Stupidity Within Irrationality

An excellent post on Bootstrap Analysis discusses pesticides in the immediate and wider context.

The immediate context is the fact that apart from the data the manufacturer provide on a new pesticide there are no other tests for its safety and influence on the environment.

I guess all that is taken into consideration is that the particular pesticide is proven to kill pests and no one cares or bothers to check what harm it does to other animals especially birds. The process of banning something that is already approved is slow and not very affective.

Nuthatch discusses the irrationality of the whole approach to using pesticides starting with the beginning of the 20th century.

I know that changing a fixed way of thinking saying that we want to grow crops in a particular way and we are going to kill every creature that stands in the way is not easy. But using more force to make the world play by our whims won’t solve the conflict either.

Isn’t is possible to really rethink policies even such policies that exist for far too many years. Being stubborn never made anyone right.