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Rachel Carson

(27 May 1907 - 14 Apr 1964)

American marine biologist, conservationist and writer whose book Silent Spring (1962), denounced the indiscriminate use of pesticides, and helped launch the modern environmental movement.

Short biography of Rachel Carson >>

If Darwin were alive today the insect world would delight and astound him with its impressive verification of his theories of the survival of the fittest. Under the stress of intensive chemical spraying the weaker members of the insect populations are being weeded out… . Only the strong and fit remain to defy our efforts to control them.

— Rachel Carson

In Silent Spring (1952, 1962), 263.

The frillshark has many anatomical features similar to those of the ancient sharks that lived 25 to 30 million years ago. It has too many gills and too few dorsal fins for a modern shark, and its teeth, like those of fossil sharks, are three-pronged and briarlike. Some ichthyologists regard it as a relic derived from very ancient shark ancestors that have died out in the upper waters but, through this single species, are still carrying on their struggle for earthly survival, in the quiet of the deep sea.

— Rachel Carson

In The Sea Around Us (1951), 54.

Rachel Carson quote: The “control of nature” is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and the

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Rachel Carson quote: In that dawn chorus [of birds] one hears the throb of life itself.

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Rachel Carson quote: Future generations are unlikely to condone our lack of prudent concern for the integrity of the natural wor

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See also:

27 May - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Carson's birth.
Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson. - book suggestion.
Booklist for Rachel Carson.

In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan

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