard Dr. Pianka advocate Ebola-assisted genocide; at least one other audience member and some of Dr. Pianka's former students also make reference to this.
Now, I don't think it's likely that Dr. Pianka seriously advocated genocide; as I said in a previous comment, I think he was simply joking about it, a possibility that Nick has also suggested. However, Dr. Pianka seems to have joked in such a way as to make many of his listener's think that he was being serious. Contrary to Nick and Dr. Pianka, this wasn't a statement invented by Forrest Mims out of jealosy. In fact, you can find Dr. Pianka's students saying similar things back in 2004.
Is that something you'd like to discuss, Ed?
Comment by Krauze — April 4, 2006 @ 6:55 am
April 4th, 2006 at 8:23 am
Mike Gene asked (in his thread):
UT spokesman Don Hale tells:
KXAN reports:
Pianka:
Comment by Analyysi — April 4, 2006 @ 8:23 am
April 4th, 2006 at 8:39 am
Pianka's inflammatory rhetoric is clearly over the line of bad taste, and some of his statements are frankly callous. Hopefully this experience will teach him that being purposefully provocative and over the top is not a good way to get a rational message across.
That said, to my reading, none of the quotes above from Pianka's students states that Pianka advocates for the killing of 90% of humanity, which is the lie that Mims and Dembski (and, indirectly, by perpetuating the rumor, this blog) are shamelessly pushing, and the ID/Creationist crowd has swallowed hole.
The first quote above says the student doesn't "root for Ebola", which Pianka, in a sense, is. But that's no active genocide. The second says Pianka is "advocating the death of 90% of the population", which again Pianka may well be doing when he says that the Earth would be better off with just 10% of humans, but says nothing about actively killing people. The third one says that Pianka will be pleased when a pandemic wipes out most of the human population, which is sickening if true but clearly not advocating genocide. The fourth quote supports Pianka's defense and directly contradicts Mims' alarmist kooky interpretation.
I mean, the issue here is quite simple. Let's say you go to a science talk at the Texas Aademy of Sciences and you think you heard the speaker advocate mass genocide, and then you see everyone clapping. What do you do?
a) You think it is highly unlikely than a large educated crowd at the TAS would cheer for genocide, and during public discussion after the talk, you stand up and ask: "This may seem crazy, and I might well have misunderstood, but are you really advocating genocide"
b) You think it is highly unlikely than a large educated crowd at the TAS would cheer for genocide, so you go to the speaker privately after the talk and ask the very same question.
c) You let all your paranoid fantasies about genocidal eugenist darwinists take over, forget to ask for clarifications, write an alarmist article warning about impending darwinist eco-bioterrorism, and lead a public campaign to smear the reputation of an otherwise well-esteemed scientist.
Your pick.
Comment by Andrea — April 4, 2006 @ 8:39 am
April 4th, 2006 at 8:58 am
Ed, Nick, Andrea, you have to remember that we're debating here at TT in the Post Wedge World, where Pianka's own words on the matter are not really relevant. It's what the ID creationists think they heard, it's what they feel in their hearts, that's what the real truth is. Relativism (moral and metaphysical) rules here. You have to keep this in mind at all times.
With Pianka's clarification, this episode really should be over. But here in the Post Wedge World, where there is no right or wrong, correct or incorrect, true or false, the myth will persist, and I suspect grow. We should go along for the ride, and see where it leads.
Comment by Art — April 4, 2006 @ 8:58 am
April 4th, 2006 at 9:12 am
I wonder if Art and Nick would say the same about the Sternberg case.
In the Pianka situation, we're supposed to take his words today as nullifying his past patterns of speech and behavior. But in the case of Sternberg, who to this very day denies being a creationist, we're supposed to remain suspicious.
Comment by bipod — April 4, 2006 @ 9:12 am
April 4th, 2006 at 9:15 am
Art, your post-modernist analysis totally misses the mark. We believe in the truth, we just think the truth is a little more complex than the "us vs. them" mentality that you pander at our blog almost every day.
Comment by bipod — April 4, 2006 @ 9:15 am
April 4th, 2006 at 9:15 am
Andrea,
"C" is so much easier, you see. It requires no work. There are no consequences, other than outraged comments on your blog. Reporting people to the Dept of Homeland Security is apparently as simple as picking up a phone. No need to substantiate anything. Just plant a seed and maybe– just maybe– the Feds might actually take it seriously enough to make the poor schmoe's life miserable for awhile. Besides, if he's innocent he has nothing to worry about, right?
Comment by KC — April 4, 2006 @ 9:15 am
April 4th, 2006 at 9:22 am
[...] As We Do" Dept. Eric Pianka: The Department of Homeland Security needs to interview you From the mouths of students Now I'm going to agree that Dr. Pianka's views sound pretty radical to [...]
Pingback by Threads from Henry’s Web » Blog Archive » Christians and Defamation — April 4, 2006 @ 9:22 am
April 4th, 2006 at 9:39 am
Art writes:
This is another example of the pattern where the IDP always has it wrong and the Darwinian is always correct. What nonesense! In his post over at PT, Matzke spares no ad hominem against Mims for his alleged misreporting of what Pianka said. Of course, Matzke wasn't there and the meeting wasn't recorded, so naturally we should just take his Darwinist word over that of Mims who was actually there. Geesh!
Comment by DonaldM — April 4, 2006 @ 9:39 am
April 4th, 2006 at 9:39 am
The differences between this and the Sternberg case are clear. Sternberg's 'clarifications', including the blatantly one-sided hack-job on the O'Lielly show, were at best embellished (re: his treatment at the Smithsonian). Pianka is not a member, as far as I can tell, of any pro-genocide or pro-euthanasia groups. Sternberg, on the other hand, is affiliated/associated with at least two creationist/anti-Darwin organizations, the Baraminology Study Group and the Discovery Institute.
There really is no comparison.
Comment by derwood — April 4, 2006 @ 9:39 am
April 4th, 2006 at 9:46 am
Pianka and his fellow travellers (and I know very many of them in the environmentalist movement) really do think that 90% of people should die for the "betterment" of the planet and its ecosystems.
I am quite certain that their belief system, shading at times towards outright advocacy, helps provide a fertile soil for mentally unstable individuals who would seek to implement them. My hope and belief is that such a "final solution" would not work, would not kill more than 10% or so worldwide.
Comment by MatthewCromer — April 4, 2006 @ 9:46 am
April 4th, 2006 at 9:51 am
derwood, except for the fact that, in raising Sternberg, bipod lends credence to my argument, I think discussion about Sternberg would be rehashing the past and doesn't belong here. (Krauze can correct me, of course.)
bipod, my postmodern allusions are dead-on.
Just a short while ago, I stated:
As if on cue, DonaldM gives us:
Note that, in DonaldM's contribution, Pianka's own comments are not mentioned. Need I say more?
Comment by Art — April 4, 2006 @ 9:51 am
April 4th, 2006 at 9:56 am
I think this statement says everything that needs to be said about Pianka's culpability:
Comment by MatthewCromer — April 4, 2006 @ 9:56 am
April 4th, 2006 at 10:13 am
Art,
You've got a screwed up (and very inaccurate) method for elucidating the truth if it amounts to accepting the testimony of a guy who's under the gun. If there were any science of pschology it would beging with:
Rule 1: The unanalyzed testimony of a person under intense scrutiny is wholly unreliable.
And maybe:
Rule 2: The best indicator for a person's beliefs is not present testimony, but evidence of patterns of speech and behavior in the recent past.
Comment by bipod — April 4, 2006 @ 10:13 am
April 4th, 2006 at 10:22 am
psychology, not pschology
Sternberg is only relevant in so far as bringing you to understand the method that you are using for determining the truth of the matter. Sternberg gave testimony that denies being a creationist. Pianka gave testimony that denies advocating the mass destruction of humanity. There was some evidence for Sternberg being a creationist, and there was some evidence for Pianka advocating the destruction of humanity. Sternberg said something like "my creationist affiliations amount to an effort in collegiality not advocacy." Pianka says something like "My comments on human population amount to a warning or prediction, not advocacy."
The point of course is that both deny the extreme interpretation that one might make from their pattern of behavior and speech over several years. One must then judge how to weigh current testimony, while under the gun, in the face of past facts.
Comment by bipod — April 4, 2006 @ 10:22 am
April 4th, 2006 at 10:25 am
Art is correct about one thing: Sternberg isn't the subject of this thread.
Comment by Krauze — April 4, 2006 @ 10:25 am
April 4th, 2006 at 12:05 pm
Over at Pharyngula, Elizabeth has some words of caution:
Comment by Krauze — April 4, 2006 @ 12:05 pm
April 4th, 2006 at 12:08 pm
Note that in both Pianka's and Sternberg's case, the pro-science side is suggesting to do the very same thing: to go back and look at what the person in question did before the respective brouhahas erupted.
Pianka was very clear about what he meant on his web site and in previous published works, lectures and speeches, based on all the available evidence and many colleagues' and students' testimonies, none of whom ever claimed that he advocated genocide. And Pianka keeps repeating the very same things now. Unless one subscribes to the genocidal eugenist darwinist scientist conspiracy stereotype, as some here seem to do, it is just preposterous that possibly thousands of students and scientists over the years heard Pianka openly advocate genocide and simply covered it up.
On the other hand, Sternberg's own words and actions in ID/Creationist environments before the SI thing broke out clearly suggested one thing (that he was at the very least an ID/Creationism sympathizer, if not a true believer), and his words afterwards indicated another (that he was just posing as a "friendly critic").
Hence, there is no reason to suspect that Pianka was ever in bad faith, while it is legitimate at the very least to wonder about Sternberg's motives and scientific judgement. It's just a matter of consistency.
Now, I think Pianka clearly also lacked good judgement in his use of rhetoric, but the witch hunt to which he has been subject, with the implicit complicity of people on this site, is just plain despicable, in my opinion.
Comment by Andrea — April 4, 2006 @ 12:08 pm
April 4th, 2006 at 12:13 pm
bipod saith:
So, lessee if we've got this straight. If the bloggers on TT are any indication, IDists are under the gun all over the place – they're persecuted, held up for ridicule, threatened with all manner of personal and professional insult. Therefore, by bipod's reasoning, we shouldn't trust anything ID proponents are saying.
Um….
er…..
ahhhh….
…. maybe bipod's made a good point
.
Always nice to see a tiny bit of agreement in these discussions.
Comment by Art — April 4, 2006 @ 12:13 pm
April 4th, 2006 at 12:20 pm
Art,
That's right. See Rule #1 above.
Rule 1: The unanalyzed testimony of a person under intense scrutiny is wholly unreliable.
And also refer back to Mike Gene's comments on his own website which apply equally well to this site:
Comment by bipod — April 4, 2006 @ 12:20 pm
April 4th, 2006 at 12:51 pm
Hi Andrea,
"Pianka was very clear about what he meant on his web site and in previous published works, lectures and speeches, based on all the available evidence and many colleagues' and students' testimonies, none of whom ever claimed that he advocated genocide."
Let's back up a bit. We have statements from people in the audience and former students of Dr. Pianka portraying him as someone who's rooting for Ebola to kill 90% of the population. Yet in the interview that Nick is uncritically embracing, Pianka finds himself doubting that he even mentioned the figure "90%", and suggests that the whole thing was made up by Forrest Mims. Something isn't jibing here, and you don't have to think that Pianka is a genocide-loving lunatic to exhibit some skepticism about this.
"Now, I think Pianka clearly also lacked good judgement in his use of rhetoric, but the witch hunt to which he has been subject, with the implicit complicity of people on this site, is just plain despicable, in my opinion."
Let's look at how this blog has exhibited "implicit complicity". The first post was by Mike, in which he describes Dr. Pianka as expressing "glee at the thought of my children (and your children) dying from a torturous infectious disease", and asking why the university hasn't distanced themselves from Dr. Pianka, the way the universities of ID supporters Behe and Gonzales distanced themselves from them. This picture of Pianka is certainly supported by accounts and student evaluations, which, in your own words, portrayed Pianka as "rooting" for Ebola. Does that mean that they (and you) were also engaged in a "witch hunt"
Then there's my post with the Calvin & Hobbes cartoon, in which I say that Pianka had "joked about 90% of the human population dying of Ebola." Again, this seems to be a fair interpretation, considering thisarticle. And it was a suggestion that you colleague Nick Matzke had already floated. Was Nick engaging in a "witch hunt"
Finally, there's this post, in which I linked to a number of accounts of the speech, all of which reported Dr. Pianka rooting for Ebola (except for one account, which heard him warning against Ebola instead). So, where all of these people also engaged in a "witch hunt"
Comment by Krauze — April 4, 2006 @ 12:51 pm
April 4th, 2006 at 11:07 pm
Art:
Art's assessment misses the mark. What we have with "Pianka's clarification" is the fleshing out of the disagreement. That is, we now have the two sides to the same story. Since none of us were at the speeches in question, we must sift through the evidence to determine which story best accounts for the data.
The next logical step would be to consider that the speech in question was made in public. So what do the other witnesses have to say? We've already seen how the student's blog independently corroborates Mims's account in three places. But what about all the scientists who were in the audience. According to this newspaper account, we read:
The journalist also finds someone else:
The article also contains another relevant excerpt:
This is significant because Nick Matzke attempted to dismiss this newspaper story by making Mims the sole source (Nick's extreme bias against creationists is well known). But we can now see that this story is from a professional journalist who attended one of Pianka's speeches.
The journalist's account is thus worth a second look because we now know it does not solely depend on Mims as a source.
Finally, the article nicely captures the true nature of the dispute. The critics have spun the story as follows "“ if Pianka was not advocating genocide, he must have been simply warning about an ecological collapse. That's their whole argument. But this is an illogical argument. While Pianka was not advocating genocide (as I have acknowledged from the start), he could have been celebrating the demise of the human race, as he thinks there are too many humans and they are destroying Nature (something he loves very much). And the newspaper article frames it just this way:
So the issue is not whether Pianka was advocating for genocide. That is the straw man the Pianka enthusiasts have latched on to. It's whether Pianka was merely "trying to warn his audience" or whether he is, in a sense, celebrating the coming pandemic.
How can we proceed with our limited data? Not far, but perhaps we can tap into the expertise that has visited our humble blog to better focus on Pianka's position of "just warning people." Remember, that Pianka's audience was an audience of scientists. And there is no reason to think the scientists who are here to scold us are much different from the scientists of the Texas Academy of Science.
So I must ask "“ did these scientists really need to be warned about overpopulation, pandemics, and ecological collapse? I mean, this is basically a re-run of Paul Ehrlich's "The Population Bomb" and the stuff Pianka warns about is part of the public square (including popular fiction books and movies). But who knows? Maybe the scientists of the TAS needed to be warned about all this. Since they are not here, let's ask Art, Nick, KC, and Andrea a few simple questions.
Did you guys need to be warned about this?
If not, how long have you known about overpopulation, pandemics, and ecological collapse?
Comment by MikeGene — April 4, 2006 @ 11:07 pm
April 4th, 2006 at 11:21 pm
BTW, one more point of clarification. Nick Matzke made a big deal about Pianka's glowing student evaluations. In the unedited interview, Pianka said he doesn't include the bad reviews. Thus, the student evaluations are a biased sample.
Comment by MikeGene — April 4, 2006 @ 11:21 pm
April 5th, 2006 at 12:34 am
More silliness. That's another joke, lost on this crowd. It repeats a joke Pianka made on his website. All indications are that Pianka is an award winning, much loved teacher.
Comment by Nick Matzke — April 5, 2006 @ 12:34 am
April 5th, 2006 at 12:39 am
Now Mims isn't even making any sense. Pianka can't be both anti-human and complaining about scourges on humanity.
Comment by Nick Matzke — April 5, 2006 @ 12:39 am
April 5th, 2006 at 12:55 am
It bears mentioning that Seguin, TX is Mims's longtime hometown and that Mims pretty obviously sicked the Seguin Gazette-Enterprise reporter on Pianka.
Whose transcript does the Seguin Gazette-Enterprise see? Forrest Mims's? There has been some rattling around on various ID blogs about the IDers having a transcript, but they seem to differ on which lecture and how ambiguous it will be. I suspect if they had something really good we'd have seen it already.
Comment by Nick Matzke — April 5, 2006 @ 12:55 am
April 5th, 2006 at 1:02 am
[I meant to say...]
It bears mentioning that Seguin, TX, population ~24,000, is Mims's longtime hometown and that Mims pretty obviously sicked the Seguin Gazette-Enterprise reporter on Pianka.
Whose transcript did the Seguin Gazette-Enterprise see? Forrest Mims's? There has been some rattling around on various ID blogs about the IDers having a transcript, but they seem to differ on which lecture and how ambiguous the wording will be. I suspect if they had something really good we'd have seen it already.
Comment by Nick Matzke — April 5, 2006 @ 1:02 am
April 5th, 2006 at 1:51 pm
Huh? There is nothing in that link that indicates that was a "joke".
Comment by Guts — April 5, 2006 @ 1:51 pm
April 5th, 2006 at 2:45 pm
Guts,
Had you read to the end you would have seen the following
"For negative evaluations from poorer students, see the PickaProf website."
If that's not recognizable as a joke as well as a pointer to the negative evaluations then I don't know what is.
I am learning a lot of new things on this website.
Comment by ethel_merganser — April 5, 2006 @ 2:45 pm
April 5th, 2006 at 2:48 pm
Why is it relevant whether Dr. Pianka is a beloved teacher?
Comment by Krauze — April 5, 2006 @ 2:48 pm
April 5th, 2006 at 2:56 pm
Krauze,
It's relevant because if Pianka is teaching death to humanity and his students love him then (a) they are being brainwashed into a vicious and deady cult, the Branch Piankians and must be stopped or (b) they all need reporting to DHS as proto-eco-terroristas (Bill Dembski have you number?) or (c) Pianka isn't so bad as the anti-Darwinistas claims. My bet is on (a).
Ethel
Comment by ethel_merganser — April 5, 2006 @ 2:56 pm
April 5th, 2006 at 2:59 pm
Pianka has probably promised his students the vaccine for his genetically engineered airborne ebola virus; since they have been enlightened by him, they deserve to be amongst the surviving 10%.
Comment by Aagcobb — April 5, 2006 @ 2:59 pm
April 5th, 2006 at 3:50 pm
ethel. you've forgotten some options. they may love him because he is radical and young people love radical people. i have a friend who teaches at the university level who has slept with more teenage girls than you can imagine simply because he is radical. he gives people ideas they had never encountered and they either love him or hate him for it.
pianka very well could be loved because he is radical. but radical doesn't mean that he advocates genocide. it could mean something more innocuous like "expressing glee" that Nature will take the legs out from underneath pompous humanity.
i have several friends who would love pianka for taking this position. they hate university folk who pretend to be objective labcoats. their emotions would be riled up by a guy who took his beliefs seriously and expressed the consequences of those beliefs in the form of "rooting" or cheering for humanity to get what it deserves as the scourge of the earth. they'd love him. but for none of the reasons you express unless C) is meant to cover "expressing glee" at the mass death of humanity
Comment by bipod — April 5, 2006 @ 3:50 pm
April 5th, 2006 at 4:19 pm
bipod,
It sounds like your friend gives them more than just ideas. Shouldn't he reported to the University if he's using his position to sleep with teenage girls? I find this shocking and a terrible abuse of position. Also, it may be that the girls are underage.
Are you suggesting that Pianka's radicalism is a ploy to get girls (and perhaps boys, since some of the positive evaluations seem to come from males) to sleep with him.?That would be a dastardly deed indeed.
But I do agree with you that I should have expanded my options. I propose inserting a new option C into my list and relabelling (C) as (D) with the labelling of the other options remaining unchanged as well as my own preferred alternative remaining intact;
New C) Pianka projects such an inordinate glee at the destruction of humanity by viruses or other natural agents that students become so deluded by his radicalism that they look for favors, including approval, sexual liaisons etc., from Pianka by giving him good evaluations.
But I can't really accept this alternative – in Texas there are surely enough right-minded Republicans and believers to report him to David Horowitz. So I'm not buying this option though I agree it's inclusion is appropriate,
Ethel
Comment by ethel_merganser — April 5, 2006 @ 4:19 pm
April 6th, 2006 at 3:53 pm
Ethel,
Of course my point was only that many university students are captivated and seduced by radical, novel ideas. My friend takes this enamour a step further.
Either start being rational or we will ban you from our blog.
Comment by bipod — April 6, 2006 @ 3:53 pm