[extropy-chat] Meeting Doctor Doom

[Joseph Bloch]

Martin Striz wrote:

>On 4/3/06, spike <spike66 at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>  
>
>>Joseph, I do not believe the site is correct because of the
>>following comment:
>>    
>>
>
>The blogosphere is abuzz over this scandal.  Look at:
>
>http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2006/04/forrest_mims_cr.html
>
>as an example.  Apparently some guy named Forrest Mims tried to smear
>him.  Pianka never advocated spreading Ebola virus himself.  Rather,
>he predicted that it would spread on its own, and opined that that
>wouldn't be a terrible thing.  Still a bad thing to say, but not
>nearly of the magnitude that it was made out to be.
>
>Martin
>
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>
>
>  
>

It certainly appears as if *something* about the story isn't true.

However, it appears as if both Mims and Pianka are kooks in their own 
way. Are we to believe the possible exaggerations and distortions of 
Mims? Or the possible frantic backpedaling of Pianka?

Sadly, without some sort of recording or transcript of the event, we 
might never know for sure. Although I'm pretty sure I read in one of the 
gazillion accounts of the speech that the story was corroborated by one 
of Pianka's students or colleagues or something. I'll check around.

Joseph