Recently, I read a
piece in Nature on chemophobia,
and it got me thinking. As someone who loves chemistry, it always rubs me the
wrong way whenever I hear someone claim that something is “chemical-free”
(which is impossible) or “all natural” (which is irrelevant). Still, I never
really thought about the issue as a society-wide problem before, treating it
instead as a case-by-case cause for annoyance. And so, this article spurred me
to do some more research, and what I found, to a degree, surprised me.
In the next few days, I will be
writing three posts on this issue of chemophobia. In the second part, I will
explore the rise of chemophobia, and in the third, I will discuss the role of
that issue in today’s world. A significant part of that discussion will center
around the role that change and new ideas have played in developing and
perpetuating chemophobia. But first, it’s important to remember that this
phobia did not come up in a vacuum, but rather, in an environment where
chemistry and its derivative technology were originally hailed as heroes, not villains.
That will be the focus of the first post, and it will be coming shortly.
No comments:
Post a Comment