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“A truly extraordinary variety of alternatives to the chemical control of insects is available. Some are already in use and have achieved brilliant success. Others are in the stage of laboratory testing. Still others are little more than ideas in the minds of imaginative scientists, waiting for the opportunity to put them to the test. All have this in common: they are biological solutions, based on the understanding of the living organisms they seek to control and of the whole fabric of life to which these organisms belong. Specialists representing various areas of the vast field of biology are contributing—entomologists, pathologists, geneticists, physiologists, biochemists, ecologists—all pouring their knowledge and their creative inspirations into the formation of a new science of biotic controls.” - Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, p. 278
The ‘Frankenfoods’ debate is coming to your dinner table. Just last week, a mini-war developed in Europe, when the European Union’s chief scientist, renowned biologist Anne Glover, said that foods made through genetic engineering, such as soy beans—about 80 percent of U.S. grown soybeans have been engineered to grow with the use of less pesticides—are as safe as organic or conventional foods. It’s a wholly uncontroversial comment—at least among scientists. But it set off the usual scare mongering from Friends of the Earth, and other like-minded advocacy groups that finds all genetically engineered (GE) foods and crops to be, in their words “stomach turning.”......
My Take - I don't agree with the writer. Although based on the quoted Carson's writings one could make the argument that she would support GMO's. My experience is that I have found that these "radical back to naturists" are all too willing to support all sorts of things that don't exist. And more than happy to condemn them as soon as some poor foolish businessman finds a way of implementing the very solutions they promoted.
I would be more inclined to believe that she would follow the rest of the misanthropic green crowd in condemning GMO's. Carson was good at creating caveats in her work, as she never called for the elimination of DDT, yet it was clear that the only conclusion one could come to after reading Silent Spring was that pesticides, especially DDT, needed banned. Her views were based on false assumptions and were clearly outside the realm of truth.
There are those who will demand source information from me and yet rave about the ‘scientific genius' of Rachel Carson. Yet she violates the very rules they demand from me by making statements about events with no attribution as to where the evidence came from regularly in her book. We now know that she deliberately misrepresented facts! In a court of law one cannot be found lying and have any testimony presented before or after to be worthy of consideration. I think that is a valid approach to science also. There has been far too much scientific fraud over the years, and as a result of the corrupting influence of government grant money, it seems to have increased to the point that peer review is now being seriously questioned and justifiably doubted.
I don’t think one can easily dismiss the ‘mother of junk science’ epithet about Rachel Carson. Especially now, since we know that she was so prolifically wrong. Especially now since we know the end result has been the creation of a movement that is so irrational and misanthropic and notorious for supporting any sort of junk science that will promote their views.
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