So you're telling me it's a scientist's responsibility to insure himself against the likelihood fundamentalist Christians will lie about him. I'm inclined to agree it's wise move.
The major population growth in the world is in the third world, particularly Africa and the Islamic world. I am surprised Pianka hasn't been called a racist.
The biodiversity of Europe and North America was seriously reduced millenia ago. That of South America, Africa and South East Asia is still high, but it's rapidly being reduced. But indeed, it is surprising they haven't pilloried him for this; it probably because scientists mostly aren't as leftist as humanities types
They didn't attribute the source of the quote to anyone, so I'm assuming it's genuine. That's crazy stuff. How can any scientist defend that? The problem isn't that he's a guy with a stupid opinion, it's that he uses his credentials to promote the most nonscientific of his theories.
I don't agree with it, but it's not crazy. High population density causes epidemics. Entirely sane European and American governments have been stockpiling Tamiflu against the expectation of a major flu pandemic (and one reasonably sane scientist has made a killing on Gilead Scientific in the last year, not to brag or anything). Yes, Ehrlich and the Meadows cried wolf, but they may simply have been premature. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a major plague in Africa and South East Asia in the next 30 years.
But he hopes to do what Singer does.
Let's not start with Singer again.
One thing I've noticed about you and your compatriots is your propensity to end debate by dismissiveness. You started by being dismissive and then, through some light high-order thinking on my part, I explained it. And you were silent. You laugh at his views, but they are the heat that boils the water in which you now find yourself. That which you should ignore (ID), you battle against tooth and nail. That which you should fight against (prominent bioethicists against animal testing), you ignore.
But, hey, you guys are among the group of elitist intellectuals *cough* who, according to Pianka, aren't having enough children, relatively speaking.