Except that DDT didn't thin eggs. Rachel Carson's book (silent spring) which kicked off the whole DDT debacle was flawed. She left out qualitative and quantative science that proved here premise wrong.
Carson wrote "Dr. DeWitt's now classic experiments [on quail and pheasants] have now established the fact that exposure to DDT, even when doing no observable harm to the birds, may seriously affect reproduction. Quail into whose diet DDT was introduced throughout the breeding season survived and even produced normal numbers of fertile eggs. But few of the eggs hatched." DeWitt's 1956 article (in Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry) actually yielded a very different conclusion. Quail were fed 200 parts per million of DDT in all of their food throughout the breeding season. DeWitt reports that 80% of their eggs hatched, compared with the "control"" birds which hatched 83.9% of their eggs. Carson also omitted mention of DeWitt's report that "control" pheasants hatched only 57 percent of their eggs, while those that were fed high levels of DDT in all of their food for an entire year hatched more than 80% of their eggs.
There was then, and is now a virtual mountain of credible scientific evidence that proves that the premise upon which DDT was banned was flawed. And during the hearings in which DDT was banned, the consequences for the third world were accurately predicted.
Did we? We have spent trillions and yet, the rate of poverty remains virtually unchanged. And was there starvation? I can find no evidence of it if it existed. The welfare system has not improved things, only created generational dependence and an angry sub class that believes it is owed something.
Also, a very well know, and respected liberal democrat wrote a book at the time that the welfare state was being debated in the senate outlining and describing precicely what we have seen happen. His book was the result of his being ignored by his peers who were anxious to implement the programs anyway.
Which conservative is responsible for either?
You keep going back there. As wars go, iraq has gone splendidly. Was taking saddam out an instant fix? Of course not. Will the people be better off governing themselves in the long run? Without a doubt.
Modern liberalism in the past half century or so has invented and funded literally thousands of programs. How about you name 10 for me that have worked as advertised and actually improved people's lives in the long run. That is, lifted them up out of poverty and placed them squarely in the mainstream so that they need never look back. And don't try to pass off some anecdotal evidence of individual success that don't represent the norm for any given program.
The point, Coyote, is that the ramifications and consequences can, and are, very often seen and accurately predicted but are ignored by modern liberalism in its headlong rush to change.
