A respected Texas scientist says the best way to kill 90 per cent of the people on the planet and save the world is the Ebola virus.
"HIV is too slow," Eric Pianka said. "It's no good."
Pianka, a 67-year-old biology professor at the University of Texas in Austin, can't understand why people object to his views.
"I don't bear any ill will towards anybody," Pianka said as he discussed the death threats, the jeering and the protests since his views became public last week. "I've got two granddaughters, man. I'm putting money in a college fund for my granddaughters. I'm worried about them."
He doesn't want to harm anybody, said Pianka, who has since backed off somewhat from his original comments. He just believes that the world has far too many people. The population of the world is estimated at six billion.
"What we really need to do is start thinking about controlling our population before it's too late," he told the Associated Press. "It's already too late, but we're not even thinking about it. We're just mindlessly rushing ahead breeding our brains out."
Labelled the "doomsday ecologist," Pianka is a latter-day Thomas Malthus, the 19th-century British economist who said there were too many people in the world. Malthus wanted to control human breeding to prevent overpopulation and starvation, ideas that were picked up 200 years later by the Chinese government.
Pianka approves of Chinese theories on birth control. But he goes one step further and advocates the use of the Ebola virus to kill off the world's surplus people.
"If we don't control our population, microbes will," he said. "Why do we have these lethal microbes that kill us in the first place? The answer is, there's too many of us."
Starvation and war will inevitably decimate the world's population, he says. But diseases, such as the Ebola virus, offers the most efficient and fastest way to "kill the billions that must soon die if the population crisis is to be solved."
http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2006/04/04/ebola-060404.html
"HIV is too slow," Eric Pianka said. "It's no good."
Pianka, a 67-year-old biology professor at the University of Texas in Austin, can't understand why people object to his views.
"I don't bear any ill will towards anybody," Pianka said as he discussed the death threats, the jeering and the protests since his views became public last week. "I've got two granddaughters, man. I'm putting money in a college fund for my granddaughters. I'm worried about them."
He doesn't want to harm anybody, said Pianka, who has since backed off somewhat from his original comments. He just believes that the world has far too many people. The population of the world is estimated at six billion.
"What we really need to do is start thinking about controlling our population before it's too late," he told the Associated Press. "It's already too late, but we're not even thinking about it. We're just mindlessly rushing ahead breeding our brains out."
Labelled the "doomsday ecologist," Pianka is a latter-day Thomas Malthus, the 19th-century British economist who said there were too many people in the world. Malthus wanted to control human breeding to prevent overpopulation and starvation, ideas that were picked up 200 years later by the Chinese government.
Pianka approves of Chinese theories on birth control. But he goes one step further and advocates the use of the Ebola virus to kill off the world's surplus people.
"If we don't control our population, microbes will," he said. "Why do we have these lethal microbes that kill us in the first place? The answer is, there's too many of us."
Starvation and war will inevitably decimate the world's population, he says. But diseases, such as the Ebola virus, offers the most efficient and fastest way to "kill the billions that must soon die if the population crisis is to be solved."
http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2006/04/04/ebola-060404.html
