Science through the Writer's Eye

The Scientist as Writer
Good writing about scientific information can make a big difference in our world. We might be enriched by descriptions that cause us to wonder. We might become aware of dangers that threaten our well-being. Scientists and writers tend to inhabit different worlds, but what happens when a scientist can see the world with the eyes of a poet, or when a poet thinks like a scientist?

Rachel Carson was a scientist and a writer. Her extensive scientific knowledge and her considerable gift for writing revealed the magic and mystery of the sea and the life in and around it. Below is a passage from her book The Sea Around Us. It describes what is known in geology as mechanical weathering — waves throwing rocks against rocks, working as a kind of liquid sandpaper.

The sea's method on a rocky coast is to wear it down by grinding, to chisel out and wrench away fragments of rock, each of which becomes a tool to wear away the cliff. And as masses of rock are undercut, a whole huge mass will fall into the sea, there to be ground in the mill of the surf and to contribute more weapons for the attack. On a rocky shore this grinding and polishing of rocks and fragments of rocks goes on incessantly and audibly, for the breakers on such a coast have a different sound from those that have only sand to work with — a deep-toned mutter and rumble not easily forgotten...

• What image does each of the following phrases bring to mind?
  
  
  • "ground in the mill of the surf "
    
    
  • "weapons for the attack"
    
    
  • "deep-toned mutter"
    
    
• How do these metaphors contribute to your understanding of the erosive power of the waves?
  
  
• Which words give you a sense that there is a scientist behind the writer?
  
  

Carson's second book, The Edge of the Sea, was translated into 26 languages, (including Icelandic). She eloquently described the shore, the open sea, and the sea floor to millions of readers who could now appreciate fascinating scientific material translated into understandable language. The following excerpt presents an everyday event at an ordinary shoreline.

There is no particular drama about the turn of the tide, but presently a zone of wetness shows on the gray rock slopes, and offshore the incoming swells begin to swirl and break over hidden ledges...

Small, dingy snails move about over the rocks that are slippery with the growth of infinitesimal green plants; the snails scraping, scraping, scraping to find food before the surf returns.

• Though the author says there is nothing dramatic about the turn of the tide, what does she do to convey drama and beauty here?
  
  
• Which words or phrases suggest a scientific perspective?
  
  
• What poetic device does the author use to emphasize the snails' activity?

A Poet's Perspective
May Swenson, a poet who has written poems about many scientific phenomena, has structured her observations of wave action in poetic form. Read her study of waves, "How Everything Happens."

The images of wave action in Swenson's poem are very different from those of the Carson passage.

• What do you notice first about the poem?
  
  
• How does Swenson use her words, literally, to convey her intent?
  
  
• What does the poet force you to do as you read this poem?
  
  
• How does Swenson's description of waves compare to Carson's? How does it contrast?
  
  
• Comment on the use of adjectives in each of the two writings.

The Making of Silent Spring
A few years after bringing attention to the ocean environment, Rachel Carson wrote a very different kind of book. Silent Spring focused on the devastating effects of pesticides at all levels of life on Earth.

Carson was prompted to write the book in 1958. She had received a letter from a friend who had a private bird sanctuary near an area that had been sprayed with the pesticide DDT. The letter described the agonizing deaths of birds and the bitter experience of watching a small, natural habitat become lifeless.

After World War II, there had been a large increase in the use of synthetic chemicals to kill insects that were eating food crops, attacking trees, bothering people, and transmitting diseases. During the 1950s and 1960s, populations of fish-eating and predatory birds, such as the osprey, brown pelican, and bald eagle declined dramatically. Among other things, researchers found that DDT in the food eaten by these birds made their eggshells so fragile that their young died before they could be hatched.

Carson said the letter "brought my attention sharply to a problem with which I had long been concerned." As a well-trained scientist, she investigated and built her case. The title Silent Spring referred to the silencing of "robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird voices" because of their exposure to pesticides.

The tone in this book is in sharp contrast to her previous works, as you can see by reading the first sentence of the third chapter, entitled, "Elixirs of Death."

For the first time in the history of the world, every human being is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals, from the moment of conception until death.

At the time of the book's publication, the Boston Herald said this about Silent Spring:

The thing to remember is that the author is not an alarmist but a trained meticulously scrupulous scientist, who shuns publicity and controversy but whose findings were too catastrophic to keep to herself.

• Why does the reviewer use words like "meticulous" and "scrupulous"?
  
  
• How does this message give credibility to Carson's writing?

Making a Difference
Carson's message awakened the nation to the profound dangers of DDD and DDT, and many readers, including scientists and politicians, embraced the cause against pesticides. There were others, however, who thought her findings were false and misleading. Companies producing chemical pesticides viewed Carson's book as a serious threat to their industry. They mounted a $250,000 campaign to discredit her.

Some critics claimed that as a woman, Rachel Carson was incapable of understanding such a highly technical subject. She was accused of being a hysterical woman and a radical nature lover trying to scare the public in order to sell her books.

Carson was suffering from terminal cancer during the intense controversy after the book was published and died only 18 months later. She never knew that her efforts were the driving force in what is now known as the environmental movement in the United States.

In 1972 the United States finally banned DDT. Since then, most of the affected species have made a comeback. But in 1980 the DDT levels in some bird populations began rising again. Scientists believe these birds were picking up DDT and other banned pesticides in Latin America, where they winter and where use of such chemicals is still legal. The increase in DDT levels may have also resulted from the illegal use of banned pesticides in America.

Learn More

• Explore how different animal populations cope with catastrophic changes to their environment in the Biology Explorer activity Environmental Changes. (Requires Logal Express. Get a free trial subscription now.)
  
  
• Find out about pollution in places you wouldn't expect it in the Riverdeep article, "Our National Parks: Polluted Classrooms."

More Links

• Rachel Carson is listed as one of the 100 most important people of the century by Time magazine.
  

• Find out about another scientist, writer, and environmentalist whose realm is the ocean. Dr. Sylvia Earle is a marine biologist passionately committed to conservation of the ocean environment.

Related Resources
Get Rachel Carson's landmark books:

• The Sea Around Us
  
  
• The Edge of the Sea
  
  
• Silent Spring