James C. Scott's "Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed"; Ch. 8. Taming Nature: An Agriculture of Legibility and Simplicity (p.291-292):
Occasionally, however, these effects ["outside the realm of the experimental design"] have been both important and potentially threatening. A striking example from the years between 1947 and 1960 was the massive, worldwide use of pesticides, the most infamous of which was DDT. DDT was sprayed to kill mosquito populations and thereby reduce the many diseases that the pests carry. The experimental model was largely confined to determining the dosage concentrations and application conditions required for eradicating mosquito populations. Within its field of vision, the model was successful; DDT did kill mosquitos and dramatically reduced the incidence of endemic malaria and other diseases.[86] It also had, as we slowly became aware, devastating ecological effects, as residues were absorbed by organisms all along the food chain, of which humans are of course also a part. The consequences of the use of ppT and other pesticides on soil, water, fish, insects, birds, and fauna were so intricate that we have not yet gotten to the bottom of them.
- The point is that the costs in this case were outside the experimental model and could not have been assessed in any event.