@JustinCEO said:
If there are cites you’re particularly interested in having checked, I have easy access to a library with an unusually large collection of materials.
And No Birds Sing: Rhetorical Analyses of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring says:
The National Agricultural Chemical Association led the attack, committing a quarter of a million dollars to improving the image of the industry and refuting Carson’s case against the indiscriminate use of chemical insecticides (Brooks 294); the Manufacturing Chemists’ Association also attacked the book (Lear, Rachel Carson 413).
I’d like to see those (or other) prominent, well-funded refutations of Carson from back when her book was published. I’m curious if opponents ever wrote some actual arguments or it was mud-slinging. I’m also curious if the criticisms were the same ones being made today, e.g. if they immediately pretended Silent Spring was all about DDT or if that came later.
I’ve seen so many people talk about SS being refuted and claim it received tons of criticism, but usually without details. I’ve read way more claims that criticism exists (without citations or summaries) than actual criticism. That is maybe partly because I’m reading newer stuff; they hopefully couldn’t have just said “already refuted” as their first response… This seems like a good lead on either finding some kind of criticism or confirming that there was never any serious, good criticism.
I don’t know how hard to find this is. I haven’t searched because it looks like a likely rabbit hole and I already did a lot of research.
I believe the Brooks reference is House of Life: Rachel Carson at Work by Paul Brooks and the Lear reference is Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature by Linda Lear (who wrote an introduction for a later edition of Silent Spring).