10 Most Harmful Books of the 19th, 20th C.

This belongs under the aegis of politics, although the subject matter is the written word. This past Sunday, while running several small errands, I caught part of a program on WBUR. The male speaker (whose name I never caught) spoke of nominating Rachel Carson's Silent Spring to this list as he thinks DDT is a boon to mankind. Because I sensed the imminent danger here, I went the the WBUR web site today and found this:

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=7591

How do you feel about this list?

Right-wingers: I ask that you keep your rhetoric respectful.

When books are outlawed, the literate become outlaws--

Setanta wrote:

When books are outlawed, the literate become outlaws--

You might want to mention that to John McCain and Diane Feingold...

Charles Darwin's "Origin of the Species" should clearly be number one on any such list. Much if not all of the other social pathology derives largely from that one book and theory.

Silent Spring and Population Bomb should be in the top five for obvious reasons.

Setanta wrote:

When books are outlawed, the literate become outlaws--

You might want to mention that to John McCain and Diane Feingold...

gungasnake wrote:

Charles Darwin's "Origin of the Species" should clearly be number one on any such list. Much if not all of the other social pathology derives largely from that one book and theory.

Silent Spring and Population Bomb should be in the top five for obvious reasons.

What do you have against science?

Lady Chatterly's Lover...I read it when I was very young and have been masturbating ever since.....

Setanta -- The reports (some of them trial transcripts; others, diary entries) never specified, "griffin," but rather that a black thing with the head of a rooster and the body of dog. The program presented a great deal of evidence, including the autopsy of a bog body in which rye ergot was present, and films of people from a town in France that experienced a rye contamination in the 1950s. These modern people writhed in the same way Salem's bewitched did. Chemical analysis of their bread confirmed the presence of the ergot.

Gungasnake -- Please give us some indication of your scientific education.

I've been doing research on DDT and malaria. There seems to be a tempest in a teapot being created by a handful of individuals over these two things. The pro-DDT forces are using a one-sided argument that ignores many simple elements that even elementary aged children can understand. An argument framed in this manner may rally people, particularly when the arguers are as loud as this pro-insecticide group is, but, their fallacious argument is terrible.

While it is true that DDT kills dangerous insects like mosquitoes and fleas, it also kills helpful ones like bees, ladybugs, butterflies and more.

Setanta -- The program did a good job of establishing that the ergot was responsible. and since there was a correlation between rye crops, bad weather and outbreaks of witch craft, I engaged in a bit of badinage, a little light-hearted speculation that perhaps, a good deal of the world's mythology is based on food poisoning. Jeez Louise.

The early 1930s brought a new era in ergot research, beginning with the determination of the chemical structure of the main chemically active agents, the ergot alkaloids. Finally, W. A. Jacobs and L.C. Craig of the Rockefeller Institute of New York succeeded in isolating and characterizing the nucleus common to all ergot alkaloids. They named it lysergic acid.

"Here the notes in my laboratory journal cease. I was able to write the last words only with great effort. By now it was already clear to me that LSD had been the cause of the remarkable experience of the previous Friday, for the altered perceptions were of the same type as before, only much more intense. I had to struggle to speak intelligibly. I asked my laboratory assistant, who was informed of the self-experiment, to escort me home. We went by bicycle, no automobile being available because of wartime restrictions on their use. On the way home, my condition began to assume threatening forms. Everything in my field of vision wavered and was distorted as if seen in a curved mirror. I also had the sensation of being unable to move from the spot. Nevertheless, my assistant later told me that we had traveled very rapidly. Finally, we arrived at home safe and sound, and I was just barely capable of asking my companion to summon our family doctor and request milk from the neighbors.

The dizziness and sensation of fainting became so strong at times that I could no longer hold myself erect, and had to lie down on a sofa. My surroundings had now transformed themselves in more terrifying ways. Everything in the room spun around, and the familiar objects and pieces of furniture assumed grotesque, threatening forms. They were in continuous motion, animated, as if driven by an inner restlessness. The lady next door, whom I scarcely recognized, brought me milk - in the course of the evening I drank more than two liters. She was no longer Mrs. R., but rather a malevolent, insidious witch with a colored mask."