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Perhaps we should merge some of the content from Rachel Carson#Silent Spring over here. It's quite clearly better presented than this article and it does a much better job of detailing the supporters and critics of the book. Thoughts? Nishkid64 ( Make articles, not wikidrama) 15:04, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
The section titled "criticism" spends more time defending her claims than it does actually citing the criticisms themselves. Until I added it, it didn't even mention the eggshell issue (which was mentioned in the opening blurb without noting the fact that it's been pretty much debunked), and makes some interesting claims about how "it's never been banned for anti-mosquito use", which is specious at best, a lie by ommission, as many, if not most developed nations have banned its use for all purposes, not just "mosquito based" uses.
Biased, much? This is the sort of thing which gives Wiki a bad rep, as the article is anything but balanced or neutral on the topic. --
OBloodyHell (
talk)
08:06, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
I have to agree with the comments above. The critics should be able to stand on their own. The editorializing and qualifications are out of place in this section and display an obvious and unnecessary bias. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.79.229.129 ( talk) 14:43, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
I cleaned up the link to the "general page that says no such thing" and changed it to the closest thing on that site I could find. Clearly, the citer was reading between the lines.-- Auric ( talk) 16:00, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
As mentioned above, the "never been banned for anti-mosquito use," is sourced to footnote [20], which says no such thing. This phrase should be removed completely. 192.206.187.60 ( talk) 18:09, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
The specific line, "never been banned for anti-malarial use" has been removed as per consensus. The source did not support the statement and it is factually untrue, especially as the Stockholm Convention has already planned to completely ban manufacturing and usage of DDT worldwide by 2017. MrDestructo ( talk) 14:51, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
the year 2020." http://www.ciel.org/Publications/IPEN_QuickViewsCOP4_18Apr09.pdf Cronos1 ( talk) 01:17, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
I removed the sentence + ref which said DDT was never banned for use against moscitoues, because the ref didn't support it. My changes was deleted without good reason. The ref really don't say DDT was *never* banned of that reason. 119.31.121.91 ( talk) 17:22, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Not sure why you think its necessary. Its cited in note 17: Matthiessen, Peter (March 29, 1999), "Environmentalist RACHEL CARSON", Time Magazine 153 (12): 3 of 4, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,990622-3,00.html. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cronos1 ( talk • contribs) 03:05, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
It seems like a pretty weak arguement that Time Inc was using a by-line to distance itself from its selection of these individuals. Cronos1 ( talk) 00:55, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
I changed this:
To this:
It is obvious that this is not a scientific fact, only a personal opinion in a newspaper column. 119.31.126.81 ( talk) 05:07, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
Once again, we have edits being made without any attempt to build consensus. I reverted appealing to the editor to build consensus on the talk page, but was counter-reverted with the reason provided provided by the editor for the deletion of the material being 'The comments of Moore, of PAN are not in the least notable when a non-neutral source such as PAN self-servingly writes and publishes the article in it's in-house organ PAN magazine - as is done here.' I'm not convinced this is a NPOV edit, and thought I would offer the other editors a chance to share your opinions on the appropriateness of the reason provided. I would question whether the Facts of Publication should be characterized in the manner chosen. For example, Reason Magazine is published by the Reason Foundation, I'm not convinced that it makes all the comments of Reason's editors "self-serving" or "not notable". I'd be interested in the thoughts of the other editors.-- Cronos1 ( talk) 01:29, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
The Wik article spells "programme" this British way, but the author of SS was American, and SS was published by an American publisher. I find it unlikely that the author would use this spelling. Could some-one check? 211.225.34.177 ( talk) 07:24, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
This biased bit keeps getting added: "Industry and agribusiness advocates continue to criticize Silent Spring". This suggests that the only people who criticize it do so because they're paid shills (also, "industry and agribusiness advocates" is basically the equivalent of calling someone a "black-hearted scoundrel" for progressives). It's just as biased as when someone was called an "environmental activist" earlier, only in the other direction. Many people have honestly and sincerely criticized Silent Spring, not just evil corporate lobbyists.— Chowbok ☠ 06:21, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
The more I look at Cronos's responses to the charges of bias, the more I get a laugh at how pathetic they are. One has to read through them one time to see how his overt bias, as displayed on the talk page, has bled over into an entry that is supposed to be unbiased. The assertion that a defense of GM crops is also advocacy on behalf of agribusiness is a joke. One can support crops that are resistant to disease or increase yields without being an advocate of the business model that currently produces the majority of them. One could go so far as to support them in principle while completely opposing the businesses that produce them. Stating something along the lines of "well he criticized Prince Charles and supports GM crops, thus he must be a advocate(and not merely a supporter) of 'agribusiness'" is an absolute farce barely worthy of a reasoned response. Moreover, the definition of agribusiness being used by Cronos is so ambiguous and undefined as to be worthless. Does going to the local store and purchasing a plow make me a supporter of "agribusiness"? Does buying a GM vegetable at the supermarket make me a "supporter of agribusiness". One would suspect that, according to Cronos, such would be the case, if only so he could label me as an agribusiness supporter before addressing my criticisms of Silent Spring. Perhaps I support the production of GM crops by producer-owned co ops. The assertion that one is advocating on behalf of agribusiness and thus his criticisms of Silent Spring are suspect simply because he supports GM crops is hilarious for the sheer transparency of the bias involved. Subscribing to a libertarian philosophy doesn't make one an agribusiness advocate either. One can completely disapprove of the methods and actions of agribusiness companies, yet oppose passing onerous regulations against them. That doesn't make one an agribusiness advocate. And once again, we get back to a definition of agribusiness that is insanely overbroad. But that is deliberate because a particular author wants to be able to call into question the motives of anyone who criticizes Silent Spring. To claim otherwise is a blatant lie. It is hard to say exactly which is more comical: the claims that using the term "agribusiness advocate" to describe the critics of Silent Spring aren't biased or the seeming belief that we can't determine the motivations and see through the lies and justifications for using such blatant bias. It is simply not possible to read the last portion of the Silent Spring entry, including the wholly unsupporterd charges concerning some grand conspiracy to undermine the environmental movement, without seeing the bias. As I mention in the above post, I am going to start removing the biased parts of this entry and I will continue to do so if the entry is reverted back to it current, ridiculous state. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.141.154.75 ( talk) 03:11, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
We need to clarify the opposing views on:
I don't want the article to make it seem like she's a saint (if opposition to this idea is more than marginal). Nor do I want to make it seem like she's nothing but a hoaxer (if support for her views is also more than marginal). What's wrong with simply being neutral on all aspects of her book? -- Uncle Ed ( talk) 04:27, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
Does the Human Events website example even belong on here? Gonna be honest, never posted one of these things before or done anything but read wikipedia and revert vandalized pages (I dont even have one of your fancy account doo-dads) but it may be time for me to be more actively involved. Umm...if this is too long just read the few words in caps and the title to get the point.
That list has things like The Feminine Mystique, The Origin of Species (it and Descent of Man are in the honorable mentions), and the Kinsey Reports in it and is blatantly slanted to christian (The bible isnt on the list but darwin is) conservatism, even noting that the panel they used was a conservative panel. While it is honorable of them not to pretend to be politically neutral, Wikipedia should be...at least...thats the impression I got as a reader these past years.
Even if someone here thinks the page on Silent Spring is too left leaning and needs balance, I dont see how putting in a far right radical source in actually solves the problem (just makes the page feel inconsistent). Indeed, since the Honorable Mentions of that book list get no elaboration, including Human Events in the Silent Spring page DOESN'T CONTRIBUTE ANY MEANINGFUL INFORMATION to use to expand the criticism section.
I think something else about malaria or maybe the possible profit loss of chemical companies would serve better to actually be informative and neutral.
69.62.187.148 (
talk)
07:58, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
Thank you for your willingness, but I think you have cut far too much, and I considered a straight rollback to restore all the deleted material. However, there seems no good reason to remove the discussion of e.g. John Tierney, Dick Taverne, the Cato Institute, Peter Matthiessen and probably others. These are intelligent, quiet, useful reflections on the book and its impact, and they need to be re-incorporated. Chiswick Chap ( talk) 08:37, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
Reply was too long so I wrote something below. -- Harizotoh9 ( talk) 17:45, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
The article needed serious trimming of its terrible sources. It relied too heavily on blogs, environmentalist websites, right wing sites, etc. Many still needs many to be replaced.
First Criticism sections are to be avoided. See: WP:CSECTION. Instead of a "Debate" or "Criticism" section, it should focus on the main effects of the books, which seem to be:
The Debate section focuses on the issue of DDT and falls into the fallacy of simply presenting opposing viewpoints. Views of those of critics vs. supporters. Who cares what a bunch of environmentalists and anti-environmentalists think? This is a direct scientific and historical claim. Where are the scientific studies supporting this? Those are the sorts of sources that would be needed. If this was a bunch of scientists debating an issue in scientific journals then the debate should be covered in full. The claim that DDT led to the deaths of many appears to be completely wrong, not published in scientific journals. It therefore is WP:UNDUE to give them too much space or credence. It would also appear to be a WP:FRINGE claim, since it is not something held by scientists, but rather in the public. And it relies on incorrect information in regards to DDT.
Just because a viewpoint exists, does not mean Wikipedia should document it. The sections can be expanded but they must adhere to Wikipedia policies and not give too much credence to discredited claims made by non-scientists. A rebuilt section needs to conform to WP:NPOV, WP:RS, {[WP:FRINGE]] and WP:UNDUE.
Many of the sources simply fail WP:RS.
Economist. Not within his academic expertise to be discussing the issue of the effect of DDT banning. I'm not sure if an advocacy magazine like Reason would pass WP:RS.
Not WP:RS.
Not a scientist. Remember that all sorts of elected officials say stupid or uninformed things. I also don't see the point of having a long quote.
Not a reliable source.
Definitely not a reliable source.
Maybe, I don't know.
The article does not cite him directly. Instead it cites: 1. A blog. 2. The book Merchants of Doubt. This is the reason why I removed it. Going to the original article. Is it an opinion piece? I'm reading it and certainly feels like a personal opinion piece. I don't know.
Is this a reliable source? Needs investigating.
All he's used is for a long quote to say that there was opposition to the book. So I removed the quote and just used him for a citation for that claim.
Not a reliable source by a longshot.
Long Quotes. A lot of the article relied on simply quoting sources at length. I don't see what these really add. You can just summarize their arguments and cite them.
This is just a start. A trimming to remove the bad sources so that the article can then be built up with better sources. Simply citing primary sources of anti- and pro-environmentalists doesn't really add anything to the article. The article still relies on many questionable sources. Mostly environmentalist websites. It needs a lot of work. This article could become one day a WP:FA, but it needs better sources. -- Harizotoh9 ( talk) 17:45, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
Surely this book and its impact have been discussed in high quality peer reviewed scientific or historical literature correct? It has to have been. So I am proposing to remove these low quality sources, and replace them with high quality sources. That is the only way the article can improve. -- Harizotoh9 ( talk) 18:22, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
I've also come across this:
Just the sort of thing I was talking about. This was posted to reddit before I made my edits. Someone read this article, and took the claims stated at face value. Remember that not everyone reads the entire Wikipedia page. Many people scan them, and in this case it looks like the person only read the Criticism section. This is why WP:UNDUE is so important. Readers can become misinformed if undue weight is given to certain positions which are in fact minority or fringe positions among experts. -- Harizotoh9 ( talk) 18:40, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
Whereas this article relies on too many poor sources, and is not that well written, I've found that the main article for Rarchel Carson is in fact very well written (it has featured Article status). I'll incorporate text from Rachel_Carson#Silent_Spring into this article. -- Harizotoh9 ( talk) 19:50, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
The summary from her biography page which I added to this article is a good start. But it can be expanded greatly. If sources are found of course. -- Harizotoh9 ( talk) 20:13, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
The lead sentence states the title, author, publisher and date. The second sentence states one of the consequences of its publication. That's the end of the paragraph. You haven't told me what the book is about yet, and I'm left to imagine how or why it could have started an environmental movement. Rather than the publisher and date (which are not highly relevant), there should be some statement of the book's content in the opening sentence, or at least opening paragraph. 50 years after reading it, I don't remember the publisher or date, or even exactly, the author's name, but I definitely remember what the book was about. I'm not going to be bold, and rewrite that paragraph myself, when another editor has asked for first dibs on this article. Y'all may not agree, anyway. But if you do, I'll give it a shot. Sbalfour ( talk) 00:33, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
The leed is poorly written. I was going to address it last. You can take a crack at it if you want to.
What I was going to do was to take more from the Rachel Carson lede and from the Rachel_Carson#Silent_Spring section. -- Harizotoh9 ( talk) 00:47, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
I should point out in general that this article for whatever reasons seems to have been neglected. The main biography article for Rachel Carson however has received a large amount of attention and has been brought up to FA status. I've attempted to fix that issue by first copying over sections from the much better written Rachel Carson article. I have not really touched the leed for this article however. -- Harizotoh9 ( talk) 00:57, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
I've taken a stab at re-writing the lede. I used some material from the Rachel Carson article and some from the previous lede. I described it as an "environmental science" book, and said that it "book documented the detrimental effects of indiscriminate use of pesticides on the environment, particularly on birds.". Made sure to add "indiscriminate" usage, since she does not call for the banning of pesticides, just documents some of the issues that results from their over use.
I still think it should be expanded. Thoughts? -- Harizotoh9 ( talk) 20:39, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
There is an acclaimed science fiction novel by Kate Wilhelm, Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang whose title is reminescent of the topic of this article. Here is part of a review of the book, confirming my association:
In this sense, "Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang" is the fictional culmination of a movement that began with Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" in 1962 and whose title is recalled. In that book, we learned that in certain cases small levels of contaminants in the environment could have a devastating effect on wildlife. Specifically, the spraying of a little-known chemical, DDT, in order to kill mosquitos, resulted in a thinning of the eggs of birds. Unable to reproduce with their past effectiveness, the number of birds began to fall. In this effect, Carson foresaw a future in which no birds at all were able to reproduce leading to a "Silent Spring," free of birdsong.
You don't have to travel much ecological distance to imagine a similar effect on the reproduction of humans.
The theme of Wilhelm's book is 'if it happened to birds, it could happend to humans... what then?'
Other articles have a Popular Culture section, in which adaptations of the article's topic are listed. Maybe this book goes there? Sbalfour ( talk) 01:44, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
So it seems people come away from this article thinking that there's validity to the claims that Silent Spring is to blame for tens of millions of deaths. Is there anything we can do from this? Are we giving them too much weight? -- Harizotoh9 ( talk) 06:27, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
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The right link for note 25 is https://academic.oup.com/envhis/article-abstract/10/4/636/398991/The-Strange-Stillness-of-the-Past-Toward-an . Iohana4 ( talk) 07:02, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
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I'm not a specific detractor of Ms. Carlson's work, but I was surprised by how biased this article is. Though favorable in general (taking time to debunk criticism - all examples listed - and avoiding criticism), I was surprised to not find "The Lies of Rachel Carlson" [1] by Dr. J. Gordon Edwards. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.130.94.5 ( talk) 17:51, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
http://www.herseyhiroshima.com/hiro.php Thought this might be relevant.
"One way to understand the impact of "Hiroshima" is to compare it to another work first published in The New Yorker: the environmental classic Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson. Portions of Silent Spring were published serially in The New Yorker a decade and a half after "Hiroshima" and it also was quickly published in book form. Extensively researched yet written in a simple and clear style, Silent Spring told of the damage caused to the environment by the widespread use of modern pesticides and herbicides. In order to fully explain the causes of the crisis, Silent Spring explained concepts of ecology (such as the food chain) that were new to the public.
"Hiroshima" was written in a reporter's style. A reviewer of the day noted that that "there is no preaching in this book. Not a single sentence 'views with alarm. ' " [36] On the other hand, Silent Spring was certainly an explicit warning, full of (well-reasoned) advocacy and also what some might have considered sermonizing. Where Hersey was noted for his dry style, Carson's book was clearly impassioned.
The effects were different too. "Hiroshima" was not presented as a call to action; it was instead offered as a clear-eyed report about the reality of the atom bomb as seen through the eyes of the survivors...
However, Carson's Silent Spring was nothing else if not a 'call to action.' It described an environmental disaster in the making, it pointed a finger at wrongdoers, and it explained what sort of remedies would be required. Unlike "Hiroshima," large and powerful interest groups were greatly threatened by Silent Spring; the chemical and agricultural industries fought a bitter public relations and public policy war against Carson and her message.
The modern environmental crusade was probably initiated by Silent Spring. Citizen action and government policy can be traced directly to the book and to the storm of controversy that surrounded it."
In any event, I think, like the above editor that this article on Silent Spring, needs to be less defensively biased. Boundarylayer ( talk) 19:07, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
![]() | Silent Spring received a peer review by Wikipedia editors, which is now archived. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article. |
Please place new discussions at the bottom of the talk page. |
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Perhaps we should merge some of the content from Rachel Carson#Silent Spring over here. It's quite clearly better presented than this article and it does a much better job of detailing the supporters and critics of the book. Thoughts? Nishkid64 ( Make articles, not wikidrama) 15:04, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
The section titled "criticism" spends more time defending her claims than it does actually citing the criticisms themselves. Until I added it, it didn't even mention the eggshell issue (which was mentioned in the opening blurb without noting the fact that it's been pretty much debunked), and makes some interesting claims about how "it's never been banned for anti-mosquito use", which is specious at best, a lie by ommission, as many, if not most developed nations have banned its use for all purposes, not just "mosquito based" uses.
Biased, much? This is the sort of thing which gives Wiki a bad rep, as the article is anything but balanced or neutral on the topic. --
OBloodyHell (
talk)
08:06, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
I have to agree with the comments above. The critics should be able to stand on their own. The editorializing and qualifications are out of place in this section and display an obvious and unnecessary bias. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.79.229.129 ( talk) 14:43, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
I cleaned up the link to the "general page that says no such thing" and changed it to the closest thing on that site I could find. Clearly, the citer was reading between the lines.-- Auric ( talk) 16:00, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
As mentioned above, the "never been banned for anti-mosquito use," is sourced to footnote [20], which says no such thing. This phrase should be removed completely. 192.206.187.60 ( talk) 18:09, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
The specific line, "never been banned for anti-malarial use" has been removed as per consensus. The source did not support the statement and it is factually untrue, especially as the Stockholm Convention has already planned to completely ban manufacturing and usage of DDT worldwide by 2017. MrDestructo ( talk) 14:51, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
the year 2020." http://www.ciel.org/Publications/IPEN_QuickViewsCOP4_18Apr09.pdf Cronos1 ( talk) 01:17, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
I removed the sentence + ref which said DDT was never banned for use against moscitoues, because the ref didn't support it. My changes was deleted without good reason. The ref really don't say DDT was *never* banned of that reason. 119.31.121.91 ( talk) 17:22, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Not sure why you think its necessary. Its cited in note 17: Matthiessen, Peter (March 29, 1999), "Environmentalist RACHEL CARSON", Time Magazine 153 (12): 3 of 4, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,990622-3,00.html. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cronos1 ( talk • contribs) 03:05, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
It seems like a pretty weak arguement that Time Inc was using a by-line to distance itself from its selection of these individuals. Cronos1 ( talk) 00:55, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
I changed this:
To this:
It is obvious that this is not a scientific fact, only a personal opinion in a newspaper column. 119.31.126.81 ( talk) 05:07, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
Once again, we have edits being made without any attempt to build consensus. I reverted appealing to the editor to build consensus on the talk page, but was counter-reverted with the reason provided provided by the editor for the deletion of the material being 'The comments of Moore, of PAN are not in the least notable when a non-neutral source such as PAN self-servingly writes and publishes the article in it's in-house organ PAN magazine - as is done here.' I'm not convinced this is a NPOV edit, and thought I would offer the other editors a chance to share your opinions on the appropriateness of the reason provided. I would question whether the Facts of Publication should be characterized in the manner chosen. For example, Reason Magazine is published by the Reason Foundation, I'm not convinced that it makes all the comments of Reason's editors "self-serving" or "not notable". I'd be interested in the thoughts of the other editors.-- Cronos1 ( talk) 01:29, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
The Wik article spells "programme" this British way, but the author of SS was American, and SS was published by an American publisher. I find it unlikely that the author would use this spelling. Could some-one check? 211.225.34.177 ( talk) 07:24, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
This biased bit keeps getting added: "Industry and agribusiness advocates continue to criticize Silent Spring". This suggests that the only people who criticize it do so because they're paid shills (also, "industry and agribusiness advocates" is basically the equivalent of calling someone a "black-hearted scoundrel" for progressives). It's just as biased as when someone was called an "environmental activist" earlier, only in the other direction. Many people have honestly and sincerely criticized Silent Spring, not just evil corporate lobbyists.— Chowbok ☠ 06:21, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
The more I look at Cronos's responses to the charges of bias, the more I get a laugh at how pathetic they are. One has to read through them one time to see how his overt bias, as displayed on the talk page, has bled over into an entry that is supposed to be unbiased. The assertion that a defense of GM crops is also advocacy on behalf of agribusiness is a joke. One can support crops that are resistant to disease or increase yields without being an advocate of the business model that currently produces the majority of them. One could go so far as to support them in principle while completely opposing the businesses that produce them. Stating something along the lines of "well he criticized Prince Charles and supports GM crops, thus he must be a advocate(and not merely a supporter) of 'agribusiness'" is an absolute farce barely worthy of a reasoned response. Moreover, the definition of agribusiness being used by Cronos is so ambiguous and undefined as to be worthless. Does going to the local store and purchasing a plow make me a supporter of "agribusiness"? Does buying a GM vegetable at the supermarket make me a "supporter of agribusiness". One would suspect that, according to Cronos, such would be the case, if only so he could label me as an agribusiness supporter before addressing my criticisms of Silent Spring. Perhaps I support the production of GM crops by producer-owned co ops. The assertion that one is advocating on behalf of agribusiness and thus his criticisms of Silent Spring are suspect simply because he supports GM crops is hilarious for the sheer transparency of the bias involved. Subscribing to a libertarian philosophy doesn't make one an agribusiness advocate either. One can completely disapprove of the methods and actions of agribusiness companies, yet oppose passing onerous regulations against them. That doesn't make one an agribusiness advocate. And once again, we get back to a definition of agribusiness that is insanely overbroad. But that is deliberate because a particular author wants to be able to call into question the motives of anyone who criticizes Silent Spring. To claim otherwise is a blatant lie. It is hard to say exactly which is more comical: the claims that using the term "agribusiness advocate" to describe the critics of Silent Spring aren't biased or the seeming belief that we can't determine the motivations and see through the lies and justifications for using such blatant bias. It is simply not possible to read the last portion of the Silent Spring entry, including the wholly unsupporterd charges concerning some grand conspiracy to undermine the environmental movement, without seeing the bias. As I mention in the above post, I am going to start removing the biased parts of this entry and I will continue to do so if the entry is reverted back to it current, ridiculous state. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.141.154.75 ( talk) 03:11, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
We need to clarify the opposing views on:
I don't want the article to make it seem like she's a saint (if opposition to this idea is more than marginal). Nor do I want to make it seem like she's nothing but a hoaxer (if support for her views is also more than marginal). What's wrong with simply being neutral on all aspects of her book? -- Uncle Ed ( talk) 04:27, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
Does the Human Events website example even belong on here? Gonna be honest, never posted one of these things before or done anything but read wikipedia and revert vandalized pages (I dont even have one of your fancy account doo-dads) but it may be time for me to be more actively involved. Umm...if this is too long just read the few words in caps and the title to get the point.
That list has things like The Feminine Mystique, The Origin of Species (it and Descent of Man are in the honorable mentions), and the Kinsey Reports in it and is blatantly slanted to christian (The bible isnt on the list but darwin is) conservatism, even noting that the panel they used was a conservative panel. While it is honorable of them not to pretend to be politically neutral, Wikipedia should be...at least...thats the impression I got as a reader these past years.
Even if someone here thinks the page on Silent Spring is too left leaning and needs balance, I dont see how putting in a far right radical source in actually solves the problem (just makes the page feel inconsistent). Indeed, since the Honorable Mentions of that book list get no elaboration, including Human Events in the Silent Spring page DOESN'T CONTRIBUTE ANY MEANINGFUL INFORMATION to use to expand the criticism section.
I think something else about malaria or maybe the possible profit loss of chemical companies would serve better to actually be informative and neutral.
69.62.187.148 (
talk)
07:58, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
Thank you for your willingness, but I think you have cut far too much, and I considered a straight rollback to restore all the deleted material. However, there seems no good reason to remove the discussion of e.g. John Tierney, Dick Taverne, the Cato Institute, Peter Matthiessen and probably others. These are intelligent, quiet, useful reflections on the book and its impact, and they need to be re-incorporated. Chiswick Chap ( talk) 08:37, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
Reply was too long so I wrote something below. -- Harizotoh9 ( talk) 17:45, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
The article needed serious trimming of its terrible sources. It relied too heavily on blogs, environmentalist websites, right wing sites, etc. Many still needs many to be replaced.
First Criticism sections are to be avoided. See: WP:CSECTION. Instead of a "Debate" or "Criticism" section, it should focus on the main effects of the books, which seem to be:
The Debate section focuses on the issue of DDT and falls into the fallacy of simply presenting opposing viewpoints. Views of those of critics vs. supporters. Who cares what a bunch of environmentalists and anti-environmentalists think? This is a direct scientific and historical claim. Where are the scientific studies supporting this? Those are the sorts of sources that would be needed. If this was a bunch of scientists debating an issue in scientific journals then the debate should be covered in full. The claim that DDT led to the deaths of many appears to be completely wrong, not published in scientific journals. It therefore is WP:UNDUE to give them too much space or credence. It would also appear to be a WP:FRINGE claim, since it is not something held by scientists, but rather in the public. And it relies on incorrect information in regards to DDT.
Just because a viewpoint exists, does not mean Wikipedia should document it. The sections can be expanded but they must adhere to Wikipedia policies and not give too much credence to discredited claims made by non-scientists. A rebuilt section needs to conform to WP:NPOV, WP:RS, {[WP:FRINGE]] and WP:UNDUE.
Many of the sources simply fail WP:RS.
Economist. Not within his academic expertise to be discussing the issue of the effect of DDT banning. I'm not sure if an advocacy magazine like Reason would pass WP:RS.
Not WP:RS.
Not a scientist. Remember that all sorts of elected officials say stupid or uninformed things. I also don't see the point of having a long quote.
Not a reliable source.
Definitely not a reliable source.
Maybe, I don't know.
The article does not cite him directly. Instead it cites: 1. A blog. 2. The book Merchants of Doubt. This is the reason why I removed it. Going to the original article. Is it an opinion piece? I'm reading it and certainly feels like a personal opinion piece. I don't know.
Is this a reliable source? Needs investigating.
All he's used is for a long quote to say that there was opposition to the book. So I removed the quote and just used him for a citation for that claim.
Not a reliable source by a longshot.
Long Quotes. A lot of the article relied on simply quoting sources at length. I don't see what these really add. You can just summarize their arguments and cite them.
This is just a start. A trimming to remove the bad sources so that the article can then be built up with better sources. Simply citing primary sources of anti- and pro-environmentalists doesn't really add anything to the article. The article still relies on many questionable sources. Mostly environmentalist websites. It needs a lot of work. This article could become one day a WP:FA, but it needs better sources. -- Harizotoh9 ( talk) 17:45, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
Surely this book and its impact have been discussed in high quality peer reviewed scientific or historical literature correct? It has to have been. So I am proposing to remove these low quality sources, and replace them with high quality sources. That is the only way the article can improve. -- Harizotoh9 ( talk) 18:22, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
I've also come across this:
Just the sort of thing I was talking about. This was posted to reddit before I made my edits. Someone read this article, and took the claims stated at face value. Remember that not everyone reads the entire Wikipedia page. Many people scan them, and in this case it looks like the person only read the Criticism section. This is why WP:UNDUE is so important. Readers can become misinformed if undue weight is given to certain positions which are in fact minority or fringe positions among experts. -- Harizotoh9 ( talk) 18:40, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
Whereas this article relies on too many poor sources, and is not that well written, I've found that the main article for Rarchel Carson is in fact very well written (it has featured Article status). I'll incorporate text from Rachel_Carson#Silent_Spring into this article. -- Harizotoh9 ( talk) 19:50, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
The summary from her biography page which I added to this article is a good start. But it can be expanded greatly. If sources are found of course. -- Harizotoh9 ( talk) 20:13, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
The lead sentence states the title, author, publisher and date. The second sentence states one of the consequences of its publication. That's the end of the paragraph. You haven't told me what the book is about yet, and I'm left to imagine how or why it could have started an environmental movement. Rather than the publisher and date (which are not highly relevant), there should be some statement of the book's content in the opening sentence, or at least opening paragraph. 50 years after reading it, I don't remember the publisher or date, or even exactly, the author's name, but I definitely remember what the book was about. I'm not going to be bold, and rewrite that paragraph myself, when another editor has asked for first dibs on this article. Y'all may not agree, anyway. But if you do, I'll give it a shot. Sbalfour ( talk) 00:33, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
The leed is poorly written. I was going to address it last. You can take a crack at it if you want to.
What I was going to do was to take more from the Rachel Carson lede and from the Rachel_Carson#Silent_Spring section. -- Harizotoh9 ( talk) 00:47, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
I should point out in general that this article for whatever reasons seems to have been neglected. The main biography article for Rachel Carson however has received a large amount of attention and has been brought up to FA status. I've attempted to fix that issue by first copying over sections from the much better written Rachel Carson article. I have not really touched the leed for this article however. -- Harizotoh9 ( talk) 00:57, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
I've taken a stab at re-writing the lede. I used some material from the Rachel Carson article and some from the previous lede. I described it as an "environmental science" book, and said that it "book documented the detrimental effects of indiscriminate use of pesticides on the environment, particularly on birds.". Made sure to add "indiscriminate" usage, since she does not call for the banning of pesticides, just documents some of the issues that results from their over use.
I still think it should be expanded. Thoughts? -- Harizotoh9 ( talk) 20:39, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
There is an acclaimed science fiction novel by Kate Wilhelm, Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang whose title is reminescent of the topic of this article. Here is part of a review of the book, confirming my association:
In this sense, "Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang" is the fictional culmination of a movement that began with Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" in 1962 and whose title is recalled. In that book, we learned that in certain cases small levels of contaminants in the environment could have a devastating effect on wildlife. Specifically, the spraying of a little-known chemical, DDT, in order to kill mosquitos, resulted in a thinning of the eggs of birds. Unable to reproduce with their past effectiveness, the number of birds began to fall. In this effect, Carson foresaw a future in which no birds at all were able to reproduce leading to a "Silent Spring," free of birdsong.
You don't have to travel much ecological distance to imagine a similar effect on the reproduction of humans.
The theme of Wilhelm's book is 'if it happened to birds, it could happend to humans... what then?'
Other articles have a Popular Culture section, in which adaptations of the article's topic are listed. Maybe this book goes there? Sbalfour ( talk) 01:44, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
So it seems people come away from this article thinking that there's validity to the claims that Silent Spring is to blame for tens of millions of deaths. Is there anything we can do from this? Are we giving them too much weight? -- Harizotoh9 ( talk) 06:27, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
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The right link for note 25 is https://academic.oup.com/envhis/article-abstract/10/4/636/398991/The-Strange-Stillness-of-the-Past-Toward-an . Iohana4 ( talk) 07:02, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
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I'm not a specific detractor of Ms. Carlson's work, but I was surprised by how biased this article is. Though favorable in general (taking time to debunk criticism - all examples listed - and avoiding criticism), I was surprised to not find "The Lies of Rachel Carlson" [1] by Dr. J. Gordon Edwards. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.130.94.5 ( talk) 17:51, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
http://www.herseyhiroshima.com/hiro.php Thought this might be relevant.
"One way to understand the impact of "Hiroshima" is to compare it to another work first published in The New Yorker: the environmental classic Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson. Portions of Silent Spring were published serially in The New Yorker a decade and a half after "Hiroshima" and it also was quickly published in book form. Extensively researched yet written in a simple and clear style, Silent Spring told of the damage caused to the environment by the widespread use of modern pesticides and herbicides. In order to fully explain the causes of the crisis, Silent Spring explained concepts of ecology (such as the food chain) that were new to the public.
"Hiroshima" was written in a reporter's style. A reviewer of the day noted that that "there is no preaching in this book. Not a single sentence 'views with alarm. ' " [36] On the other hand, Silent Spring was certainly an explicit warning, full of (well-reasoned) advocacy and also what some might have considered sermonizing. Where Hersey was noted for his dry style, Carson's book was clearly impassioned.
The effects were different too. "Hiroshima" was not presented as a call to action; it was instead offered as a clear-eyed report about the reality of the atom bomb as seen through the eyes of the survivors...
However, Carson's Silent Spring was nothing else if not a 'call to action.' It described an environmental disaster in the making, it pointed a finger at wrongdoers, and it explained what sort of remedies would be required. Unlike "Hiroshima," large and powerful interest groups were greatly threatened by Silent Spring; the chemical and agricultural industries fought a bitter public relations and public policy war against Carson and her message.
The modern environmental crusade was probably initiated by Silent Spring. Citizen action and government policy can be traced directly to the book and to the storm of controversy that surrounded it."
In any event, I think, like the above editor that this article on Silent Spring, needs to be less defensively biased. Boundarylayer ( talk) 19:07, 22 May 2018 (UTC)