Silent Spring - Debate - Criticism

Criticism

In the 1960s, biochemist and former chemical industry spokesman Robert White-Stevens stated, "If man were to follow the teachings of Miss Carson, we would return to the Dark Ages, and the insects and diseases and vermin would once again inherit the earth."

Silent Spring continues to be criticized by a number sources, and in recent years Carson and her book have come under increasing attack from authors, particularly libertarian groups that claim restrictions and stigmas of DDT have caused millions of deaths indirectly by preventing its use to combat malaria. In 2002, economist Ronald Bailey wrote in Reason magazine that the book had a mixed legacy:

The book did point to problems that had not been adequately addressed, such as the effects of DDT on some wildlife. And given the state of the science at the time she wrote, one might even make the case that Carson's concerns about the effects of synthetic chemicals on human health were not completely unwarranted. Along with other researchers, she was simply ignorant of the facts. But after four decades in which tens of billions of dollars have been wasted chasing imaginary risks without measurably improving American health, her intellectual descendants don't have the same excuse.

The weekly Human Events gave Silent Spring an "honorable mention" in its list of the "Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries." British politician Dick Taverne asserted Carson was responsible for millions of deaths:

Carson didn't seem to take into account the vital role (DDT) played in controlling the transmission of malaria by killing the mosquitoes that carry the parasite (...) It is the single most effective agent ever developed for saving human life (...) Rachel Carson is a warning to us all of the dangers of neglecting the evidence-based approach and the need to weight potential risk against benefit: it can be argued that the anti-DDT campaign she inspired was responsible for almost as many deaths as some of the worst dictators of the last century.

New York Times journalist and author, John Tierney, wrote of Silent Spring in 2007: "For Rachel Carson admirers, it has not been a silent spring. They have been celebrating the centennial of her birthday with paeans to her saintliness. A new generation is reading her book in school — and mostly learning the wrong lesson from it."

In 2009, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, "a non-profit public policy organization dedicated to advancing the principles of limited government, free enterprise, and individual liberty", set up a website Rachelwaswrong.org, stating "Millions of people around the world suffer the painful and often deadly effects of malaria because one person sounded a false alarm. That person is Rachel Carson."

In 2012, Roger E. Meiners, Pierre Desrochers, and Andrew P. Morriss edited Silent Spring at 50: The False Crises of Rachel Carson (published by the Cato Institute), which argues that a number of Carson’s major arguments rested on what can only be described as deliberate ignorance: "Much of what was presented as certainty then was slanted, and today we know much of it is simply wrong". In an article published in Spiked magazine, Pierre Desrochers cites five problematic issues: First, "Carson vilified the use of DDT and other synthetic pesticides in agriculture, but ignored their role in saving millions of lives worldwide from malaria, typhus, dysentery, and other diseases". Second, "far from being on the verge of collapse, American bird populations were, by and large, increasing at the time of Silent Spring’s publication". Third, "cancer rates - exaggerated in Silent Spring - were increasing at the time Carson researched the issue because far fewer people were dying from other diseases". Fourth, "Carson’s alternatives were worse than the ‘problem’". Fifth, "Carson’s ‘you can’t be too safe’ standard came to permeate the environmental regulatory agenda".