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What Business Has a Chemist Teaching a "Science and Human Values"? At a time in their lives when thev should believe otherwise. too many students are leaving college with gross misconceptions about science and scientists. Often they view us as cold and impersonal, uncaring and detached, and professionally dedicated to a way of life that is virtually antithetical to what most "other" people really care about. Some of my own students have even gone so far as to tell me that I strike them as "too human to b i a scientist!' Chemistry is especially vulnerable to assaults of this sort, for it is a science which deals principally with non-living matter in a highly exact way. Biology is where the action is. If science has anything to offer, surely i t is to be found in the "life" sciences-biology and psychology. Not only is chemistry dull (I keep thinking I hear-even from some of my premedical students), hut chemists as a class of people are frequently tainted by the pursuit of their science. After all, haven't chemists given us thalidomide, nerve gases, DDT, defoliants, chlorinated biphenyl, and, just recently, Kepone? Never mind the good things for which chemistry and chemists are resoonsible. Just remember.. thev eave us detergents to pollute our streams; they showed us how to use oil to make nondemadahle elastics: thev out lead in our easoline that we. would'iater breathe, and me&ry in our water that we might later eat. And yes, please remember, the chemists were in on the bomb. hey an-d the physicists were responsible for that dirty trick, and for all its associated potential for death, destruction, and incalculable horror. What product of science could he more inhuman than the bomb? and where, besides science, does the blame rest for that? Probably every chemical educator has been confronted by questions from students regarding what they perceive to be the misuse of chemical science and its relationship to the imnortant values of mankind. Students who ask those kinds of questions have a high level of consciousness concerning the interaction of chemicals with our bodies and our environment. Yet many have little or no understanding about the nature of science and/or the behavior att terns of scientists. Still others loosely equate chemistry with one or more of the various technologies which rely on chemical facts. Some see chemistry as an important hope; others firmly believe that it and the rest of science are a t the root of much of our trouhle. All chemists have a right to he distressed by unfair attacks on science in general and on the ethics and morals of scientists in particular. But as chemical educators, there is something we can and should do about such misconceptions: We can determine to extend our influence as teachers beyond the instruction of chemistry, and we can do so in ways that do not dilute the oualitv of the science we teach. of Cornell University, who was then In 1972,'~. chairman of the ACS Committee on Chemistrv and Public Affairs, suggested that chemists1
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"should actively search for ways in which chemistry can contribute to desirable social goals. In a word, we should work toward a more perceptive and participatory social conscience for chemistry and chemists. I accent Lone's charee. and the method I have chosen to extend my social conscience over the past six years has been to direct three offerings of an interdepartmental seminar v
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84 1 Journal of Chemical Education
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entitled "Science and Human Values." Althoueh such an offering can be constructed in a variety of ways, the five major seements of mv interest. which I used as both a set of coals and a;underlyingration&, were these
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1) To definethe nature of science and the characterand hehavior patterns of scientists 2) To dispel illusions about science that come from observing it
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