When popularizers sacrifice rigor for impact, they follow in the footsteps of Rachel Carson.
"Rachel Carson’s sea trilogy well deserves a Library of America edition; Danny Heitman is right to praise the eloquence of her nature writing (Books, March 4). He is also right to say she was a “keen compiler of data” when writing her most famous work, “Silent Spring” (1962). But how she interpreted that data, and presented it to her public, is another matter.
Multiple authors have now shown important instances where she misrepresented or reinterpreted her medical and scientific sources to fit them into her antipesticide and antiherbicide argument. Sadly, this unscientific use of science was common for bestselling environmentalist popularizers of her era, such as Barry Commoner and Paul Ehrlich.
This too-little acknowledged aspect of Carson’s legacy remains a problem today. Most people who “mistrust science” can be distrustful only of what some intermediary (journalist, TV personality, author, blogger, politician, bureaucrat and, yes, scientist) told them the science is. When these popularizers sacrifice rigor for impact, as they are known to do, they are following in the footprints of a brilliant writer who in her last book came to abuse her talents.
Prof. Charles T. Rubin
Duquesne University
Pittsburgh"
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