as Terry L. Erwin, who credits Edwards with inspiring his interest in entomology. To students and friends he was widely called "Doc". In 1991 the university's entomology museum was dedicated to him and renamed the J. Gordon Edwards Entomology Museum. He is commemorated in the scientific names of the beetles Bembidion edwardsi and Nebria arkansana edwardsi. Dr. Michael Ivie, past president of the Entomological Society of America, calls Edwards an "unsung mentor", writing that despite his influence he is little-known among entomologists beyond his students, a trait Ivie attributes to his teaching at a non-PhD granting university. DDT and environmental issues Edwards was a prominent supporter of the use of DDT and critic of Rachel Carson. He claimed that bans of DDT were not based on good science, and accused environmentalists of politicizing issues regarding pesticides. He was active as a member of, or consultant for, a wide range of lobby groups opposed to environmental regulation, including the American Council on Science and Health. According to Edwards, he was also active as a member of several environmental groups, such as the Sierra Club (which published one of his books), and the Audubon Society. Edwards was a fellow of the California Academy of Sciences. He published his ideas in 21st Century Science and Technology, a publication of the Lyndon LaRouche Movement. Edwards last work, titled DDT: A Case Study in Scientific Fraud was published in 2004 after his death in the fringe partizan Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, in which he makes the impassioned plea "The ban on DDT, founded on erroneous or fraudulent reports and imposed by one powerful bureaucrat, has caused millions of deaths, while sapping the strength and productivity of countless human beings in underdeveloped countries. It is time for an honest appraisal and for immediate deployment of the best currently available means to control insect-borne diseases. This means DDT." In 1971 he gave testimony before the Congressional House Committee on Agriculture which was widely cited and circulated, despite having published no scientific papers on DDT or birds at the time. In the 1970s Edwards was involved in a libel suit against the New York Times and the National Audubon Society. In April 1972, Robert Arbib Jr., the editor of the Society's American Birds journal, wrote in an editorial that representatives of pesticide industries and "paid 'scientist-spokesmen were misleadingly using data from Christmas Bird Count to claim