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Originally Posted by nuclearnerd
I'm going to have to disagree strongly with you there. As Jaywalker said, Rachel Carson changed the world, especially for scientists and engineers. Before Silent Spring, few people gave any thought to the side effects and long-term impacts of the products they produced and consumed. The future was bright, and humans could do no wrong that they couldn't fix later 
Carson's careful research, and effective publicity woke us all up to the fact that our environment commons did not have a limitless capacity to absorb our crap. The book created a movement that led to the first really strong environmental protection laws, but more importantly changed the way everyone thinks of their place in nature. There are tens of thousands of environmental scientists working in fields of study that didn't exist before the 70s. Engineers today have to consider a much broader context when introducing new products, and I think we're a better profession because of that. |
Never said she didn't do anything or didn't have an impact. I said there are others who had greater impacts. And if you want to talk about things before the scientists, before Copernicus everyone believed Earth was the center of the universe. Before Ada, there was no programming. Before Edison, there were no lightbulbs.
My point was I think the fields should be named after people who are known. No doubt there are a myriad of scientists who impacted the world, but if no one knows of them, they shouldn't have fields named after them. The name of the field should make one think "Hey, I know of that person. They did this..." Not, "Never heard of them." Also, Nye Field would be cool.