My favorite female naturalist didn’t make the New Scientist list of top ten most influential women scientists, but it’s still a pretty good list. (Bet you can’t guess who number one is? Damn, you guessed right.)
Rachel Carson made the list at number nine; she’s quite possibly responsible for my scientific career, and not for the usual reason. I had a battered and much loved copy of The Sea Around Us, and spent a lot of time poking around in the water (fresh) and swamps and woods in northern Michigan where I grew up. I’d completely forgotten that Carson was the author until watching the recent documentary A Sense of Wonder.
Really, though, it’s too bad that we need a list of top female scientists, and that so many of them were overlooked for major recognition that they deserved.
