Rachel Carson's jeremiad against pesticides is credited by many as launching the modern environmentalist movement. But more importantly, through Silent Spring, Carson provided those who are alienated by modern technological progress with a model of how to wield ostensibly scientific arguments on behalf of policies and results that they prefer for other reasons. Reason Science Correspondent Ronald Bailey agues that Rachel Carson, more than any other person, is responsible for the politicized science that afflicts our public policy debates today.
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