I will exalt you, my God the King; I will praise your name for ever and ever. Every day I will praise you and extol your name for ever and ever. Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom. One generation will commend your works to another; they will tell of your mighty acts. They will speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty, and I will meditate on your wonderful works (Psalm 145:1-5)
Poor Rachel Carson (May 27, 1907 – April 14, 1964) can’t seem to rest in peace. Ever since her book Silent Spring virtually spawned the modern Environmental Movement, her scientific conclusions about DDT have been accepted, rejected, challenged and re-researched so often that it’s hard to know the truth about it. Mostly, however, the issue has been an economic football kicked from post to post in a hard-fought battle between conservative libertarians and perceived “liberal” scientists. For sure the issue has kept in everyone’s attention the advisability of spreading “cides” all over the landscape and has rightly cautioned us about using them without knowing all of the effects and side-effects of their use.
Rachel grew up in rural Pennsylvania and loved to explore and learn from the natural world as she ambled around her family’s 65-acre farm. She was such an astute observer and good student that she had an article published when she was eleven! Her sense of wonder in nature never left her. In fact, it became the topic of another of her books: The Sense of Wonder. The following quote from the book is found on the WOC page Creation Quotations and Wonder Kids. Although Carson was not known as a follower of Christ and was probably a secular naturalist, her views on children and the sense of wonder are wise words for us to heed:
A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.
If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder without any such gift from the fairies, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in. Parents often have a sense of inadequacy when confronted on the one hand with the eager, sensitive mind of a child and on the other with a world of complex physical nature, inhabited by a life so various and unfamiliar that it seems hopeless to reduce it to order and knowledge. In a mood of self-defeat, they exclaim, “How can I possibly teach my child about nature—why, I don’t even know one bird from another!”
I sincerely believe that for the child, and for the parent seeking to guide him, it is not half so important to know as to feel. If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow. The years of early childhood are the time to prepare the soil. Once the emotions have been aroused—a sense of the beautiful, the excitement of the new and the unknown, a feeling of sympathy, pity, admiration or love—then we wish for knowledge about the object of our emotional response. Once found, it has lasting meaning. It is more important to pave the way for the child to want to know than to put him on a diet of facts he is not ready to assimilate.
[From The Sense of Wonder, by Rachel L. Carson]
[Our grandchildren---from top to bottom: Gunnar, Elle, and Anna]
June 23rd, 2010 at 8:48 am
These are interesting comments, enjoyable to read. Unfortunately, they must be placed in the context of the author’s direct culpability in the malarial death of untold millions of African men, women, and children.
Carson’s role in the banning of DDT makes her responsible for mass murder on a scale that far surpasses that of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao combined. And for what? A misguided woman’s rabid crusade against what has correctly been called a miracle chemical, DDT.
Perhaps unbeknownst to Carson was the fact that US soldiers literally covered themselves with DDT prior to going into mosquito-infested areas. Without a doubt, this practice saved many lives. The fact is that DDT has never been shown to be detrimental to humans. However, like all efforts of hardcore environmentalists, humans are to take the lowest priority; animals, plants, and the planet itself are what really matter. Many environmentalists, in fact, lament the fact that we are even here, considering that the planet would be much purer and better without us.
Any sincere Christian should want us to be good stewards of the planet God has created for us to live on, and it seems unlikely that any would not choose to be so. But many people promote environmentalism to the status of a religion, worshipping the created things more than the Creator. A great many of these, if they were honest, would simply admit that they are anti-capitalists who resent the prosperity and freedom that America offers.
I echo Rachel Carson’s thoughts of wanting to nourish a child’s innate wonder of nature. We should be fascinated and blessed by the magnificence of what our Lord has created (a fact, it seems, that she overlooked). I’m endlessly amazed at how anyone can think that all of this came about from nothing, created by no one, for no purpose, purely by accident. Since we as believers know not only the beauty of our universe but also the One for Whom and by Whom it was created—our Lord Jesus Christ—we are blessed indeed.
June 23rd, 2010 at 9:46 am
Thanks for your observations. I was led into the evangelical creation care community because of the wrong-headed views of secular environmentalists who, in the evil spirit of earth worship as pictured by the apostle Paul in Romans 1, were indeed rejecting the Creator and worshiping the created things. Many still do. I have been seeking to help Christians navigate into holier waters now for 21 years. This WOC Website is the culmination of that work. If you are new to WOC, I invite you to dig deep into it and into the articles and other resources available on the menu and sidebar. In particular you might want to read the article about questions Christians ask about the environmental movement (or creation care) found here: http://www.wonderofcreation.org/resources/questions-christians-ask-about-environmental-issues/.
One important thing I have learned along the way, especially in reference to scientific research and conclusions like those you mention above, is to study all sides of the issue. A view you do not mention is that the banning of wholesale spreading of DDT on our soil might well be responsible for the saving of thousands of lives by compelling science to look for better methods of DDT use and the development of alternative insect pest control products—especially God-made natural ones. It is not as simple as you make it out to be. Further, there are consequences of wholesale application (deliberate and accidental) of man-made, death-dealing products that we may well be unaware of. Far too often we take an approach to problems in a manner similar to giving a hospital janitor a Bowie knife to remove tumors from patients. He might well succeed in removing tumors only to kill the patient with “collateral damage.”
Our ecosystems are amazingly fine-tuned by the Creator, and when they are tampered with by arrogant scientists, industrialists, and profiteers acting like the proverbial bull in a china shop, bad things are going to happen. A good picture of such is C. S. Lewis “Space Trilogy”—especially the final book, That Hideous Strength.
Dean
June 24th, 2010 at 8:43 am
Thank you for the link to more information about WOC, Dean; I look forward to checking it out.
Regarding the discussion, of DDT, I find one important distinction in our approach. You mentioned that banning DDT *might* be responsible for saving thousands of lives by forcing science to look for better alternatives. Then, you note that there *may* be consequences of using DDT.
In neither case did you point to any actual evidence of any detriment to DDT use, nor am I aware of any that has been substantiated in its many years of real-world employment. If you do know of any, I would of course be interested to hear; I wish to maintain an informed and balanced perspective.
This differs starkly from the obvious and well-documented, avoidable tragedy of millions of lives being lost by *not* using DDT. To us sitting here in the comfort of Western society, we are free to theorize about what possible problems there may be with a given chemical application. And I would not disagree that caution and good judgment should always be exercised in the realm of science.
However, caution should not lead to complete inaction. The problem, as I see it, is that we have the luxury of being detached from the actual problem. Was it your mother, or mine, who lost her life from a malaria-carrying mosquito? No. Or did we lose a little son or daughter that way? No. But millions upon millions did, and so many still do. I would suggest that they care not a whit about our world of theory; all they care about is that they and their loved ones survive. If we were in their position, would we feel any different? Or would we demand that the immediate cessation of the one thing that was keeping them alive until a “better” alternative is found?
I agree that science should not stop looking for improved ways to do things; no one would dispute that. And perhaps something better than DDT will ultimately be discovered. If so, I’m all for it. Until then, it would be unspeakably tragic for untold millions more to die—or even one person to perish—for fear of possible but unproven concerns about DDT.
June 24th, 2010 at 11:14 am
Hi Steve,
You do understand, of course, that you are here continuing to give only one side of the debate. Wikipedia has a good overview of the issue here: DDT. Included in the comments are these paragraphs:
“Critics claim that restricting DDT in vector control have caused unnecessary deaths due to malaria. Estimates range from hundreds of thousands,[108] to much higher figures. Robert Gwadz of the National Institutes of Health said in 2007, “The ban on DDT may have killed 20 million children.”[109] These arguments have been dismissed as “outrageous” by former WHO scientist Socrates Litsios. May Berenbaum, University of Illinois entomologist, says, “to blame environmentalists who oppose DDT for more deaths than Hitler is worse than irresponsible.”[81] Investigative journalist Adam Sarvana and others characterize this notion as a “myth” promoted principally by Roger Bate of the pro-DDT advocacy group Africa Fighting Malaria (AFM).[110][111]
“Criticisms of a DDT ‘ban’ often specifically reference the 1972 US ban (with the erroneous implication that this constituted a worldwide ban and prohibited use of DDT in vector control). Reference is often made to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring even though she never pushed for a ban on DDT.[citation needed] John Quiggin and Tim Lambert wrote, ‘the most striking feature of the claim against Carson is the ease with which it can be refuted.’[112] Carson actually devoted a page of her book to considering the relationship between DDT and malaria, warning of the evolution of DDT resistance in mosquitoes and concluding:
It is more sensible in some cases to take a small amount of damage in preference to having none for a time but paying for it in the long run by losing the very means of fighting [is the advice given in Holland by Dr Briejer in his capacity as director of the Plant Protection Service]. Practical advice should be “Spray as little as you possibly can” rather than “Spray to the limit of your capacity.”
Readers of WOC can easily gain access to the whole story elsewhere. WOC is not geared for and is not intended for scientific debate. And we are especially not interested in perpetuating the divisive libertarians vs. liberals arguments that are both politically and financially motivated. Libertarianism, capitalism, laissez-faire economics, and deification of the free market are not the benchmarks for being either Christian or evangelical.
Since it is totally beside the point of the original post and outside the scope of WOC, this is the last post on the DDT controversy that will be approved.
Dean