December 18, 2007
P. Z. Myers at Pharyngula has a couple of posts that shed light on part of the recent creationism eruptions in Texas.
The ICR affair is quite astounding: ICR plans to grant degrees in how to violate the Constitution as an educator, and they’re asking Texas to approve it. So far, the approval is on a fast track.
What’s next? Perhaps one of the A&M campuses could start a program on marijuana farming; approval would come from the State of Texas on the basis that all the agricultural stuff is top notch — great course in fertilizing, fantastic stuff on grow lights, wonderful course on marketing agricultural products through ad hoc distribution channels, or through viral marketing.
Okay, that sounds crazy. Now tell me, what’s different about a creationism course? It only violates a different law.
This fight is just warming up. Texas Citizens for Science is in the thick of it. You should be writing to your legislators and to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board:
Third, we need to write to Dr. Raymund A. Paredes, the Commissioner of the THECB to express our disgust at how this process has been handled so far, and to object to granting ICR the Certification it desires. The address is:
Dr. Raymund A. Paredes, Commissioner
Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board
P.O. Box 12788
Austin, TX 78711-2788
One more chapter in the War on Science, the War on Education — one more time to stand firm for reason against stupidity.
Other resources:
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Creationism, Education quality, Higher education, Law, Rampant stupidity, Science, Separation of church and state, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Freedom Network, War on Education, War on Science | Tagged: Creationism, Education, Law, Religion, Science | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
December 12, 2007
Here is one surefire way to tell someone is bluffing, and perhaps doing a bit of planned prevarication, about Rachel Carson and the safety of DDT: Look for a footnote like this:
31 Sweeney EM. EPA Hearing Examiner’s recommendations and findings concerning DDT hearings. 25 April 1972 (40 CFR 164.32).
Why is that a sign of a bluff?
The volume and paging, “40 CFR 164.32,” is a reference to the Code of Federal Regulations. One knows that codes do not contain hearing records, and sure enough, this one does not. 40 CFR covers the rules of administrative hearings in federal agencies, but there is nothing whatsoever in that entire chapter about DDT, or birds, or chemical safety.
40 CFR is the chapter of the Code of Federal Regulations that pertains to the rules, regulations and procedures of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); it does not contain transcripts of regulatory hearings. Anyone who cites a hearing to this publication is giving you a bogus citation, probably to promote bogust history and bogus science.
If that citation shows up in a screed against environmentalists, or against Rachel Carson, or urging that we spray poison till the cows come home to die, you can be pretty sure that the person offering it has copied it wholesale from Steven Milloy’s junk science purveyor shop, and that the person has not read it at all. If the person has a law degree, or was ever a librarian or active in interscholastic debate, you can be pretty sure the person knows the citation is wrong, and is insulting you by listing it, knowing it’s unlikely you’ll ever find it in your local library.
(What is the accurate citation for the hearings? I’m not sure; but 40 CFR is not it. See the current section of CFR below the fold — it’s one page, not more than 100 pages.)
I have posted about this before. The hearings Judge Sweeney presided over were conducted early in the existence of the EPA. They were conducted under court orders requiring EPA to act. The transcripts are not in usual legal opinion publications, so far as I have been able to find. Many claims have been made about the hearings, most of the claims are false. Jim Easter at Some Are Boojums did the legwork and extracted a copy of the actual decision out of EPA’s library. He’s posted it at his blog, so you can see. Check the pages — “40 CFR” is a bogus citation, designed to keep you from learning the truth.
So the footnote is intended to make the gullible or innocent think there is a reference, where there is no reference.
But read the analysis of the hearings at Some Are Boojums. It is more than just the citation is wrong. Contrary to Internet Legend claims, Sweeney did not determine that DDT was harmless. Sweeney determined that DDT usage provided some benefits that outweighed the harms, considering the dramatically reduced use of DDT then allowed. DDT use had been severely restricted prior to the Sweeney hearings; Sweeney was not looking at all uses, nor even at historic uses. Sweeney was looking at dramatically reduced DDT use under the registrations then allowed. His conclusions of “no harm” where he actually concluded that, were based on greatly reduced use of DDT. This finding cannot be used today to urge an expansion of use — or should not be so used, by honest people.
Not to mention that at Caosblog, footnotes are not even listed in the text. The listing of the footnotes is a gratuitous error, there is no footnote 31 in the text.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
December 8, 2007
Another in an occasional series that analyzes “100 Things You Need to Know About DDT,” a junk science publication by former tobacco lobbyist Steven Milloy.
Here’s a note from Audubon a while ago (August 2004) (emphasis added):
Winged Tonic
For those dispirited by the notion that humanity has doomed itself to a lonely, sterile future in a world increasingly bereft of wild creatures, there is no tonic more curative than the peregrine falcon. Today, on cliffs, bridges, and city buildings nationwide, young peregrines are strengthening their wings. Within a few weeks, those wings will propel them at speeds near 250 mph, enabling them to kill birds as large as great blue herons, mostly by impact. City aeries are frequently monitored by TV cameras, and you can watch the progress of the hatchlings on your computer or television. (Do an Internet search to find the monitored aerie nearest you.) Before World War II the peregrine was among the planet’s most successful species, breeding on every continent and many mid-ocean islands, from the Arctic to as far south as Cape Horn. When University of Wisconsin biologist Joseph Hickey surveyed eastern peregrines in 1942, he found 350 breeding pairs. In 1963, after two decades of DDT use, he found none. But in 1972 the Environmental Protection Agency banned DDT, and soon an alliance of federal agencies, conservationists, and private groups was sponsoring captive breeding and the “hacking” of young peregrines into the wild. The recovery goal had been 631 breeding pairs in the United States and Canada. By 1999, when the peregrine was taken off the Endangered Species List, there were at least 1,650.
Compare this with Milloy’s claim #77:
The decline in the U.S. peregrine falcon population occurred long before the DDT years.
[Hickey JJ. 1942. (Only 170 pairs of peregrines in eastern U.S. in 1940) Auk 59:176; Hickey JJ. 1971 Testimony at DDT hearings before EPA hearing examiner. (350 pre- DDT peregrines claimed in eastern U.S., with 28 of the females sterile); and Beebe FL. 1971. The Myth of the Vanishing Peregrine Falcon: A study in manipulation of public and official attitudes. Canadian Raptor Society Publication, 31 pages]
Here are some potential problems:
Eggs of peregrine falcon, crushed by parent due to thin shells caused by DDT. Photo copyright Steve Hopkin, http://www.ardea.com
1. Milloy offers no real citation to Hickey in 1942. The quote would be impossible to track down. Why is Milloy hiding sources, being so coy?
2. While Milloy doesn’t quote Hickey directly, Milloy’s citation of Hickey implies that Hickey’s work supports Milloy’s point. But when we read what Hickey found, according to Audubon, it contradicts Milloy’s point. If Hickey found only 170 nesting peregrines in 1940, and 350 in 1942, clearly that suggests the peregrines were doing very well, more than doubling their nests in two years. Milloy claims peregrines were on the decline, but from what little we have, it looks like their populations were rocketing up prior to DDT. Hickey developed a great reputation for his work revealing the bad effects of DDT; how is it that Milloy has found the only instant ever recorded where Hickey discovers no harm? I suspect Milloy has doctored the data, and not that he’s made a grand discovery of a missing Hickey manuscript.
3. A general decline of raptors prior to DDT does not refute the evidence that DDT killed embryoes, killed hatchlings before they could fledge, and killed fledglings before they could mature. DDT wasn’t the sole cause of the decline of peregrines, nor eagles, nor brown pelicans, but DDT was the major barrier to their recovery. The history of the war against eagles, for example, is rather well documented, as is the development of the wild lands eagles use as habitat. Eagle populations started to decline at the latest when Europeans started to settle North America. Those pressures have never gone away. But after the eagle was protected from hunting in 1918, and then with a tougher law in 1940, the decline was not ended. After 1950, eagles essentially stopped reproducing. This made recovery impossible, and this was the problem DDT caused. When DDT spraying stopped, peregrine falcon populations started to rise, and so did eagle and brown pelican populations, among others.
I have been unable to find a single study that does not corroborate the claim that DDT and its daughter products were hammering the reproduction of predator birds in North America — nor have I found a single study that says the damage has ended. Where does Milloy find any evidence to support his implied claim that DDT was not responsible? It’s not in the citations he offers.
There may be more on this issue coming. So far, nothing Milloy has said against a DDT ban, or in favor of DDT, has checked out to be truthful from the citations he gives, nor from any other source. There are 109 points in his diatribe; I’ve only researched fewer than 20 in any depth.
Other posts pointing out Milloy’s errors:
Peregrine falcon – “Mr. Milloy, you wouldn’t tell fibs about what’s killing my babies, would you?”
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20 Comments | Bad Quotes, Cost of Green, DDT, Environmental protection, History, Junk science, Rachel Carson, Science, Voodoo science, War on Science | Tagged: Cost of Green, DDT, environment, Evolution, Junk science, Politics, Rachel Carson, Science, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
November 20, 2007
Discover Magazine’s site has a solid story on DDT and malaria, “Can a maligned pesticide save lives.” Among other things, the article notes that Rachel Carson was scientifically accurate in her cited concerns that DDT was killing birds, and in fact later research of more than 1,000 peer-reviewed papers has born out her worries, and provided even greater evidence of damage.
Cover of November 2007 Discover Magazine, featuring an article on DDT’s continuing use in the fight against malaria, and vindicating Rachel Carson’s research citations with regard to injuries to birds.
The article details how DDT is used in integrated vector management (IVM), where pesticides are sparingly and carefully used to prevent their target pests from evolving resistance and immunity. DDT’s abuse had bred widespread resistance in mosquito populations in Africa and other malaria-endemic locations, forcing the World Health Organization to abandon its ambitious program to eradicate malaria in a program dependent on DDT working for at least a year.
Steven Milloy and the Usual Suspects and Comrades in Junk Science, in the War on Science at AEI and CEI will start their distortions of the Discover article any moment now . . . three, two, one . . .
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Posted by Ed Darrell
October 25, 2007
Bush administration officials make the case more powerfully that we need to resurrect the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA).
Bushies, going against their earlier claims that they accept that the nation needs to do something about changing climate, “eviscerated” testimony of a government official designed to protect public health. More voodoo science from Bush. According to The Carpetbagger Report:
Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told a Senate panel yesterday that climate change “is anticipated to have a broad range of impacts on the health of Americans.” If that sounds a little vague and non-specific, there’s a good reason — the White House refused to let her say what she wanted to say.
Sadly, Carpetbagger Report lists several other instances in which White House officials have gutted the release of important information on global warming’s dangers.
If Osama bin Laden did something like that, we’d invade a smaller nation to stop it. Preventing Americans from being prepared for disaster is a terroristic threat under the Homeland Security Act, isn’t it? Is there a clause for citizen suits in there somewhere? Who will stand up to the abuses by George Bush?
Here’s the Washington Post story on the event. Here’s my previous post, with links to Denialism and Pharyngula, and even John Wilkins (love that picture of Snowflake!).
Hillary Clinton specifically calls for the recreation of OTA, a clue some of us politicos use to indicate she really does know what government under the Constitution should be doing. Other Democrats are friendly to the idea, but so far I’ve not heard a peep from any of the Republican presidential candidates. Orrin? What about you?
Bring back the OTA. Exorcise the demons of totalitarian Bushism.
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2 Comments | Accuracy, Junk science, Politics, Research, Santayana's ghost, Science, Technology, Voodoo science, War on Science, War on Terrorism | Tagged: Bush censorship, Climate change, Junk science, Office of Technology Assessment, Politics, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
October 14, 2007
Tim Lambert at Deltoid tracked down the facts in the really odd story about a court in Britain ruling that the film Inconvenient Truth contains errors — a case I noted in a post about Al Gore’s winning a Nobel Prize for his work on climate change. Deltoid said:
A UK High Court judge has rejected a lawsuit by political activist Stuart Dimmock to ban the showing of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth in British schools. Justice Burton agreed that
“Al Gore’s presentation of the causes and likely effects of climate change in the film was broadly accurate.”
There were nine points where Burton decided that AIT differed from the IPCC and that this should be addressed in the Guidance Notes for teachers to be sent out with the movie.
Unfortunately a gaggle of useless journalists have misreported this decision as one that AIT contained nine scientific errors.
Got that? The British Court said Gore is right.
I’ll bet I’ve seen that case cited a half dozen times today, with claims that Gore’s film is generally wrong.
Tim’s detail on the case, and the nine allegations of “error” (scare quotes from the judge in the original opinion) should be read by anyone following the climate change debates. I doubt that any Gore critics will read, nor, just to be nasty, that many of them can.
This is another political hoax in the making. Bad reporting, caused largely because the news of the case hit as the announcement of Gore’s Nobel Prize win crossed the news wires, makes Gore a target for the denialist and right-wing spin machines. Though their charges are inaccurate, they will make the charges, and repeat them endlessly. Buckle up — it’s going to be a bumpy night.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
October 12, 2007
P. Z. Myers at Pharyngula notes buzz about the science Nobels all going to Europeans (even the two U.S. residents are European). Nobels are a lagging indicator of things, at best, P. Z. says. The real damage done to U.S. research shows up other places.
Thanks for the reassurances, P. Z.
(He’s right, you know. He’s using Nobels as an indicator of the robustness of U.S. science; I use them as an indicator of the robustness of U.S. education. Much of the same stuff applies. More on science, later.)
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Posted by Ed Darrell
October 3, 2007
Information on DDT is scattered clouds of information, lately. Some of these really should get more comment — but time is quite short for me right now.
Here’s the news:
One more study on DDT and breast cancer. Stop the presses on this one. It’s a good study, and it shows a link. Effect Measure at the Seed Stables has a good post on it. One of the key differences here is that this study looked for childhood exposure. Exposure of children to DDT seems to be more damaging than exposure to adults. This should be especially worrying considering DDT’s daughter products and their ability to mimic estrogen in the wild.
Bill Moyers’ program on PBS looked at the recent campaign against Rachel Carson, and found the campaign ethically challenged. Moyers takes a more in-depth and gentle view of Carson, from a perspective from the arts. Solid information, interesting view.
All Africa.com had a news report on the current anti-malaria campaign in Malawi: “Rescuing children from malaria.” Real news — it doesn’t call for broadcast spraying of DDT. (Surprised?) In fact, it attacks the colleagues of the Rachel Carson critics, the tobacco companies.
A blogger named Aaron Swartz takes on the Rachel Carson critics rather directly: “Rachel Carson: Mass Murderer?”
A recent think piece out of the always-informative Christian Science Monitor: “Bring back DDT? Think again.”
Perhaps a minor blip: Plaintiffs ask damages against chemical companies and others because the DDT dumped next door has decreased the value of their properties. An Alabama appeals court ruled that plaintiffs may call in experts to testify that DDT dumping decreases property value. (Maybe Roger Bate would like to buy the property at market value? All that DDT would mean no mosquitoes forever, right?)
And from the lost-but-now-found archives, a story that demonstrates subtly the bias that Rachel Carson critics have — Roger Bate defending tobacco companies in a 1996 Wall Street Journal opinion piece. Perhaps one should not be surprised that people who defend tobacco against health regulators and health care education could turn around and argue for DDT and against Rachel Carson.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
October 1, 2007
Encore Post
On the road for a day and a half. Here is an encore post from last October, an issue that remains salient, sadly, as creationists have stepped up their presence in Texas before the next round of biology textbook approvals before the Texas State Board of Education. I discuss why intelligent design should not be in science books.
Flying pig image from Flying Pig Brewery, Everett, Washington. (Late brewery? Has it closed?)
[From October 2006]: We’re talking past each other now over at Right Reason, on a thread that started out lamenting Baylor’s initial decision to deny Dr. Francis Beckwith tenure last year, but quickly changed once news got out that Beckwith’s appeal of the decision was successful.
I noted that Beckwith’s getting tenure denies ID advocates of an argument that Beckwith is being persecuted for his ID views (wholly apart from the fact that there is zero indication his views on this issue had anything to do with his tenure discussions). Of course, I was wrong there — ID advocates have since continued to claim persecution where none exists. Never let the facts get in the way of a creationism rant, is the first rule of creationism.
Discussion has since turned to the legality of teaching intelligent design in a public school science class. This is well settled law — it’s not legal, not so long as there remains no undisproven science to back ID or any other form of creationism.
Background: The Supreme Court affirmed the law in a 1987 case from Louisiana, Edwards v. Aguillard (482 U.S. 578), affirming a district court’s grant of summary judgment against a state law requiring schools to teach creationism whenever evolution was covered in the curriculum. Summary judgment was issued by the district court because the issues were not materially different from those in an earlier case in Arkansas, McLean vs. Arkansas (529 F. Supp. 1255, 1266 (ED Ark. 1982)). There the court held, after trial, that there is no science in creationism that would allow it to be discussed as science in a classroom, and further that creationism is based in scripture and the advocates of creationism have religious reasons only to make such laws. (During depositions, each creationism advocate was asked, under oath, whether they knew of research that supports creationism; each answered “no.” Then they were asked where creationism comes from, and each answered that it comes from scripture. It is often noted how the testimony changes from creationists, when under oath.)
Especially after the Arkansas trial, it was clear that in order to get creationism into the textbooks, creationists would have to hit the laboratories and the field to do some science to back their claims. Oddly, they have staunchly avoided doing any such work, instead claiming victimhood, usually on religious grounds. To the extent ID differs from all other forms of creationism, the applicability of the law to ID was affirmed late last year in the Pennsylvania case, Kitzmiller v. Dover.
Read the rest of this entry »
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58 Comments | Bill of Rights, Biology, Bogus history, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Hoaxes, Intelligent Design, Textbook Selection, Voodoo science, War on Science | Tagged: Bill of Rights, Biology, Creationism, Curricula, Evolution, Hoaxes, Intelligent Design, Politics, Religion, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
September 23, 2007
Little Miss Attila explains the politics of DDT, how the hysteria is driven by a lobbying group.
Good history, if you’re new to the issue.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
September 22, 2007
While Mark Mathis was leading a bumbling raid on rationalists at Baylor University, Biblical literalists took another scalp in Iowa, of a college instructor this time. Maybe it’s time to beef up tenure, and make it easier to get.
(Maybe I need to add a new category along with “voodoo science” and “voodoo history”: “Voodoo literature.”)
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Posted by Ed Darrell
September 15, 2007
Oooh, I missed this one; Instapundit said:
SOME KIND WORDS FOR DDT — in the New York Times, no less. “Today, indoor DDT spraying to control malaria in Africa is supported by the World Health Organization; the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; and the United States Agency for International Development. . . . Even those mosquitoes already resistant to poisoning by DDT are repelled by it.”
The debate over DDT is over. There’s scientific consensus. Anyone who disagrees is a DDT denialist and a mouthpiece for Big Mosquito.
The debate should be over. There is scientific consensus that DDT is dangerous and the ban on broadcast use was wise, fair, and still necessary. Reynolds is one of the denialist brigade who keeps trying to paint environmentalists wrong for working for the ban.
Reynolds claim is deceptive in at least three ways:
- Omission, failing to note history: Reynolds fails to note that without the ban on broadcast use of DDT (like crop spraying, or spraying of swamps and rivers), DDT would by now be completely ineffective against mosquitoes. The ban on crop spraying (broadcast use) has been instrumental in preserving the effectiveness of DDT against malaria. The debate is over, Reynolds lost, and its time he quit denying it (speaking of denialism). The ban on DDT spraying in the U.S., following similar bans in Europe, and with similar following bans in other nations, has been a key factor in our current victories against malaria — a key factor for the anti-malaria forces.
- Omission, not understanding the science: Reynolds may not know that DDT was cast against other pesticides that are known to have very low repellent characteristics. There are other, much more effective and less toxic, and less expensive, ways to repel mosquitoes.
- Failure to state the whole case: Reynolds, the DDT-advocate in the New York Times, and the study cited, fail to note that DDT is inadequate to more than a very short-term, partial campaign against malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Other studies recently published note powerful, long-term reduction in malaria infections by use of mosquito netting; these declines do not require multiple, expensive and logistically difficult sprayings of poison in homes every year. Perhaps more critically, research now shows that mosquito nets produce malaria reductions in the absence of DDT spraying, and the reductions stick; DDT spraying alone cannot produce either a long-term reduction in malaria (say, longer than a year), nor will the reductions stick, nor will the reductions be as great. Nets work without DDT; DDT does not work without nets.
Other than that, Reynolds is right: The debate is over. Reynolds’ “spray DDT on everything — it works better than snake-oil” argument lost. It’s time Reynolds stops denying the facts.
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1 Comment | Accuracy, DDT, Environmental protection, Health care, Junk science, Malaria, Public health, Rachel Carson, Science, War on Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
August 27, 2007
[This post has been edited to correct links to go to their new URLs, I hope. Please note in comments any links that don’t work.]
Some are Boojums is back — that’s good news for truth seekers, science error debunkers and historians who care about accuracy.
Masthead photo for Jim Easter’s blog, Some Are Boojums
Some are Boojums author Jim Easter guts the anti-Rachel Carson case in his relaunch post.
Pay particular attention to what Jim writes in conclusion:
That’s right. The 1972 DDT ban did nothing to restrict the chemical’s use against malaria, but had the effect of eliminating the single most intense source of selection pressure for insecticide resistance in mosquitoes. As the rest of the world followed suit in restricting agricultural use of DDT, the spread of resistance was slowed dramatically or stopped. By this single action, William Ruckelshaus — and, credit where it’s due, Rachel Carson — may well have saved millions of lives.
Steven Milloy is invited to add that to the DDT FAQ any time it’s convenient.
Particularly notable is Jim’s work to make available the much miscited administrative law ruling by Judge Edmund M. Sweeney. It is now available on-line, so the critics can now provide accurate citations to the decision, if their intent were to inform the public, instead of maligning the truth and misleading the public.
Mr. Easter’s applied history work in this effort is notable. The internet misses much of near-recent history, especially from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Much of today’s political discussion could benefit from information that would be available in libraries, had libraries not suffered from great budget and priorities cuts in the last 20 years. Jim Easter’s contribution to making a more complete record of the history of DDT and the history of the EPA deserves applause.
Save
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4 Comments | Accuracy, Biology, Bogus history, Conservation, DDT, Environmental protection, Historic documents, Rachel Carson, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science, War on Science | Tagged: Bogus history, DBQ, DDT, EPA, Historic documents, Jim Easter, Judge Edmund Sweeney, Rachel Carson, Some Are Boojums | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
August 12, 2007
Critics of Rachel Carson and sponsors of the anti-science, anti-environmentalist campaign to bring back DDT as a major killer, frequently misinform in very selective ways. For example, they like to mention DDT’s role in causing human cancers, because, they claim Rachel Carson was dead wrong about that link. Therefore, they say, DDT is a nice chemical and bans should be lifted.
In reality, carcinogenicity played a very small role in banning DDT. DDT was banned because it kills indiscriminately, killing beneficial insects along with the bad, killing untargeted species, like songbirds, along with the insect targets; and DDT was banned because once released into the wild, it is very long-lived, and its ultimate destructive effects cannot be known or controlled — though some harms, such as the devestation of America’s birds of prey, are extremely well documented.
Similarly, the anti-science crowd doesn’t like to talk about the third big area where DDT produces harms: Hormone disruption. In fact, Steven Milloy’s “100 things you should know about DDT” at the site that peddles junk science, JunkScience.com, does not even contain the word “hormone.”
They play down the fact that DDT and its by-products disrupt reproductive processes, and sometimes disrupt and deform reproductive organs, of nearly every animal it touches. They don’t want you to know about the hormonal effects of DDT and its breakdown products.
So, they never mention books like the National Academy of Sciences’ compilation of the harms of such chemicals, Hormonally Active Agents in the Environment.
Milloy will misquote the NAS when NAS mentions slightly the benefits of DDT; Milloy will not quote NAS when they cite the dangers of DDT. So this book on hormonally active agents, which mentions DDT specifically in 16 chapters for a total of 309 times, will never be mentioned in a discussion of DDT’s dangers — unless you bring it up.
Go see what the book says in the Executive Summary. If you debate the anti-Rachel Carson crowd, use this book frequently — they will have no answers.
And, Sen. Tom Coburn, are you listening? Since when do your constituents want you to defend a chemical which will ruin their farm animals, and especially the ducks they want to hunt? It’s time to quit trying to tarnish the memory of Rachel Carson, Sen. Coburn, and let that post office in Pennsylvania be named after her.
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2 Comments | DDT, Environmental protection, Politics, Rachel Carson, Science, Voodoo science, War on Science | Tagged: Accuracy, DDT, Endocrine Disruption, Environmental protection, Junk science, Politics, Propaganda, Rachel Carson, Rampant stupidity, Science, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
August 12, 2007
Archives of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) reveal a long history of trouble with DDT, almost from the first uses of the chemical as an insecticide during World War II. You’ll find extensive links to historic press releases from FWS below the fold.
Critics of the various restrictions on DDT use often claim that DDT is a God-sent chemical that nearly eradicated malaria from the world (absolutely untrue) and which was banned only because of hysteria caused by Rachel Carson’s 1962 book, Silent Spring (untrue at both ends, hysteria and the power of Carson’s book). This is history revisionism at its worst, it is bogus history.
A careful study of the history of the use of DDT shows that scientists were concerned about its dangers from the first uses as a pesticide. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reported dangers in a press release on August 22, 1945, just a week after the surrender of Japan ended World War II (VJ Day was August 15 in Tokyo, August 14 in Washington). In that release FWS noted the beneficial uses of DDT to fight insect and lice infestations that threatened troops and civilians with typhus and other diseases, but cautioned that such use should not become common, that more study was needed: Read the rest of this entry »
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5 Comments | Bogus history, DBQ sources, DDT, Environmental protection, Historic documents, History, History Revisionism, Hoaxes, War on Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 