June 19, 2007
Something I was slow to learn: in academic/intellectual debates, sometimes it's not enough to be right. You occasionally have to have good luck, good timing, or good marketing. Eric Falkenstein, summarizing and extending an article by John Tierney in the New York Times, reminds us that Rachel Carson, while wrong in significant ways, is famous and is still esteemed in some quarters. A guy, I. L. Baldwin, who pointed out in 1962 that she was wrong is vitually unknown and unloved.