Hey, Ron! I wrote a paper on 'Silent Spring' in my senior year at Va. Tech. and it started a conversation on the dangers of pesticides, even among the professors. That was not a subject appreciated back then. Times have changed.

She has been a touchstone for me. I made that book required reading for students when I began teaching! I still re-read it, occasionally.

Wouldn't Linnaeus be riveted with the use of genetics (as opposed to observation) to classify plants? At times, I think he might like to take stick to nomenclature experts, but I suspect that he would applaud the determination to be absolutely correct.

And then the local librarian suggested Frances Kelsey so I 'googled' (has this word gained enough acceptance for me to omit the quotes?) her name and thalidomide and came up with another remarkable contender for the title. There are some significant similarities in the two make for a difficult chooosing.