It's the 50th anniversary of Rachel Carson's polemic, "Silent Spring", which means there will be no end to her 'impact'.

Impact, of course, can be good or bad.  Carson is considered the rejunevator of the modern progressive movement and its anti-science, anti-progress and pro-environment focus. Carson inspired lots of environmentalists.  Carson also inspired lots of doomsday authors who saw that she made a difference in society.  Unfortunately, she also inspired a few scientists who now look at her through a political agenda and are nowhere near as critical of her work as scientists of her day were. I liken Carson to Andrew Wakefield and his work on autism and vaccines more than I do science that can stand the test of time.  Both have been debunked, much of both was fraudulent and all of it took a social agenda and then matched data to fit.  If she wrote that book today and invoked claims like that she heard of someone who sprayed DDT and got cancer and died, she would be laughed at outside of sites like Treehugger - they believe CFL bulbs are better for the environment than incandescent so they are clearly pretty gullible.

Impact, of course, can be good or bad.  Carson is considered the rejunevator of the modern progressive movement and its anti-science, anti-progress and pro-environment focus. Carson inspired lots of environmentalists.  Carson also inspired lots of doomsday authors who saw that she made a difference in society.  Unfortunately, she also inspired a few scientists who now look at her through a political agenda and are nowhere near as critical of her work as scientists of her day were. I liken Carson to Andrew Wakefield and his work on autism and vaccines more than I do science that can stand the test of time.  Both have been debunked, much of both was fraudulent and all of it took a social agenda and then matched data to fit.  If she wrote that book today and invoked claims like that she heard of someone who sprayed DDT and got cancer and died, she would be laughed at outside of sites like Treehugger - they believe CFL bulbs are better for the environment than incandescent so they are clearly pretty gullible.