Our false prophets, trying to get all scientific again...

I heard that this went from blogs to Drudge and so perhaps from there on to various elements of the New Media. The story is about this scientist who speaks for the proto-Nazi and Malthusian wing among scientists these days, which is more than a few.

Now it is showing up in the Old Media some, e.g.:

A respected Texas scientist wants to kill five billion people to save the world, which has an estimated six billion people.

And Eric Pianka's preferred method is the deadly Ebola virus.

"HIV is too slow," he 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.

(Ecologist wants to use Ebola virus to kill billions and save worldCBC News Tue, 04 Apr 2006 18:13:08 EDT)

Given their adherence to Darwinism, there are actually some defenders of Pianka on blogs dealing with intelligent design and Darwinism. I think it has to do with their failure to admit to the overwhelming evidence in favor of the Anthropic Principle, thus their misanthropy. As people who agree with Darwinian standards for evidence they are probably too busy imagining historical narratives which they treat as evidence, thus becoming overwhelmed by their own imagination. I've been meaning to write about the evidence of an Anthropic Principle, maybe tomorrow.

Here is part of a comment I wrote at Telic Thoughts on it:

What is there to issue a decree about when Pianka denies supporting genocide?

Rest assured that there would be numerous decrees and proclaimations if numerous people came away from his lectures with the impression that he said, "If gays do not change their behavior patterns then HIV will probably mutate and kill us all!" It is doubtful that anyone would be concerned with parsing his statements or developing inane conspiracy theories about how people could get the impression. That would apply to any variant of the same message.

In contrast, this type of message is okay among those who believe in the latest forms of scientism, i.e. the old eugenic, proto-Nazi and Darwinist types: "If the undesirables who have a lot of kids do not change their behavior patterns then a virus will probably kill us all!"

I liked the little satire above about the apocalyptic tone and the way it seems like religious rhetoric. But wouldn't it be typical to false prophets to deny that they're trying to do a little prophesyzin'?