Toward a More Humane Chemical Education and Practice
Otto T. Benfey Guilford College Greensboro, NC 27410
At nn international conference on New Directions in the Chemistry Curriculum held in June 1978,a t McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, the main emphasis was to call a halt to the excessive stressine " of chemical theorv in introductory courses and to reintroduce significant amounts of descriptive chemistry on which theories are constructed (1 ). The feeling was then expressed that the widespread negative attitude toward the subject of chemistry was largely due to the theoretical, often abstruse nature of the introductory year in chemistry, whether in high school or college. A number of conference participants, though agreeing with the aims of the conference, felt that the aversion to chemistrv had a much deeper cause. A better integration of theoretical principles with the direct observation of chemical reactions, though pedagogically important, may do little to reduce the basically negative feeling much of society has about chemistry. The down-grading of experiment as of lower significance than theory probably is not simply a passing pedagogic error. It may represent a return to the views prevalent in medieval Aristotelianism and in Greek thought that the life of the mind is much to be preferred over the practical handling of materials. The Judaeo-Christian tradition on the other hand and much of Eastern thought sees the material not separate from realms attainable by man's mind and spirit. Rather the material is seen as the embodiment of the spiritual, or as a manifestation Of it. The material is not something to he transcended but to be understood, and understood perhaps not only intellectually hut also to the point where a oneness with the material world is sensed-one's sense of alienation from it is partially overcome. Industrialized man, through the success of technological innovation, has become separated from the material world. The reverse trend. the rediscovem of the environment.,as our environment, has been espoused by the biological profession, which has taken the respect for the biosphere as one of its major themes, chemists, by contrast, have heen cast-and often cast themselves-as the antagonists, questioning the conservationist aims and ideals and justifying man's massive transformation of his environment to suit his desires. We as chemists need to rediscover what was so well-known to the alchemists-our kinship, relatedness, oneness with the ~~
14 / Jaurnai af Chemical Education
world of matter. The processes of transformation occurring in the world around us also occur within us. By sensing the rhythms and patterns of nature we may he able to speed them (heat and catalvsis). . .. slow them (salt reducine snoilaee) and even reverse them (iron production versus rusting). Our problem has been that we have thought that the materials for our activities are inexhaustable and infinitely pliable. We have grasped only recently the fact that raw materials are limited, and though they do not disappear, the recycling process is costly and consumes energy. We are learning also that altering one material affects the condition of many others. We seek in ourselves. amona our colleaeues and in those we teach or train in our craft: u
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1) An increased awareness of our relation to the material world and
an increased measure of respect for it, hence 2) A greater sensitivity and humane respect in the way we discuss chemical processes, whether natural or developed by man. 3) An increased awareness of the human effort,genius and skill that went into the design of ex~erirnentsand the construction of
chemical theorv-the concebtual structure bv which we under-
technicians. 5) An awareness of the responsibility of the chemist for the use he makes of his knowledge and skills and the advice and information he gives others. Further, a recognition of the complexity of value
judgments in this area and the need ta explore in depth and with others the implications of being a chemist. 6) An awareness of the economic and social consequences of chemical and technological activity. 7) A recognition of the need to rethink our valuestructures in order to confront intelligently new technological developments. What may have been harmless on a small scale in the past may pose threats today; conversely, hazardous or socially harmful activities of the past hay through technological aid now be harmless or beneficial. 8) We need to examine the relation of ethics to legal requirements. Salzhenytsin, in his 1918 Harvard Commencement address, criticized the West for replacing morality with adherence to the letter of the law. How far is this true of chemists, nf chemical industry? Has the success of a democratic rule of law tended to atrophy our human sensitivity and inner scale of values? Is this processinevitable or even salutary? Is our job to extend and refine the laws
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ever and to whatever abvsses Nature leads.. or vou shall learn
Perhaps we will not be able to approach these objectives until we fundamentally rethink the nature of science and particularly of chemistry, recognizing on t h e one hand t h e feminine characteristin in the pursuit of all significant science and on t h e other the fact t h a t the entities with which chemistry deals are better described as organisms than as particles. The Feminine in Science Chemistry is widely considered a masculine activity. In a Guilford murse on the history and philosophy of Oriental science we came across the suggestion t h a t science in the Orient was considered a Yin or feminine activity in t h a t i t required receptivity, openness to insight, withholding of judgment, lack of aggression. Margaret Sue Crownfield, a student in the course, wrote: The suggestion that science was in some aspect feminine came as a pleasant surprise. Because most scientists in our culture are male, we tend to consider science as a masculine pursuit. Thestereotype we have of science and scientists is as very rational and in many ways manipulative of nature rather than intuitive and receptive. 1 have always believed that women were as capable as
men in science but that wumen who pursued science were expressing the masculine aspect of themselves rather than something which was also in some respeee feminine. The mention in Needham 12) that the Taoist approach to science was a feminine one and that science was in many ways essentially feminine struck me as very obvious yet was something 1 had never fully ~ P H S ~ In C ~the . West we seem tu have owremphariaed the maseuline rational, aggressive, nature of science and t c d l y ioverlwked
tive and an important aspect of creativity is intuition, another feminine characteristic. The occasions when these intuitions present themselves seem to be those when the scientist is in an essentially Taoist/femi?ine frame of mind. Probably the story which best characterizes this scientific intuition is l d Archimedes running f n m his bathtub shouting "Eureka." Generally the frame of mind with which we enter a bath is passive and reeepthe, and it is in such a frame of mind that the Taoisls re11 us we are the most in tune with nature and ieceptive to the answers nature will pive us. This feminine aspect of science i s s part oi Western scienceas well as Taoist science though it may be more apparent in one than in the olher. A western parallel emphasizing the same qualities is found in a n 1860 letter of Thomas Henry Huxley ( 3 ) "Science seems to me LO teach in the hiehest and struneest manner
nothing." It may be t h a t the malaise of chemistry can be traced to the overly confident aggressive masculine mood of our profession. Perhaps chemistry cannot be restored to a healthy balance until we create a n environment within which t h e distinctly feminine emphases of receptivity, wonder and awe can find full play. Atoms and Molecules a s Organisms Chemistry is still largely taught and understood as if i t belonrs in the world of Newtonian materialism and mechanism-the conception that all is explainable by the interaction of uarticles. Yet that outlook has been shown t o be fallacious by'relativity and quantum theory. W e need t o take seriously the suggestion made among others by A. N. Whitehead, t h a t science is moving out of an atomistic-mechanistic framework into (or returning to) a n organismic one. He suggests t h a t whereas biology is the study of the larger organisms, physics studies the smaller ones ( 4 ) .Our own conception of t h e atom has moved from t h a t of a timeless. indestructible niece of matter t o a n entity with a life history, having been born a t some stage in the world's evolution, existing fur a span before being transformed into another form of existence. Time has become essential to a descri~tionof a n atom. A hvdrogen atom past a proton. Only if the electron behaves according to certain patterns over a period of time can we he confident t h a t a hvdrogen atom is present ( 5 ) . Similarly t h e definition of a n isomer can no longer ignore the dimension of time. T h e definition requires for instance, that a structure exists long enough either to he isolated or for i t t o provide some signal, spectroscopic or otherwise, of its existence (6). As we learn to see our subject matter as having many characteristics similar to those of'humans, and as we recognize the verv human oualitias needed to contribute to our field. the field ofchemist& may again be seen by others a s a remarksble edifice created to brine, .. "iov " and he of service to our fellows and t o future generations. Literature Cited ~11 H
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~ 14 L l ~ r ~ ~ , ,r), > A. m (:IIIPI,IIP, 11..I . ~ I O ~ S , M , ~. . HUW~TPI*. u. A . k r i , 13. W . m d \ , a l t r . 1 U . J CHEbl.lil>l'i' SE.816113ilii.
121 Nuedham. .lurri,h, ' ' S e w m u a 4 Vivll#rrll,min C'hlna." ('sinhrldur l ' n i r c # ~ r i l I'rers. y L'md,r#d~e. E # ~ y i r # l 1962. d. \ i d i up 57 lil,rlw,inahnclyd ihrm i h liimnn. C'. A "'Tlw S ~ W L SYc ~ # e u ~w e d I i ' d I m x * , d
R. I; ,"'Vhc, Idea , d N a ~ u r ~ ~ , " l tl' ~ ~> i~\ re dh ci'tcss. t~ New Ymk. IN",
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