"The formation of a new science of biotic controls,” predicted Rachel Carson in "Silent Spring" 50 years ago next month, was going to save us from pesticides.
She was wrong that DDT would give you cancer if you sprayed it but she was right in believing that the future of agriculture rested solidly on genetic solutions to problems that chemicals were then solving.
Why, then, are her intellectual descendants so against science? Mostly, it's because they never read her book, they have simply read activists discussing what her book was about; being anti-agriculture and gravitating to what she perceived as the problem (DDT and pesticides) rather than one factor (misuse).
It isn't just kooky Europeans - though E.U. Science Advisor Anne Glover often laments the anti-science culture across the pond - Americans have also been victims of an anti-science public relations campaign. Yet 'Frankenfoods' are exactly what their spiritual leader, Carson, advocated.
As UC Davis, research Pamela Ronald has read the book and it tells her that if Carson came of age in today's science world, she would have been on the front lines of the new era in biology; precise control of genetic modification, instead of relying on random chance:
For 10,000 years, humans have altered the DNA makeup of our crops. Conventional approaches were often quite crude, resulting in new varieties through a combination of trial and error, and without knowledge of the precise function of the genes that were being moved around. Such methods include grafting or mixing of genes of distantly related species, as well as radiation treatments to induce random mutations in the genetic makeup of the seed. Today, virtually everything we eat is produced from seeds that have been genetically altered in one way or another.
Would Rachel Carson Embrace 'Frankenfoods'? - This Scientist Believes 'Yes' by Pamela Ronald, Forbes
