Probably not (gadfly maybe), but since I "made you look", please read on...
The statements attributed to Professor Eric Pianka, and the RWNM's reaction have been well chronicled by Grand Moff Texan here (also linked by DarkSyde on the FP) as well as by Pianka's own statement What nobody wants to hear, but everyone needs to know that can be found here. As I became more familiar with the gist of what Pianka was trying to say, I couldn't help but feel a strong sense of déjà vu.
Let's see...professor of biology...check...outspoken...check...population control...check...OH YEAH...Garrett Hardin, Professor Emeritus in Human Ecology at my beloved University of California at Santa Barbara. I met him nearly 20 years ago at a small lecture and "question/answer" session when I was a student at UCSB. More on the flip...
Update: This diary is intended as low-grade snark. My point is that the ideas that Prof. Pianka expressed aren't really new, so the wingers need to "get over it". I used Garrett Hardin as an example because many outside of the subject area may have actually heard of him. Thanks.
I imagine that most of you, if you aren't familiar with Hardin may be familiar with the term "lifeboat ethics". The term lifeboat ethics was prominent in the title of an article that Hardin published in
Psychology Today in September 1974 (read it
here). Hardin also helped bring to prominence the term "tragedy of the commons" that is the title an article he published in December 1968 and, which can be read
here. Read both of Hardin's articles for yourself; in fact, read them twice. After you read them the first time, take a break with a the adult beverage of your choice, and calm down. Then, after you're calm, read them again doing your best impression of Joe Friday from
Dragnet or any reputable Vulcan (that is without emotional bias..."just the facts" approach) and see if you don't find yourself tracking with his logic (even if it just feels...wrong...). Next read Pianka's statement on his website, then tell me if you don't see similarities in reasoning with Hardin in "Tragedy of the Commons".
For example...
Pianka states in 2006:
People think unrealistically because they have lost touch with the natural world. Many people today do not really know where and how our food is produced, and on what our life support systems are based. As we continue paving over natural habitats, many think that we can disrupt and despoil the environment indefinitely. We have already taken half of this planet's land surface. Per capita shares of all the things that really matter (air, food, soil, and water) are continuously falling. Our economic system is based on the principle of a chain letter: growth, growth, and more growth. Such runaway growth only expands a bubble that cannot be sustained in a finite world. We are running out of virtually everything from oil, food and land to clean air and water.
Hardin states in 1968:
A finite world can support only a finite population; therefore, population growth must eventually equal zero. (The case of perpetual wide fluctuations above and below zero is a trivial variant that need not be discussed.) When this condition is met, what will be the situation of mankind? Specifically, can Bentham's goal of "the greatest good for the greatest number" be realized?
No--for two reasons, each sufficient by itself. The first is a theoretical one. It is not mathematically possible to maximize for two (or more) variables at the same time....The second reason springs directly from biological facts. To live, any organism must have a source of energy (for example, food). This energy is utilized for two purposes: mere maintenance and work...
In reaching this conclusion I have made the usual assumption that it is the acquisition of energy that is the problem.... given an infinite source of energy, population growth still produces an inescapable problem. The problem of the acquisition of energy is replaced by the problem of its dissipation...
The optimum population is, then, less than the maximum.
Of course, a positive growth rate might be taken as evidence that a population is below its optimum. However, by any reasonable standards, the most rapidly growing populations on earth today are (in general) the most miserable. This association (which need not be invariable) casts doubt on the optimistic assumption that the positive growth rate of a population is evidence that it has yet to reach its optimum.
Again, Pianka 2006
I do not bear any ill will toward humanity. However, I am convinced that the world WOULD clearly be much better off without so many of us. Simply stopping the destruction of rainforests would help mediate some current planetary ills, including the release of previously unknown pathogens. The ancient Chinese curse "may you live in interesting times" comes to mind -- we are living in one of the most interesting times humans have ever experienced. For example, consider the manifold effects of global warming. We need to make a transition to a sustainable world. If we don't, nature is going to do it for us in ways of her own choosing. By definition, these ways will not be ours and they won't be much fun. Think about that.
Hardin 1968
Perhaps the simplest summary of this analysis of man's population problems is this: the commons, if justifiable at all, is justifiable only under conditions of low-population density. As the human population has increased, the commons has had to be abandoned in one aspect after another.
First we abandoned the commons in food gathering, enclosing farm land and restricting pastures and hunting and fishing areas. These restrictions are still not complete throughout the world.
Somewhat later we saw that the commons as a place for waste disposal would also have to be abandoned. Restrictions on the disposal of domestic sewage are widely accepted in the Western world; we are still struggling to close the commons to pollution by automobiles, factories, insecticide sprayers, fertilizing operations, and atomic energy installations.
In a still more embryonic state is our recognition of the evils of the commons in matters of pleasure. There is almost no restriction on the propagation of sound waves in the public medium. The shopping public is assaulted with mindless music, without its consent. Our government is paying out billions of dollars to create supersonic transport which will disturb 50,000 people for every one person who is whisked from coast to coast 3 hours faster. Advertisers muddy the airwaves of radio and television and pollute the view of travelers. We are a long way from outlawing the commons in matters of pleasure. Is this because our Puritan inheritance makes us view pleasure as something of a sin, and pain (that is, the pollution of advertising) as the sign of virtue?
Every new enclosure of the commons involves the infringement of somebody's personal liberty. Infringements made in the distant past are accepted because no contemporary complains of a loss. It is the newly proposed infringements that we vigorously oppose; cries of "rights" and "freedom" fill the air. But what does "freedom" mean? When men mutually agreed to pass laws against robbing, mankind became more free, not less so. Individuals locked into the logic of the commons are free only to bring on universal ruin once they see the necessity of mutual coercion, they become free to pursue other goals. I believe it was Hegel who said, "Freedom is the recognition of necessity."
The most important aspect of necessity that we must now recognize, is the necessity of abandoning the commons in breeding. No technical solution can rescue us from the misery of overpopulation. Freedom to breed will bring ruin to all. At the moment, to avoid hard decisions many of us are tempted to propagandize for conscience and responsible parenthood. The temptation must be resisted, because an appeal to independently acting consciences selects for the disappearance of all conscience in the long run, and an increase in anxiety in the short.
The only way we can preserve and nurture other and more precious freedoms is by relinquishing the freedom to breed, and that very soon. "Freedom is the recognition of necessity"--and it is the role of education to reveal to all the necessity of abandoning the freedom to breed. Only so, can we put an end to this aspect of the tragedy of the commons.
Lastly, Pianka 2006:
Some politicians, economists, and corporations want us to believe that technology will come to our rescue. But we have a false sense of security if we think that science can respond quickly enough to minimize threats from emerging diseases. Microbes have such short lifecycles that they can evolve exceedingly fast, much faster than we can respond to them. Many bacteria have evolved resistance to most antibiotics, and viruses are immune to just about anything. Defense always lags behind offense. So far, modern humans have just been lucky. A reactive approach to problems isn't enough, we also need to be proactive and anticipate problems before they become too severe to keep them from getting out of control. Many people believe that Earth and all its resources exist solely for human consumption, this is anthropocentrism. We should allow other denizens of this Earth some space to live.
And, Hardin 1968:
Recall the game of tick-tack-toe. Consider the problem, "How can I win the game of tick-tack-toe?" It is well known that I cannot, if I assume (in keeping with the conventions of game theory) that my opponent understands the game perfectly. Put another way, there is no "technical solution" to the problem. I can win only by giving a radical meaning to the word "win." I can hit my opponent over the head; or I can drug him; or I can falsify the records. Every way in which I "win" involves, in some sense, an abandonment of the game, as we intuitively understand it. (I can also, of course, openly abandon the game--refuse to play it. This is what most adults do.)
The class of "No technical solution problems" has members. My thesis is that the "population problem," as conventionally conceived, is a member of this class. How it is conventionally conceived needs some comment. It is fair to say that most people who anguish over the population problem are trying to find a way to avoid the evils of overpopulation without relinquishing any of the privileges they now enjoy. They think that farming the seas or developing new strains of wheat will solve the problem--technologically. I try to show here that the solution they seek cannot be found. The population problem cannot be solved in a technical way, any more than can the problem of winning the game of tick-tack-toe.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights describes the family as the natural and fundamental unit of society. It follows that any choice and decision with regard to the size of the family must irrevocably rest with the family itself, and cannot be made by anyone else.
It is painful to have to deny categorically the validity of this right; denying it, one feels as uncomfortable as a resident of Salem, Massachusetts, who denied the reality of witches in the 17th century....However, let us not forget what Robert Louis Stevenson said: "The truth that is suppressed by friends is the readiest weapon of the enemy." If we love the truth we must openly deny the validity of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, even though it is promoted by the United Nations.
No, I don't think Pianka in a plagarist, but I do believe that he has been influenced by the thoughts and writings of Garrett Hardin. Hopefully both of their messages won't be lost in all the noise. Gadflies ARE annoying, yet they serve their purpose in our social environment.