JOHN QUIGGIN'S FAVOURITE UNRELIABLE SOURCE

Australian economist John Quiggin delivers one of the funniest lines of the year (so far):

If [the gullible right-wingers] had taken a moment to think, they would have realised that picking a fight with Tim Lambert over a question of fact is a very silly thing to do...

Arguing matters of fact with Tim Lambert is pretty silly; even though Lambert's often wrong, he steadfastly refuses to admit it. Let's take a look at just a few Lambert errors.

Lambert says Eritrea's anti-malaria program produced dramatic results by switching away from DDT. In reality, Eritrea produced dramatic results while greatly increasing DDT use.

Lambert says malathion was the ideal choice for mosquito control in Sri Lanka following the 2004 tsunami. In fact, malathion is considered inappropriate for such use because Sri Lanka's mosquitoes are malathion resistant.

Lambert says Miranda Devine fabricated a Rachel Carson quote. She didn't.

Lambert says Europeans have not threatened sanctions against countries using DDT for indoor spraying. They did.

Lambert says Paul Ehrlich did not advocate the forced sterilisation of Indian men and even offered a quote to prove his point. Lambert's selective quoting was exposed leaving him no choice but to admit he was wrong – the very rare admission hidden 1,506 words into a post.

Lambert says the reintroduction of DDT didn't play a big role in reducing malaria in South Africa. It did.

Lambert says the World Health Organization has always supported DDT use and provides this quote from a DDT FAQ brochure to prove it: "WHO recommends indoor residual spraying of DDT for malaria vector control." In the context of the brochure the quote simply indicates that DDT is to be used, if it is used, solely for indoor residual spraying. Anyway, Lambert removed the note from the end of the quote – he removed it because it leads to WHO documents showing that the organization was, at the time, anti-DDT. So here we have Lambert quote doctoring, again.

Lambert says this Roll Back Malaria document proves that the WHO has always supported DDT use. The document doesn't mention DDT.

Lambert says fellow academic Sinclair Davidson is guilty of quote-doctoring misconduct. In reality Davidson did nothing wrong.

Lambert says Tim Flannery never said that melting ice could raise sea level by 80 meters and provides a quote to prove it. It's another doctored quote from Lambert; Flannery did indeed say seas could rise by 80 meters.

Lambert says this book erroneously proclaims that DDT is banned. The book says no such thing.

Lambert says Indymedia amateur entomologist Brent Herbert is a debunker of DDT myths. Herbert is a nut-case.

Lambert says USAID funds DDT use. At the time he wrote that it didn't.

Lambert insists that the word "toady" is abusive in order to justify removing a comment from his blog. Toady is another word for sycophant and is not abusive.

Lambert says DDT was the WHO's insecticide of choice up until 1994. The document he links to says 1984, not 1994. Is this a typo or did Lambert intentionally alter the date?

Lambert says Fred Pearce's DDT article in New Scientist is "the usual Rachel Carson killed millions crap". Lambert lies; here's what Pearce actually says:

It seems millions of lives have been lost because health experts threw away their best weapon. Are environmentalists to blame? There is no doubt that DDT was misused as an agricultural pesticide and seriously damaged wildlife. In that sense Carson was right. But regulators did not recognise that spraying indoors was different. And an environmental outcry against DDT helped to ensure that the early fears about its effect on human health became entrenched dogma long after they had been proved unfounded.

Lambert says Ed Darrell and Bug Girl are reliable sources of DDT information. Bug Girl is an entomologist but is no DDT expert. Lambert wanna be Ed Darrell is, well, nuts.

Lambert says Rachel Carson didn't suggest DDT was developed as part of sinister World War II chemical weapons development programs. Yes, she did.

Lambert accuses Bjorn Lomborg of spreading the erroneous notion that DDT is banned. Lomborg said no such thing.

Lambert says the "Washington Post buried the story of 650,000 excess deaths in Iraq on page A12". The story was not "buried". An above the fold front page photo showed a grieving Iraqi mother with this lead in to the story:

Study Cites Significantly Higher Death Rate

A new study says 655,000 more Iraqis have died violently since the invasion than otherwise would have been killed. A12

Lambert says Tuvaluans are fleeing to New Zealand to escape rising seas. Nope.

Lambert justifies his hate for Africa Fighting Malaria by claiming they aim to prevent bed nets being used in the fight against malaria. Wrong.

Okay, that's enough for now. Quiggin and Lambert, what a team.

Update: Lambert says Labor's 2007 election win was a landslide. It wasn't. The guy's waging a one man war on reality.

Lambert says, "Beck isn't interested in discussion on DDT -- he just wants attention". On the other hand there's reality:

"Hit-obsessed Australian blogger Tim “Lancet” Lambert—he actually sends emails to his targets in the hope of attracting links; odd behaviour for someone who accuses others of attention seeking."

I'm not interested in discussing DDT? Lambert's so scared of me all I have to do is enter a discussion and he flees.

Note: The links directly above do not take you to the relevant comments. If you want to read the comments, the first link is to Lambert's fifth comment in the series (scroll down about 2/3 of the page). For the second linked comment scroll down to the last in the thread (after Lambert fled).

Update II: My hearty thanks to Tim Blair, Andrew Bolt and Glenn Reynolds for linking to my humble hobby-blog.

Update III: Blogger gets a bit temperamental when posts get really long so the latest is here.

Update IV: Tim Lambert's lame rebuttal is addressed here.

THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

The lefties at Larvatus Prodeo were not long ago outraged at Australian retailers who were supposedly peddling "inappropriately sexualised clothing for young children" in an ongoing act of "corporate paedophilia". The controversial Bill Henson photographs of scantily and unclad adolescents are, on the other hand, deemed to be "art":

Henson’s artistic interest is in adolescence as a time of metamorphosis which exposes the tensions and strains of living in a body, of being embodied, and of a certain relation of the psyche to the body. He eschews statements of political or sociological intent, though he’s aware that audiences may read such statements into his work. He invites reflection on times of transition, and what it feels like to undergo change. His images are classical and painterly, and ethereal.

And if you don't see the Hanson photos as art there's something wrong with you:

Anyone who views those images as sexual fodder is a sicko.

Now I haven't really paid much attention to the Henson photographs brouhaha and have no idea what was included in the proposed exhibition but do know that at least some of his works are sexually provocative.

Lefties are also worried that action against Henson will have far reaching consequences not only for "arts and culture" but for out "civil liberties" what with "NSW police officers rampaging through galleries".

So on the one hand lefties are aghast that "raunch-for-kids fashion" is "all that is available at the cheapest chain stores" and that this will inevitably result in a whole generation of Australian girls being turned into little Britneys, Parises and JonBenets (and we all know what happened to her...). A photograph of two unclad youngsters apparently dragging off a young unclad girl to do who knows what with her is, on the other hand, art. Hmm.

THE GREAT CHALLENGES OF OUR TIME

In connection with Copenhagen Consensus 2008 Times Online has created an interactive table which allows readers to rank their "own priorities for solving the great challenges of our time". Global warming is currently coming in ninth out of 10.

Via GMO Pundit

RELIGIOUS EVOLUTION

Freeman Dyson on intolerant environment worshipers:

There is a worldwide secular religion which we may call environmentalism, holding that we are stewards of the earth, that despoiling the planet with waste products of our luxurious living is a sin, and that the path of righteousness is to live as frugally as possible. The ethics of environmentalism are being taught to children in kindergartens, schools, and colleges all over the world.

Environmentalism has replaced socialism as the leading secular religion. And the ethics of environmentalism are fundamentally sound. Scientists and economists can agree with Buddhist monks and Christian activists that ruthless destruction of natural habitats is evil and careful preservation of birds and butterflies is good. The worldwide community of environmentalists—most of whom are not scientists—holds the moral high ground, and is guiding human societies toward a hopeful future. Environmentalism, as a religion of hope and respect for nature, is here to stay. This is a religion that we can all share, whether or not we believe that global warming is harmful.

Unfortunately, some members of the environmental movement have also adopted as an article of faith the be-lief that global warming is the greatest threat to the ecology of our planet. That is one reason why the arguments about global warming have become bitter and passionate. Much of the public has come to believe that anyone who is skeptical about the dangers of global warming is an enemy of the environment. The skeptics now have the difficult task of convincing the public that the opposite is true. Many of the skeptics are passionate environmentalists. They are horrified to see the obsession with global warming distracting public attention from what they see as more serious and more immediate dangers to the planet, including problems of nuclear weaponry, environmental degradation, and social injustice. Whether they turn out to be right or wrong, their arguments on these issues deserve to be heard.

The book review from which the excerpt above is taken is well worth reading. So read it.

CARTER CONFUSED

Jimmy Carter, who once claimed to be a nuclear engineer (he's not), can't quite keep things straight in his head:

"The US has more than 12,000 nuclear weapons; the Soviet Union has about the same; Great Britain and France have several hundred, and Israel has 150 or more."

According to Robert S. Norris of the Natural Resources Defense Council and Hans M. Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists the US has (as of January 2008):

... an estimated 5,400 nuclear warheads: approximately 4,075 operational warheads comprised of 3,575 strategic and 500 nonstrategic warheads; and about 1,260 additional warheads held in the responsive force or inactive stockpile.

Okay, so maybe the octogenarian ex-President dozed off during a briefing on nuclear numbers but the "Soviet Union" gaff seems to indicate he's been mostly asleep, or at least out of touch, since 1991. Regardless, why would anyone listen to what the guy has to say about anything?

ANOTHER "TYPO" FROM BRUCE

Big-brained Bruce tries to write... something:

Ah poop. I couldn’t bare to leave that first sentence the way it was. It was just too obvious.

Something's obvious, alright.

Bruce, a trainee science teacher, will understand that every action produces an equal and opposite reaction. Thus he's on the receiving end after hinting I'm a paedophile and outright accusing me of "sexual" and "misogynistic abuse" (whatever that is). Paybacks are Hell, Brainiac.

By the way, here's the sentence Bruce couldn't "bare" to leave as written:

You may wish to take not that my title is somewhat sarcastic. Sarcastic? Noooooooo?

Sort of makes me look like a West Australian Shakespeare, now don't he?

MONEY FOR NOTHING

UN cash goes up in smoke, so to speak:

Billions of pounds are being wasted in paying industries in developing countries to reduce climate change emissions, according to two analyses of the UN's carbon offsetting programme.

Leading academics and watchdog groups allege that the UN's main offset fund is being routinely abused by chemical, wind, gas and hydro companies who are claiming emission reduction credits for projects that should not qualify. The result is that no genuine pollution cuts are being made, undermining assurances by the UK government and others that carbon markets are dramatically reducing greenhouse gases, the researchers say.

Companies would be mad not to take any UN money that's on offer.

A VERY BRIEF MOMENT IN TIME

Antony Loewenstein has quite an imagination:

I’ve spent most of my professional life...

So would that be his professional life as a dreamboat or maybe his later incarnation as a horror movie extra?

BLIND GIRL, SEEING EYE DOG CONQUER EVEREST

What with a mother-daughter team and a 76 year-old climbing Everest we're quickly running out of toppers.

AZUL

My 14 week-old Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy. I don't see the resemblance but some people say dogs look like their owners.

CREDENTIAL TOUTING QUESTIONED

An email from an Australian academic poses a question regarding Quiggin and Lambert's Prospect article:

I wonder if they have actually breached their respective universities guidelines by publishing a personal attack under the aegis of their institutions.

It's a good point since the authors do emphasize their academic credentials in attempting to give their article authoritative cachet:

John Quiggin is an Australian Research Council Federation fellow at the University of Queensland. Tim Lambert is a computer scientist at the University of New South Wales

And the article does attack Africa Fighting Malaria's Roger Bate casting him as a man who will support any cause provided there's money in it for him.

Oddly for academics accustomed to writing articles subject to the stringent peer review process, Quiggin and Lambert provide no references (and nary a link) to support any of the claims in their Prospect article. The dubious nature of these claims prompting Roger Bate to write a long and pointed response characterizing Quiggin and Lambert's article as a "half-baked conspiracy theory that breaks down with a cursory review of the facts".

So overall it does seem questionable that Quiggin and Lambert touted their academic credentials to make their article believable. I mean, who would listen to these guys if they weren't well-credentialed academics.

Regardless, Quiggin at least acknowledges Bates response, but does spin it to make it appear Bate largely agrees with him. Quiggin is keen to avoid discussing this, however, removing my comment from this post.

Lambert, on the other hand, doesn't mention Bate's response and refuses to post my latest comment, which reads in part:

Tim Lambert saw fit to link to the article he co-authored but has neither linked to nor commented on Roger Bate’s response in the same publication. This seems a bit odd given that Scienceblogs.com claims that it aims to “improve science literacy” through a “rich dialogue”. There is no dialogue if, as it is here, only one side of a story is presented.

Quiggin and Lambert are not reliable sources of information about DDT's use in the fight against malaria; nothing they write on the subject should be accepted as correct.

Update: A reader (yes, I do have a few) emails:

We're witnessing a rare phenomenon here - these two are even less competent when they pool their powers than when they work individually.

Yep, Quiggin and Lambert joint efforts often result in a uniquely nasty dumbness. Anyway, why worry about accuracy when you're telling your readers what they want to hear?

Most of my readers seem pretty happy with what I’ve provided JFB . Perhaps you should publish your own article on this topic.

As was noted long ago, ignorance is bliss.


Background for this story is here.

SHEILAS UNSATISFIED

Unsettling news from psychology professor Marita McCabe:

"All up we found 55 per cent of [Australian] women had a difficulty with sexual satisfaction."

As a public service I'm hereby offering to satisfy any Australian women (working my way down from the attractive 5'8" 130-lb 35 year-old Porsche owners – all decisions of the judge [me] are final), or die trying. It's the least I can do for the women of my adoptive country.

TRAINEE TEACHER GETS "F" IN CHEMISTRY

Big-brained Bruce (proprietor of the modestly named Thinkers' Podium and soon to be an asset to the teaching profession) is a bit miffed at having to point out to a commenter:

"... that sodium benzoate is not benzine and that the reported potentially harmful effects of sodium benzoate in the story I critique aren’t related at all to benzine contamination as occuring in the Perrier or sodium benzoate + ascorbic or citric acid + heat scenarios, somehow I’m a candidate to work for the soft drink companies".

Bruce is a bit confused, as usual: the news report he refers to actually concerns "a chemical reaction between sodium benzoate and vitamin C [which] creates benzene, a carcinogenic chemical". Benzine is not the same as benzene as Wikipedia notes: "Benzine should not be confused with benzene."

Now in the cosmic scheme of things Bruce's little mistake is of no importance whatever. It is funny, however, because when Bruce makes such mistakes he's inclined to pass them off as a typo (same typo four times), blame low blood sugar or claim the error was intentionally designed to elicit snarky comments from evil right-wingers. I'd go over to his blog and needle him about this but Bruce, who subscribes to "the notion of democratic free speech, almost to the point of being an absolute", has banned me from his blog for making intemperate comments. Funny how lefties can't tolerate criticism.

Update: As noted above, Bruce's mistake is of no importance whatever. He nonetheless vigourously reacts with a 1,500+ word post, as predicted claiming typographical error. Well, Wikipedia has this angle covered:

A typographical error, typo, or fat-finger is a mistake made during the typing process. The term includes errors due to mechanical failure or slips of the hand or finger, but excludes errors of ignorance.

Again, this matter is of no importance whatever. It is fun watching him squirm, however.

HACKADEMIC SPIN

That whirring noise in the distance is the sound of Australian Research Council Federation fellow John "Maytag" Quiggin trying to spin his way out of the corner he's bullshitted himself into. Maytag reckons Roger Bate, aside from a few quibbles, pretty much substantively agrees with Quiggin and Lambert's Prospect article beatifying Rachel Carson. As if.

Bate devotes over 1,200 words of his 1,500 word response to Quiggin and Lambert errors. Amongst which:

• John Quiggin and Tim Lambert purport to restore Rachel Carson’s reputation, trashing me and an organisation I helped found, Africa Fighting Malaria, in the process. Their article amounts to a half-baked conspiracy theory that breaks down with a cursory review of the facts. The authors’ hope is that by branding me a tobacco lobbyist and claiming the tobacco industry is bankrolling the campaign for DDT, they will convince others to dismiss DDT advocates as industry stooges. They are sadly mistaken.

• First, the tobacco industry never established the European Science and Environment Forum (ESEF).

• Second, I was never a tobacco lobbyist.

• Quiggin and Lambert claim that I have managed to pull the wool over the eyes of mainstream journalists, a backhanded compliment. In fact, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Economist and Nature have all reported correctly on DDT, based on credible and available scientific evidence.

• The reality is that DDT is probably the most useful insecticide ever used for public health. Despite what Quiggin and Lambert say, the public health provisions of the 1972 US delisting of DDT have been used several times after 1972 in the US to combat plague-carrying fleas, in Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada.

• Quiggin and Lambert are wrong to dismiss WHO’s 2006 support as a restatement of old policy. While DDT has been a WHO-approved insecticide for decades, for many years WHO officials did not promote its use, instead tending to push for insecticide-treated nets. Following WHO statements supporting DDT, some developing-country governments, such as Uganda, have been emboldened to say they want to spray the chemical, even in the face of opposition from local business lobbies.

• The environmental movement is not entirely to blame for preventing sensible uses of DDT, but it’s not surprising that it is trying to cleanse history. Its reputation has been dented because of its apparent callousness against the use of a life-saving chemical. Its line, repeated by Quiggin and Lambert, is that environmental groups dropped total opposition to DDT during the Stockholm negotiations. This is misleading. To their credit, some groups, such as the Sierra Club, have come forward with guarded support for DDT. Other groups, such as the South Africa-based Endangered Wildlife Trust, have provided admirable practical assistance to malaria control programs using DDT so that environmental contamination is minimised.

• While I regret that Quiggin and Lambert continue to parrot these anti-DDT sentiments, there are many ill-informed arguments for the use of DDT to be found, especially online. I may not have done enough in the early years of this decade to respond to those excesses, and may even occasionally indulged in them myself, but for many years I have tried to be logical. I even gave a partial defence of Rachel Carson in the Washington Post last year, absolving her of responsibility for the irrational things her followers have done.

• DDT remains underused. It is no panacea, but it is still the most cost-effective method of malaria prevention in most locations. I wish the tobacco industry had funded the campaign I proposed back in 1998, but they didn’t. Quiggin and Lambert’s attempt to rewrite history will not change it. DDT has saved innumerable lives. Stifling Africa’s efforts to use it against malaria has likely cost many more.

Gee, who would have thought a person can have no research skills whatever and still be an Australian Research Council Federation fellow?


For background see HACKADEMICS and HACKADEMICS PART TWO.

Update: Rather than discuss the bullshit he tries to pass off as knowledgeable commentary Quiggin has deleted my comment at his blog. Funny how he and Lambert are scared to discuss the issues.

Here's the disappeared comment:

So Bate wrote a 1,500 word response agreeing with you and Lambert, did he? Maybe you should take another look.

“John Quiggin and Tim Lambert purport to restore Rachel Carson’s reputation, trashing me and an organisation I helped found, Africa Fighting Malaria, in the process. Their article amounts to a half-baked conspiracy theory that breaks down with a cursory review of the facts. The authors’ hope is that by branding me a tobacco lobbyist and claiming the tobacco industry is bankrolling the campaign for DDT, they will convince others to dismiss DDT advocates as industry stooges. They are sadly mistaken.”

Yep, he’s with you [and] Lambert almost 100%.


Insignificant hobby blogger with a BA in politics 1, high powered PhD 0.

TWO GUYS WITH BACKPACK SPRAYERS CAUSE CANCER EPIDEMIC

Cancer is obviously no joke – Okay, it's at least smile-inducing if you're a lefty and the sufferer is Tim Blair – but a report on "chemical weapons" in the Sydney Morning Herald is hilarious. The first paragraph is a beauty:

The Australian Army tested chemical weapons on a town which now has deaths from cancer 10 times the state average.

The "chemical weapons" were actually herbicides (the dreaded Agent Orange and possibly other chemicals often mixed with herbicides). The town, Innisfail, Queensland, was not the site of the testing, with the chemicals actually applied to a heavily vegetated area nearby.

The mere mention of Agent Orange evokes images of fleets of C 130 aircraft over Vietnam saturating the countryside with defoliants but spraying near Innisfail was not quite so grand:

Innisfail local Ted Bosworth, 86, fought in the New Guinea campaign in World War II, copped a bullet in the lungs in the Korean War for which he was awarded the Military Medal and was in the Army Reserve during the Vietnam War.

In 1966 he drove scientists to the site where the spraying occurred.

"There was an English scientist and an Australian. I heard they both later died of cancer.

"They sprayed by hand. The forest started dying within days. By three weeks all the foliage was gone. The scientists always denied it was Agent Orange. They were pretty cagey."

So two guys fronted up out of the blue seeking the assistance of a local who drove them to an appropriate test site where they hand-sprayed the jungle with defoliants. What, the military conducted an operation without hundreds of personnel transported by a convoy of vehicles? How much defoliant could two men hand-spray over how large an area, and how did they reach the treetops? And this spraying of what must be a rather small quantity of herbicides has resulted in locals having a cancer rate 10 times the national average? Hmm, colour me skeptical.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not downplaying the dangers of toxic chemicals and I'm certainly not making fun of anyone who might have suffered adverse health effects after contact with Agent Orange or other defoliants. That said, the toxicity of dioxins (thought to be the possibly carcinogenic component in these defoliants) appears to be grossly exaggerated, if the U.S. National Research Council of the National Academies is to be believed:

The committee concludes that the weight of epidemiological evidence supporting classification of TCDD [thought to be the most toxic dioxin] as a human carcinogen is not “strong.” The committee points out, however, that the human data available from occupational studies show a modest positive association between relatively high concentrations of TCDD in the body and increased mortality from all cancers.

Irresponsible reporting from the SMH helps no-one and will probably scare the crap out of Innisfail locals. But I guess it helps sell newspapers.

Update: There is no cancer epidemic:

Queensland Health Tropical Population Health Network Director Brad McCulloch said a review of Queensland Cancer Registry figures showed the incidence of cancer in Innisfail was the same as the rest of the state.

HACKADEMICS PART TWO

Blogger tends to be a bit temperamental when posts are long with lots of links, so rather than try to update the Hackademics post it's continued here.

Roger Bate, damned by Quiggin and Lambert as a paid operative of evil tobacco companies, has responded to their Prospect article terming it "a half-baked conspiracy theory". Read the whole thing here.

Bate is correct in terming Quiggin and Lambert's article "a half-baked conspiracy theory" but that description doesn't do the article justice; really, it's a fringe-left attempt to rewrite history.

As already noted, Quiggin and Lambert's Prospect opinion article on Rachel Carson is lightweight hackery masquerading as a quasi-authoritative academic work. To understand what these two lefty academics really think it's necessary to look at the article before Prospect editorial staff sanitized it.

The first three paragraphs of the Prospect article read:

Rachel Carson launched the modern environmental movement. She was posthumously awarded the US presidential medal of freedom, and has conservation areas, prizes and associations named in her honour.

Yet Carson has also been accused of killing more people than Hitler. Her detractors hold her responsible for a “ban” on the use of the insecticide DDT (Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane), which, they claim, halted a campaign that was on the verge of eradicating malaria in the 1960s.

Some mainstream journalists have accepted this story, which in turn has led to pressure on the World Health Organisation (WHO) and other bodies to change policies and personnel. Yet perhaps the most striking feature of the claim against Carson is the ease with which it can be refuted. It takes only a few minutes with Google to discover that DDT has never been banned for anti-malarial uses, and that it is in use in at least 11 countries.

Compare the above to the original:

Rachel Carson launched the modern environmental movement. She was posthumously awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom, and has conservation areas, prizes and associations named in her honor.

Yet Carson is also regularly accused of killing more people than Hitler. Her accusers hold her responsible for a ban on the use of the insecticide DDT (Dichloro- Diphenyl-Trichloroethane) which allegedly halted a campaign that was about to eradicate malaria, and blame her for millions of deaths from malaria in the Third World.

This claim has been made repeatedly, and in strident terms, on the Wall Street Journal editorial page, Fox News and other outlets associated with the political right. The basic premise of the story, that pressure from environmentalists has hindered the fight against malaria, has been accepted by writers in the New York Times, Washington Post and so on. This has led to pressure on the World Health Organization (WHO) and other bodies to reverse the putative ban, pressure which has led WHO to replace the head of its antimalaria division and announce changes in policies.

As far as I can tell, not a single WSJ article comes even close to meeting Quiggin and Lambert's "worse than Hitler" criteria. Quiggin suggests this article and Lambert offers this but neither fits the bill.

Regardless, there are plenty of reputable sources to confirm the notion that Carson inspired environmentalists are hindering anti-malaria efforts:

Fred Pearce, New Scientist:

It seems millions of lives have been lost because health experts threw away their best weapon. Are environmentalists to blame? There is no doubt that DDT was misused as an agricultural pesticide and seriously damaged wildlife. In that sense Carson was right. But regulators did not recognise that spraying indoors was different. And an environmental outcry against DDT helped to ensure that the early fears about its effect on human health became entrenched dogma long after they had been proved unfounded.

Apoorva Mandavilli, Nature Medicine:

In theory, any country is free to use DDT. The Stockholm Convention of 2001 sought a global ban on DDT, but many countries and scientists argued against the ban, citing its value in malaria control. The final treaty made an exemption for DDT's use in public health, but called for countries to gradually phase out the pesticide.

Still, in places where malaria was still endemic, the treaty spelled disaster.

Most African nations are heavily dependent on foreign aid and can ill afford to cross a line drawn by donor agencies.

USAID never banned DDT outright, for instance, but nor did it fund DDT's purchase - which amounts to the same thing.

Michael Finkel, National Geographic:

Soon after the program collapsed, mosquito control lost access to its crucial tool, DDT. The problem was overuse--not by malaria fighters but by farmers, especially cotton growers, trying to protect their crops. The spray was so cheap that many times the necessary doses were sometimes applied. The insecticide accumulated in the soil and tainted watercourses. Though nontoxic to humans, DDT harmed peregrine falcons, sea lions, and salmon. In 1962 Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, documenting this abuse and painting so damning a picture that the chemical was eventually outlawed by most of the world for agricultural use. Exceptions were made for malaria control, but DDT became nearly impossible to procure. "The ban on DDT,' says Gwadz of the National Institutes of Health, 'may have killed 20 million children."

John Balbus, Environmental Defense (in a letter to a USAID official):

As the organization that led the successful campaign to ban use of DDT in the United States in the early 1970’s, we have read with concern recent reports that US AID is unwilling to consider even limited use of DDT in anti-malaria programs in developing countries. According to the New York Times Magazine, you recently stated that part of the reason US AID doesn't finance DDT is that doing so would require a battle for public opinion. 'You'd have to explain to everybody why this is really O.K. and safe every time you do it.’

Quiggin and Lambert consider anyone who has looked at the DDT situation and doesn't regard Rachel Carson as a saint to be either ignorant or malicious. In fact it is Quiggin and Lambert who are ignorant and malicious.

HACKADEMICS

Australian academics John Quiggin (magnificently billed as an Australian Research Council Federation fellow – sounds important and knowledgeable, don't it?) and computer scientist Tim Lambert have an opinion piece on Rachel Carson in the latest issue of Prospect. Anyone familiar with these two won't be surprised that the article is long on supposition and misrepresentation but short on facts.

Really, the article is nothing more than a puff piece written by lefties determined to beatify Carson. As bad as the Prospect article is the really atrocious bullshit is to be found in the much longer article on which the Prospect article is based – a Prospect editor (or other lefty experiencing a rare lucid moment) had the sense to heavily edit it before unleashing it on the public. Anyway, let's have a look.

There are no real problems in the first paragraph which does nothing more than praise Carson. Major problems appear in the second paragraph, continuing into the third, however:

Yet Carson is also regularly accused of killing more people than Hitler. Her accusers hold her responsible for a ban on the use of the insecticide DDT (Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloroethane) which allegedly halted a campaign that was about to eradicate malaria, and blame her for millions of deaths from malaria in the Third World.

This claim has been made repeatedly, and in strident terms, on the Wall Street Journal editorial page, Fox News and other outlets associated with the political right. The basic premise of the story, that pressure from environmentalists has hindered the fight against malaria, has been accepted by writers in the New York Times, Washington Post and so on. This has led to pressure on the World Health Organization (WHO) and other bodies to reverse the putative ban, pressure which has led WHO to replace the head of its antimalaria division and announce changes in policies.

I asked Quiggin and Lambert to link to and quote from some of the many "strident" Fox and WSJ articles. Lambert links to but doesn't quote from a 2002 Fox article and a 2000 WSJ article neither of which supports their claims. Quiggin links to but also doesn't quote from a WSJ article which offers nothing to support their original assertion that Fox and the WSJ allege Carson to be Hitler's love-child, or whatever.

Quiggin and Lambert both ignore my requests for proof that political pressure from the right, supposedly picked up and run with by the MSM, caused the World Health Organization to "replace the head of its antimalaria division and announce changes in policies". I mean, it would be significant if it could be shown that the right was influencing the WHO's personnel and policy choices, right? Despite these supposedly right-induced changes featuring prominently in their article, Quiggin terms my query a "quibble". He refuses to comment on my suggestion that the WHO changed personnel and policies in attempting to revive its faltering anti-malaria program.

But I've gotten a bit ahead of myself. To maximize reader numbers Quiggin and Lambert promoted and linked to their Prospect article here, here and here. I felt it only fair that my critical comment be posted at the same three locations. Quiggin refused to post my "silly comment" at his site, however. Lambert posted my comment but responded with diversions:

JFB: An example from Fox and one from the WSJ.

We did not say that DDT is used on bednets. Other insecticides are.

Finding examples of people who have fallen for the myth does not make the myth true.

Carson did not say that DDT was the cause of the cancer in the case you cited. In fact she specifically said that it might have been the solvents used. (We now know that benzene can cause leukemia.)

Carson did not imply that DDT was a product of chemical weapons development.

From our article, a quote from Silent Spring:

Malaria programs are threatened by resistance among mosquitoes. ... Practical advice should be 'Spray as little as you possibly can' rather than 'Spray to the limit of your capacity' ...,

As already noted, the Fox and WSJ links do not support Quiggin and Lambert's claims.

Despite Lambert's denial, he and Quiggin did indeed say that DDT is used to impregnate bednets: "Although outdoor spraying has been abandoned, DDT and other insecticides are used in countries with malaria either to spray interior house walls or to impregnate bednets." (See paragraph four here.)

The bit about myth believers refers to non-right-wingers who don't toe the lefty line on DDT – New Scientist's Fred Pearce, Nature Medicine's Apoorva Mandavilli, National Geographic's Michael Finkle and Envirnonmental Defense's John Balbus.

Carson did indeed say DDT caused cancer in a user who contracted and died of leukemia over a period of months after using DDT three times. This episode is described on pager 228 of Silent Spring, referenced in the index under Leukemia, DDT case histories.

Carson did indeed hint that DDT was a product of chemical weapons programs. At the start of chapter three of Silent Spring, Elixers of Death, Carson emphasizes the build up in nature of unnamed insecticides. There is no doubt she is referring to DDT. In paragraph two of the chapter she says:

All of this has come about because of the sudden rise and prodigious growth of an industry for the production of man-made or synthetic chemicals with insecticidal properties. [Another reference to DDT.] This industry is a child of the Second World War. In the course of developing agents of chemical warfare, some of the chemicals created in the laboratory were found to be lethal to insects.

Only seven paragraphs later Carson names DDT but says nothing about any other insecticides until mentioning chlordane 13 paragraphs later.There can be no doubt Carson encouraged readers to think DDT derived from sinister military programs.

Lambert includes the "spray as little as possible" quote from Silent Spring in attempting to prove that Carson did not oppose the judicious use of DDT. Bullshit, that's the best he can come up with in response to my request that he or Quiggin provide even a single example of Carson advocating DDT use in any circumstance. Carson opposed all use of DDT.

So here we have two Australian academics doing political left hackwork that's picked up and promoted as authoritative. When challenged about the quality of their work Lambert posts evasive, self-referencing nonsense; even better, Quiggin runs and hides. If these two are any indication, our universities are in deep, deep trouble.


This little effort covers only those errors and misrepresentations on the first couple of pages; if I get the time I'll see what else lurks in the remaining 14 pages. The article's gotta be the super-pit of crap mines.

Update: Blogger gets a bit temperamental when posts get long so rather than get all frustrated trying to post a long update, the update is here.