While I applaud his efforts, Jeffrey Pfeffer probably doesn't really want his book to "be the 'Silent Spring' of workplace health," considering that Rachel Cars

While I applaud his efforts, Jeffrey Pfeffer probably doesn't really want his book to "be the 'Silent Spring' of workplace health," considering that Rachel Carson had a bad habit of citing suspicious sources, falsifying scientific research, and twisting words to fit her agenda. For example, egg thickness tests done on eagles didn't support the thin-shell claim she wanted to push, so her researchers lowered the calcium levels in the birds' diet until thinner egg shells were achieved. Also, Carson claims in her book that when quails were fed DDT, "few of the eggs hatched." If you actually read the research she's citing (from an article in "Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry," by James DeWitt), you find that around 80% of the DDT eggs hatched, compared to 83% in the control group, who weren't fed DDT. Since when are 80% and "few" synonymous? In the tests on pheasants, contained in the same article by James DeWitt, the control group (no DDT) hatched 57.4% of their eggs and the DDT pheasants hatched 80.6 of theirs. After eight weeks, the survival rate amongst the DDT chicks was also higher. I'm not saying we should use DDT as an ice cream topping, and that there's nothing wrong with it, but I'd prefer actual science on the matter rather than inaccurate sensationalism. I'd also prefer to believe Pfeffer's research is impeccable and that he's above the sort of consequentialism that Carson apparently embraced. I don't have anything against saving the environment nor saving ourselves from toxic work practices. I just don't think we need to stoop to mountebankery to demonstrate the need for awareness and change. Such consequentialism undermines good causes, I think.