[pf] Final Dose of Rachel Carson

by Molly Williams

22 December 2000 00:41 UTC

>From The Time 100: Scientists and Thinkers:
http://www.time.com/time/time100/scientist/profile/carson03.html

""Silent Spring," serialized in the New
Yorker in June 1962, gored corporate oxen
all over the country. Even before
publication, Carson was violently assailed
by threats of lawsuits and derision,
including suggestions that this meticulous
scientist was a "hysterical woman" 
unqualified to write such a book. A huge
counterattack was organized and led by
Monsanto, Velsicol, American
Cyanamid--indeed, the whole chemical
industry--duly supported by the Agriculture
Department as well as the more cautious in
the media. (TIME's reviewer deplored
Carson's "oversimplifications and downright
errors...Many of the scary
generalizations--and there are lots of
them--are patently unsound.") 

By year's end, Audubon and National Parks
Magazine had published additional excerpts
from the book, and all but the most
self-serving of Carson's attackers were
backing rapidly toward safer ground. In their
ugly campaign to reduce a brave scientist's
protest to a matter of public relations, the
chemical interests had only increased
public awareness. "Silent Spring" became a
runaway best seller, with international
reverberations. Nearly 40 years later, it is
still regarded as the cornerstone of the new
environmentalism. "