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Ok I was shown this in my English class today... and i have not added ANYTHING to it, He e-mailed this to me and I think you should see this too. I was very disturbed and I want to see what you peoples think of it. and don’t read it thinking 'oh no one will be in favor of THIS’ its actually becoming the norm. in the scientific world.


The End of Humanism

Mankind doesn’t fare too well in cutting-edge intellectual thinking
|Gene Edward Veith |

Remember humanism? That optimistic belief that human beings are the apex of the universe, the source of all values, and the measure of all things? Throughout the 20th century, many intellectuals believed that humanism would take the place of the world's religions.

And yet, even within the world of humanism, the status of "Man" has been diminishing. In the sequence of Humanist Manifestos issued over the years, what began with the exaltation of "Man" has been reduced to the exaltation of "science," by which adherents mean evolution. Today, "secular humanists" still believe in secularism, but the humanism is all but gone. They have taken the next step, deriding humanism as an outdated relic of modernism. Cutting-edge thinking is increasingly anti-human.

Consider a recent speech by University of Texas biologist Eric Pianka. He was addressing the Texas Academy of Science, which had just named him the 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist.

When people learn what is being taught in their tax-supported universities, they are often shocked. So before Mr. Pianka's talk, Academy officials threw out a TV cameraman who was videotaping the conference. Mr. Pianka explained that the public was not ready to hear what he was going to say. The old humanists used to believe in the freedom of the press and the free flow of ideas. But ordinary Texans might not approve of hearing that this Distinguished Texas Scientist wanted to kill them.

Mr. Pianka began by condemning "anthropocentrism," the idea that human beings have a privileged place in the universe. He told about a neighbor who once asked him what good are the lizards that he studies. Mr. Pianka replied, "What good are you?"

Mr. Pianka believes, in his words, "We're no better than bacteria!" and he has proposed an anti-bacterial course of hygiene. He said that, in order to save the planet, the human population should be reduced by 90 percent. War and famine are not efficient enough, he said, to kill the billions of people necessary. Disease would be the best population reducer. AIDS, though, works much too slowly.

What would be best, he said, is Ebola, a Central African virus that liquifies the internal organs. An airborne variety of Ebola, he calculated, would produce 90 percent mortality.

The Academy gave Mr. Pianka a sustained ovation. In the Q&A that followed, Mr. Pianka said, "You know, the bird flu's good, too." He also suggested we "sterilize everybody on the Earth." He praised China with its forced-abortion laws "because they got a police state and they can force people to stop reproducing."

This anti-human stance, though not always presented so blatantly, has become commonplace. Princeton professor Peter Singer, one of the world's leading ethicists, also rejects the notion that human beings have a special status over animals. While arguing for animal rights, Mr. Singer rejects intrinsic human rights, calling not only for abortion but infanticide, as well as nonvoluntary euthanasia for the handicapped.

Meanwhile, in art and literature classes, professors take on "the myth of the artist," which lauds human creativity and individual genius. Instead, according to contemporary anti-humanist criticism, the artist is just a "construction" of the culture, whose forces and power relationships completely determine what a Shakespeare or Michelangelo thinks and creates. Social scientists do the same with "the myth of the individual," asserting that self-consciousness itself is nothing more than a cultural construction. They also argue that freedom is an illusion, that the only difference between free societies and police states is that free societies force people to police themselves.

It's not really very shocking at all. Me and my friends have discussed at length how the rise of such diseases as cancer and AIDs can largely be attributed to human overpopulation, and that they are in effect a reaction of nature to prevent us from growing too large in number to be sustainable.

And frankly, I do think humanism is outdated. It simply isn't true that human beings are the most superior beings on our planet, by almost any standard.

The problem here is with this article itself - almost every single one of the quotes used seem out of context, and the article is also careful to avoid mentioning that this is what Eric Pianka actually believes, rather than just what is said. I very much doubt that Pianka would seriously call for 90% of the world population to be wiped-out, rather than simply suggesting the idea to make a point about the issue of overpopulation (an issue with no easy answer, but an issue that is almost completely denied a voice by all humanist thinkers).

Case in point, take the words of the legendary Bill Hicks on the subject of abortion:

"People suck, there's too many of them, and they're easier to kill when they're babies than when they're fully grown."

Of course this kind of thinking is becoming common place, it probably always has been. But I'm willing to bet that 99% of these anti-humanists do not actually wish humanity would simply die-out. They may be anti-humanists, but they're still human. It's in our very nature to care about the lives of other humans, at least to some extent, and scientists, I believe, have other people's needs in mind even more so than any religious or governmental figure. To understand what is best for something often means taking a perspective which is not favourable, but in fact conflicts with moral or ethical norms, so that you can see for yourself the whole of what you are a part of. You cannot judge humanity as a cause for moral good if you cannot stand back and see for yourself how we kill, rape and torture eachother. The truth is not always pleasant to hear, nor pleasant to say, but the point is not simply to react to what is said or done, but to think upon it and understand the view that it is coming from.

It's the true humanist who can level a point-of-view out, and understand it before simply rejecting it, despite how unpleasant it may seem to them.