example of a direct scientific contribution from early China (9). The Chinese were ~hilosophicalls,mathematically, and &imately even tech~ologicailyincapable of formulating any law of nature (10). This in no way, however, detracts from their achievements in technology and other areas such as art or architecture. This section ends with a paragraph about segregation in major league baseball. Zuckerman concludes his article with a program for teaching chemistry without imposing any biases on students, who, he apparently thinks, are still free of them by the time they reach college. Besides being an exercise in futility, Zuckerman's program continues the myth of a scientific objectivity that is somehow neutral or value-free and independent of human beings. While the universe operates independently of human intervention. science is the description and explanation of that operati& and is thus most certainly a human endeavor.. reolete . with all the foibles and biases that humans bring t o any endeavor. Ultimatelv. - . Zuckerman sounds dissatisfied with history (which, like science, consists of facts and the human resoonse to them) and wishes i t were more in accord with our "enlightened" views of the 1980's. He seems unaware that his own outlook is itself the product of biases, beliefs, and upbringing. ~iases-whether linguistic, geographical, national, religious, governmental, ethnic, racial and cultural, or sexual-are as unavoidable as skin color. Thus our only recourse is how we choose to respond to them. The worst response is to pretend that neither hiases nor different skin colors exist; instead, our goal should be to recognize them for what thev aredifferences between peoole-and not use them as ibe basis for discriminating against those who are different from us. Teachers who think it's possible to present chemistry or any other discipline as value-free are deluding themselves and their students in a much more insidious way than teachers who recognize their own biases and then work t o minimize the negative effects. Literature Clted
A Motkator To the Editor:
Recent comments about dropping a student's lowest test grade [1987, 64, 517; 1989, 66, 3601 prompt me to share a method I use. When it helps the student's grade, I drop the lowest and the highest exam score. Discarding both "outliers," and thus approaching the median of the student's performance, seems more valid for evaluation than ignoring only the student's poorest work, or counting some work twice. Students with only one poor grade will not find their overall average threatened. so thev will not become orematurely disheartened. However, the prospect of losing one's best score helps to motivate a student to study up for every test.
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Danlell L. Matlern University of Mississippi University, MS 38677
The Catalytic Hydrogenatlon of Methyl Oleate by ln-Sltu Hydrogenation To the Editor:
It has been called to my attention that the procedure described for the hydrogenation of methyl oleate [1989,66, 5181 involves a technique very similar to one published in laboratory manuals authored by Fieser and Williamson (I). Neither I nor the referees of the paper caught this similarity, and it is imoortant to recoenize the orior ~uhlicationof the technique. 'The apparatusUand cataiyst f described differ, hut the exneriment parallels sienificantlv that described in the Fieser laboratory manual. Llterature Clted 1. Fieser, L. F.; Williamson, K. L. OrpanicErpwimmts. 5th od.; Heath: Lexington. MA, 1983, p 367.
1. Cohen. I.B. "Ravolufion i n Science" presented before the Cambridge Forum lbroad-
"ssf on PBS. WFYI-FM. Indianapolis, January 11, 1989). Cohen said,"First of all. tho role or women i n science i n the past is greatly underrated and unknown. For example. Iused toask my students when they thought the first b w k on women i n science was written, and they guessed 1940, 1950. It wam't. I f was i n the eighteenth century. There was a study made of the role of women i n ast,onomy.. Kob1ifz.A. H. lsis 1988.79.20%226. A discussion ofRussian womenand theirstudy of science infhe mid 1800's. See, for example, Kuhn. T. S. The Structure of Scientific Rauolulionr: 2nd ed.: University of Chicago Press: Chicapo, 1970; Chapter 6. K u h n discusser some of the difficultier i n mrrect1y assigning credit and axact date. for the scientificdiscoveriea of oxygan. X-rays, snd the Leyden jsr. 1H. Cassebaum snd J. A. Schufle preaent a differentpointofview iqJ . C h e m E d u c . 1975.52.442444.) These problemaere not restricted to historical examples, however, aa evidenced by Lhe current controversy over the discovery of the 90-K yttrium-ba,ium*opper oxide superconduclur [Scienrr 1988, 211, 655657; Chemical & Englnesrin# Neur 1988, 661381, 2-3: The Chronicle d H i ~ h w E d u ~ n f i o n1989.351171.A61. Zuekerman, J. J.J. Chrm. Educ. 1986,63.829-833. Zuekeiman has takenup this cause before. Smiley. X. The Spectator 1981.21717998), 12-14. Smilry contends that '"prsetieslly evervone-white. b m m , black-is a b i t of a racist." and thus we should attempt to sp l pre.s the part of our nature that distrusts the outsidm and inevitably leads to ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ through s s i onstianalirm, n fribalism, or racism. Anglo-Saxons don't have a
B. F. Plummer Trinity University
SBn Antonio. TX 78212
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this one of the most inferenfin; 7. See, for examole. Rice, D. T . , Ed. The Damn of European Ciuiiiaolion: Macmillan:
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