Month: May 2013

The Anthropocene?

On By ktvalsarajLeave a comment
The Earth seen from Apollo 17.
The Earth seen from Apollo 17. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Human influence on our environment is recognized as changing the conditions that keep Earth hospitable. All environmental media (atmosphere, water, soil, sediment and all biota) are having to adapt to human influences. Although disputable this has been occurring for over 10,000 years and is appropriately named the “anthropocene”. How do we adapt in order to accommodate these effects that only took a few thousand years what Nature would have taken millions of years to accomplish is a good question for all of humanity. The adaptation time that we have given ourselves and all biota is so short that we may not have nature help us in the accommodation process. These changes are not entirely irreversible, and indeed nature will adapt in time, but not us humans. Our large scale experiment may doom us to our extinction before we can adapt and change. No other species has managed to exploit the resources so fast and with such greed that have put ourselves and all other species at risk.  But then resiliency is the hallmark of all life forms.  Thus, we may find ourselves out of the picture but a successor species may be more adaptable.  In that case, “anthropocene” is only a blip in the earth’s existence.

As a scientist, an environmental one at that, I find my job more and more as an effort at pointing out the effects of callous human greed that pays scant respect to others who co-habit with us, but yet have no voice in how we are influencing the environment. Human emphasis on the so-called economic well-being is nothing but a smokescreen for the short term gains that a select few of us want to enjoy. Thus, modern day industrialists need to take heed of what scientists have long been warning, viz., the impending catastrophe of global climate change. If not the anthropocene will be the final frontier for us humans on earth.

Is Chemistry the Fundamental Science?

On By ktvalsarajLeave a comment
Portrait of Monsieur de Lavoisier and his Wife...
Portrait of Monsieur de Lavoisier and his Wife, chemist Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It is often noted that when we say basic science it mostly connotes physics and mathematics. Biology and chemistry are often not considered “basic” enough. In particular chemistry has long suffered the moniker of “impure science”; this is a result of its unfortunate connection to alchemy in ancient times. Interestingly mankind’s first foray into actual science was via the activities of cooking. Well, that is pure chemistry. No one knew of atoms or fundamental particles then and yet folks experimented a great deal in this ancient art of “cookery”. Indeed, then chemistry is the fundamental science even predating mathematics and physics. It may be argued that its diversion into the hands of alchemists gave it the reputation of shaky foundations often bordering on magic and trickery. Even Newton was a closet alchemist. Only late 18th and 19th century pioneers such as Lavoisier, Boyle, Thompson, and Priestly put it on sound foundations. 20th century has really taken chemistry into the realm of biology, physiology and medicine. So now even the basic elements of Life is cast in terms of chemical principles. Thus, everything that mankind depends on now rests on the foundational science we call chemistry.

“Laboratory” is an isolated place for labor and first used by alchemists, later by chemists and only in the 17th century did other disciplines use laboratories for their work.  Chemistry cannot be learned just by reading books; it is a practical discipline and needs “apprenticeship” as practiced by most modern chemists. It has its epistemological originality in that “theory” is not what drives it. So chemistry has its unwanted reputation as an “empirical” science and not an “exact” science. Since chemical knowledge is learned by experience, it is personal and not impersonal as other branches of science, notably physics and mathematics.

Chemistry became a “mature” science in the 18th century at the hands of folks like Lavoisier who said, “…..as chemistry advances towards perfection, by dividing and subdividing, it is impossible to say where it is to end”. As many citizen scientists gradually became modern chemists, the whole of science was re-organized in the 19th century.  Thus, began the golden age of chemistry which regained its status as a “fundamental” science by the late 20th century. So fundamental is it that Mendeleev created his periodic table of elements even when much of “fundamental” physics was being constructed.