nce. The overuse of pesticides overrides nature's selection, eradicating the insects chosen naturally to be an integral part of the earth's biosphere. Man, by his indiscriminate use of pesticides, can change in an instant what nature spent millions of years creating. Furthermore, scientific research has proven that insects, possessing short lives and fast reproduction rates, can quickly mutate to become resistant to the pesticides used. Although more pesticides are created, insects continue to mutate in order to survive. Carson's book shows that creating more lethal and ecologically harmful pesticides is simply not the answer to pest control.
             Carson provides an informative and concise description of the chemical nature of many widely used pesticides which were then thought to be the first line of defense for crop production and the protection of human health. Many of these chemicals, like DDT, are highly persistent in the environment, and the dangers of this persistence were not recognized at that time.
             DDT was cheap, effective and lasted for a long time – the very qualities that led to its overuse. Around the world, DDT became the insecticide of choice for the control of malaria, yellow fever and other mosquito borne diseases, saving hundreds of thousands of lives in tropical countries. For many years, it was regarded as a "miracle drug" – working where nothing had worked before and at a price that even poor countries could afford to use in their health programs.
             However, DDT and similar chemically related products such as Chlordane and Lindane are very persistent in the environment. In humans and other animals, these compounds are stored in the body's fatty tissues and are passed on not only through the food chain but also to offspring. So much DDT has been sprayed since its discovery that traces of DDT can be detected in mother's milk all over the world because every animal a...