Some scientists think humans descended from Martian microbes

Palm Beach Post ^ | Monday, April 03, 2006 | Stacey Singer

[Right Wing Professor]

Dim-witted, benighted, supeprstitious morons.... hate science.... want to defund it, yada yada:

Parody can be dangerous when it steers too close to the truth. Look at the hate campaign launched against Eric Pianka based on the apparently false claims of creationist Forrest Mims, for example. Look at how many people on FR accepted these at face value.

[betty boop]

...Eric Pianka....

Jeepers, RWP, I don't know whether Dr. Pianka has been slandered here, or whether he is truly a bona fide nutcase. The latter case looks more likely to me at the present time, given his fuminations publicly documented in the essay at the top.

But then again, I am always open to new evidence. If you've got any, I'd seriously be glad to see it.

[betty boop]

That book is true even if Satan is a merely a mental boogey man... or not.

The Screwtape Letters is true for the simple reason that Satan is not a figment of our imagination, individual or collective. And good old Clive Staples got him dead to rights in this marvelous work (though I hear it cost C.S. Lewis a lot in the meantime. I gather he didn't much enjoy the experience of writing this work, that he found it personally harrowing, and was just glad to get it "over and done with" when the time came).

That is to say, Satan is not a mere "mental boogey man," but a really "unfriendly" and quite powerful spirit operating in the real world. This is a spirit which loathes, detests, and ever seeks to undermine the welfare of human beings. FWIW.

In short, I do not think that Satan is merely a "mental boogeyman." He evidently has too much power to be a fiction. Just look at the world around you today, and ask yourself whether this might be the actual case.

Good night, dear hosepipe! Thanks for writing!

[onedoug]

I doubt it. But how would that remove God from the matter?

[AndrewC]

whether he is truly a bona fide nutcase

A data point or two.

What nobody wants to hear, but everyone needs to know

autoObituary(evidently)

Pianka's hobbies included chess and falconry. He was a jack-of-all trades but a master of none: he did his own auto repairs, wiring, plumbing, building, fencing and weeding. He learned carpentry from his father and he loved to build, although he did not like finish work very much. He is survived by one of his two brothers, his sister, two daughters, two grand daughters, two ex-wives, and a small herd of American bison.

Pianka spent nearly 10 years of his life living in the desert, often alone, and he liked to think of himself as a hermit and a desert rat. He spent 6 full years down under and at times, he was at one with the bushfly. He spent the last half of his life living in the Texas hill country in a "shack on Flat Creek," where he became known as "Tatonka Pianka."

[hosepipe]

[ In short, I do not think that Satan is merely a "mental boogeyman." He evidently has too much power to be a fiction. Just look at the world around you today, and ask yourself whether this might be the actual case. ]

Actually I said "mental boogeyman" or not..
I'm sure you noticed.. but in case others didn't I make the case again..
Maybe too obscure of a reference..

[philetus]

Martian microbes? Are they anything like bumblebes?

[AndrewC]

I don't know whether Dr. Pianka has been slandered here, or whether he is truly a bona fide nutcase

Another data point. From www.zo.utexas.edu Excerpts from Student Evaluations -- Fall 2004, Biology 357 ,Instructors: Eric R. Pianka (Prof.) and Stephen Goodyear (T. A.)

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.

I guess his students slander him too.

[betty boop]

Your class has opened my mind and made me aware of the evil that is anthropocentrism.

I read the student reviews, AndrewC. Thanks for the link. Still don't know for sure whether Pianka's a nutcase or not. But it seems to me that a person who thinks the cure for environmental problems is the reduction of the population of the human race to one-tenth of its present size is at least a little strange. One wonders why Pianka does not favor a 100% reduction. For then I guess everything would be just perfectly hunky-dory.

For one thing, "anthropocentrism" would be dead. I gather many people would consider that a very good thing. But then in all likelihood, they'd be dead, too.

[Diamond]

One wonders why Pianka does not favor a 100% reduction. For then I guess everything would be just perfectly hunky-dory... For one thing, "anthropocentrism" would be dead. I gather many people would consider that a very good thing. But then in all likelihood, they'd be dead, too.

LOL!
No doubt the 10% who think they deserve to be the survivors also probably plan on being the Conditioners ushering in the New Master Race.
-------------------------------------------------------------

"Your class has opened my mind and made me aware of the evil that is anthropocentrism."

There they go again; 'imposing their morality' on everybody else.

Cordially,

[Diamond]

Look at the hate campaign launched against Eric Pianka based on the apparently false claims of creationist Forrest Mims, for example. Look at how many people on FR accepted these at face value.

If Pianka's wacko statements were of the nature of a Swiftian "modest proposal" you might have a point about not accepting them at face value. Then again, if I had a million dollars I'd be a millionaire.

Cordially,

[Right Wing Professor]

Thanks, AndrewC. It's everything I would have expected from you.

[Right Wing Professor]

Ah, so one anonymous bad testimony out of 100 good ones should be enough to hang the man.

You really never fail to disappoint.

[betty boop]

No doubt the 10% who think they deserve to be the survivors also probably plan on being the Conditioners ushering in the New Master Race.

Doubtlessly Diamond. I've noticed that the self-appointed Conditioners ushering in the New Master Race always seem to exempt themselves from their own nefarious proposals. To me, this makes them silly people, if not outright lunatics.

[S0122017]

Not too short afterwards either.
Earth was short of unfinished.

[Right Wing Professor]

Then again, if I had a million dollars I'd be a millionaire.

But you'd still be a few cards short of a full deck.

I think it's lovely how you guys have turned a scientist who maybe is a little goofy and off-center, but whose plans for the future seem to be largely putting a few dollars aside for his grandchildren, into some sort of monster.

[AndrewC]

Ah, so one anonymous bad testimony

Now it's one... I gave the link. Judge for yourself. But what I also did was show that your attack on Mims was ill advised. The comments came from the good professor's own site. He chose what to present. It thus verifies the "insane" opinion mentioned. The fact that he abnormally presents his own obituary and characterizes himself as a hermit and desert rat is also invisible to you.

[Slingshot]

"Some scientists think humans descended from Martian microbes"

Well then, where did apes come from?

And by the way? Who were the parents of the Platypus??
UUUUUhhhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm??????

Good to see you still going, strong as ever betty boop.
Have a good day.
slingshot

[Right Wing Professor]

Now it's one... I gave the link

Student evaluations are anonymous. And you know diddly squat about evaluations. If you take the evaluations of the best instructor on campus, you will always find two or three in any set which are totally off the wall; they hated the prof., and they say stuff about him/her that totally disconnects from reality. Taking those evaluations out of the context of the scores of good ones is an outrageous exercise in dishonesty, or in other words, just another day in creationland.

This guy's views are not mine, obviously. he's undoubtedly eccentric. (Gee, an eccentric on a university campus - what a surprise!) The real surprise here is the witch-hunt mentality of so many of our regular posters. Once upon a time, conservatives were the ones defending intellectual diversity against leftist fascists. But it appear when the boot goes on the other foot, we're as prone to hounding someone whose views we disagree with as any campus feminist.

[AndrewC]

Student evaluations are anonymous. And you know diddly squat about evaluations.

So what? I did not post the evaluations. The evaluatee did. It was obviously a culled list of evaluations, or the good professor is immensely overpaid.

I did not take the evaluation out of context. It was evidence that Mims was not the genesis of that "slander" as you implied. That is your dishonesty. How else but showing the statement by someone else can I show that Look at the hate campaign launched against Eric Pianka based on the apparently false claims of creationist Forrest Mims, for example. " (--- RWP post 101 this thread) is false?

And you can defend the "diversity" of opinion that opines the benefit of killing 90% of humanity with ebola if you wish. Even the Schickelgruber was not that ambitious.