We assembled scholars from different disciplines and asked them to evaluate Carson’s work given the state of knowledge at the time she was writing. Our just released 11-author study, Silent Spring at 50: The False Crises of Rachel Carson, reexamines Carson’s historical context and science, as well as the policy consequences of Silent Spring‘s core ideas. Yet this iconic book, hardly scrutinized over the decades, substituted sensationalism for fact and apocalyptic pronouncements for genuine knowledge. While Carson was not the first to write about the dangers of pesticides or to sound environmental alarms, her writing style and ability to reach out to a broad audience allowed her to capture and retain the attention of the public. Widely credited with launching the modern environmental movement when published 50 years ago, Rachel Carson’s Silent Springhas had a profound impact on our society.
Thus, while the book provided a range of notable ideas, a number of Carson’s major arguments rested on what can only be described as deliberate ignorance.” “Carson made little effort to provide a balanced perspective and consistently ignored key evidence that would have contradicted her work. "Silent Spring at 50: The False Crises of Rachel Carson" (Reassessing environmentalism's fateful turn from science to advocacy) By Roger Meiners - September 21, 2012
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