THE SIGNIFICANCE OF CHEMISTRY

 

dern World

A proposed program for the education of the citizen

in science, which would start at the kindergarten level

by LINUS PAULING

Ju ts IMpossiBLE To beNY that science has played a
major part in determining the nature of the modern
world. The food that we eat, the clothes that we wear,
the means of transportation that we use in going from
place to place, the medicines that keep us well, the
weapons that we use in killing each other have all been
changed in recent years through scientific discovery.

it may well be contended that the world is now in a
dangerous situation because science and its applications
have developed faster than the understanding of the
average citizen. It is evidently of great importance
to attempt to improve this situation through a program
of education of the citizen in science. The world in
modern times has continued to move toward the ideal
democratic system, in which all important decisions are
made by the people as a whole. In order for this
system to operate correctly the citizen must have knowl-
edge enough of the world to make the right decisions;
and in the modern world this means that the citizen
must have a significant understanding of science.

Nearly everyone has some knowledge about science
in the modern world. We know that stockings used to
be made from silk, a fiber spun by the silkworm, and
are now made in large quantities from an artificially
spun fiber, nylon. We know that penicillin, a substance
made by a mold, is a very effective medicine for protect-
ing us against bacterial infection, and that chlorampheni-
col and aureomycin are effective even against some of
the virus diseases. We know that power can be trans-
ported from one place to another by the flow of elec-
tricity along wires, and that this How of electricity is
in fact the movement of charged elementary particles,
electrons, along the atoms that constitute the wire. We
know that, through the advance of physics during the
last half century, man has discovered how to release the
immense amounts of energy thal are stored up in the
nuclei of atoms; and we know that this knowledge is
being used in the manufacture of atomic bombs. We
know that uranium and thorium could be used to gener-
ate electric power, through the release of the energy
stored up in the nuclei of the uranium and thorium
atoms, and that the known deposits of minerals contain-
ing these elements could provide all of the energy
required for the world, at the present rate of use, for
thousands of years.

It is evident that these are important facts, that con-
tribute to the determination of the nalure of the modern
world. In order to get an idea of how important science
is to the modern world, we might ask how many scientific
facts are now known, in comparison with the number
of non-scientific facts. How great a fraction of all of
the knowledge possessed by man is now scientific
knowledge?

It is impossible to answer this question precisely,
because we have no scale for measuring the comparative
importance of a scientific fact and a non-scientific fact.
Nevertheless, it may be of interest to consider the rate
at which our store of scientific knowledge is being in-
creased. During the year 1949 the journal Chemical
Abstracts, which attempts to review all of the current
publications in chemistry and closely related fields,
contained abstracts of 70,000 papers in the field of
chemistry. Many of these papers report only one con-
tribution to knowledge, which might be described as
one new scientific fact. Some of them report two or
more contributions to knowledge that might be described
as separate new scientific facts—the subject index of
Chemical Abstracts for 1949 lists 220,000 items. 1
believe that we may say, as a rough approximation,
that about 100,000 new chemical facts are being dis-
covered each year, at present. Perhaps we may multiply
this number by 10, to include other sciences as well as
chemistry, and thus reach the rough conclusion that
about one million new scientific facts are being dis-
covered each year.

How many significant non-scientific facts are added
to man’s body of knowledge each year? A non-scientific
fact may be a historical event, an artistic creation, a
historical, economic, or social correlation, a new general
idea published in a paper or book. lt is, of course,
impossible to define a non-scientific fact rigorously in
such a way as to be equivalent lo a scientific fact.
Nevertheless, we might attempt to estimate how many
significant, non-ephemeral items of new non-scientific
information we have about the world, at the end of
1949, that we did not have at the beginning of the
year. It seems to me that the number of these non-
scientific facts may well be much less than one million;
and that we may accordingly be justified in saying that
scientific knowledge is at least roughly equivalent in

Reprinted from Engineering and Science Monthly, January 1951
Publiched at the Calitarnia Inetitite of Terhnnlnauy
its significance to the modern world to non-scientific
knowledge, at the present time.

Chemistry and the Average Man

The average citizen has a much better understanding
of the non-scientific aspects of the modern world than
of its scientific aspects. His knowledge has been obtained
in part through his studies in school, and in part through
his reading and personal experiences. The great mass
of people have not had education extending beyond the
elementary school, and have accordingly received no
instruction in science at all, or at most one or two years
of instruction, in geography and general science. The
nature of science is such that it is dificult for a man
to begin its study without help; accordingly those people,
constituting the great mass of the people in the world,
who have not studied science in any form in school in
general remain ignorant of science throughout their
lives, except to the limited extent that scientific informa-
tion is provided by personal experience.

Because of the nature of chemistry, the average man
knows less about chemistry than about other sciences.
He knows about many physical phenomena through his
own observation—he knows that objects fall toward the
earth, that hot bodies emit light and heat, that an
electric spark may pass between two conductors at
different potentials, that a body continues to move in
a straight line unless acted on by some force (he may
recognize that the curved path followed by a projectile
reflects the effect of the gravitational attraction of the
earth on the projectile), and so on. With this knowledge
from personal experience, he is able to understand
simple explanations of new discoveries in the field of
physics, and to appreciate their significance to him and
to the world as a whole. Similarly, he has had personal
experience with phenomena in the field of biology,
geology, medical sciences, mechanical technology, and
other fields, which permit him to develop an increased
understanding of their nature and their significance in
the modern world. His personal experiences with chemi-
cal phenomena may, however, be very limited—be
limited perhaps to the observation of the chemical
reactions that occur in combustion. Chemical phenom.
ena, involving the conversion of substances into other
substances, which may have entirely different properties,
are so surprising in their nature that it is difficult for
a man to develop an appreciation of them without
instruction. The average man accepts the facts of chem-
istry that are significant to him, such as the combustion
of gasoline with oxygen in an engine to produce
mechanical power, as wonders that are not to be under-
stood; and it is not surprising that he may occasionally
be led to believe that some new device, offered for sale
to him, can be attached to his automobile engine to
permit water to be used as fuel in place of gasoline.

This example illustrates one way in which increased
scientific knowledge is of value to man in the modern

world. The welfare of the individual is determined
in considerable part by the decisions that he makes
about his own actions; in general, by the way he spends
his money. Much of his money is spent in response to
advertising appeals that are based on his understanding
or misunderstanding of science. The principle of caveat
emptor has become far more dangerous to the citizen
than it was in the simple, non-scientific world of past
centuries. The citizen is asked to buy products contain-
ing ozium, arium, durium—and he is not told what these
substances (if they are substances, and not just names)
are. Ozium is to be sprayed around within the house,
to kill all insects, destroy all cooking odors, protect
against disease by killing germs too. Presumably the
name ozium was selected because of the hope that the
reader of the advertisement would confuse it with ozone,
about whose germicidal properties he might have heard.
He is asked to buy wonderful new green medicines, con-
taining chlorophyll. Whatever substances, perhaps
effective, may be present in the medicines, the advertiser
counts on the chlorophyll to sell them. He is banking
on the possession of a smattering of scientific informa-
tion by the reader—and on his lack of possession of
more than a smattering. He hopes that the reader will
remember that chlorophyll is the wonderful substance
in the leaves of green plants, that purifies the air. He
hopes that the reader does not know much more—that
he does not know that the only thing that chlorophyll!
is known to do is to absorb carbon dioxide from the
air and to liberate oxygen; and that chlorophyll that
has been extracted from the plant has, so far as any
scientist has been able to discover, no action as a
medicine, no activity whatever. Moreover, he must be
hoping that the reader of the advertisement will not
even think enough to ask why he does not eat a green
leaf, a small spoonful of cooked spinach, or other green
vegetable, in order to get his chlorophyll, instead of
paying a hundred times as much money for inactive
chlorophyll in a pill.

In this, and in many similar ways, it is of individual
importance to the citizen in the modern world to have
an increased understanding of the scientific aspects of
the world.

The citizen who is trained in science may also be
expected to exercise his political rights more effectively
than one not trained in science, both because of his
greater understanding of the nature of the modern world
and because of his understanding of the scientific method,
the way in which conclusions can be drawn from facts.
Understanding of the scientific method confers on him
the scientific attitude, which gives him an _ increased
chance of reaching the right decision about political and
social questions as well as about scientific questions.

One value of training in the scientific method is that
it leads to skepticism about all generalizations, “laws
of nature,” What do we mean by a law of nature? We
mean that a number of facts have been seen to be related
to one another in such a way as to justify a general
statement. For example, when chemical analysis of
water was first made it was found that the sample of
waler that was analyzed contained 11.2% hydrogen and
88.8% oxygen. When another analysis was carried out,
with another sample of water, the same result was
obtained, and after a hundred analyses had been made—
perhaps after only ten had been made—the general law
was proposed that all samples of water contain 11.2%
hydrogen by weight. This law was accepted for many
years; but finally an analysis was made that showed
that the percentage of hydrogen in rain water is a little
less than 11.2%, and the percentage in ocean water is
a little greater. This new observation then required that
the earlier law of nature be changed, in such a way as Lo
take into account the existence of isotopes of hydrogen
and oxygen, and the fractionation of water molecules
containing different isotopes through the process of
evaporation of water from the ocean. A scientific law
that is based on only ten facts which agree with one
another is not considered to be a very sound one—it has
only a limited probability of continuing to remain
valid, as more experiments are made. A law that is
based on a hundred facts, or a thousand, has greater
and greater probability of continuing to be correct. A
citizen who understands the nature of scientific general-
izations will ask himself what the basis is for generaliza-
tions in the field of economics, politics, international
relations. How many facts have been used in determin-
ing the attitude of one nation toward another nation?
Is the number of facts in agreement with one another
in supporting the attitude so great that there is no room
whatever for skepticism about the national policy on the
part of an individual citizen, or is the citizen justified
in being skeptical?

The Laws of Probability

The laws of probability have as much significance in
non-scientific fields as in scientific fields. We all under-
stand how a life insurance company calculates its
premium payments. The statistician for the life insur-
ance company collects information about the number
of people dying at various ages—30, 31, 32, 40, 50, 60,
70, 80, 90, 100. even 110 years of age. From all of
these data he calculates the average expectancy of life,
and thus finds the average number of premiums that
will be paid. If he were to say “It is abnormal for a
man to live to be 85 years old, or older; therefore I
must discard the dala about these abnormal people”
he would obtain a wrong value about the average expec-
ancy of life, and the life insurance company would go
bankrupt. Yet, just this foolish procedure is sometimes
carried out in the operation of a democratic system of
government. The principle upon which a true demo-
cralic system operates is that no single man is wise
enough to make the correct decisions about the very
complex problems that arise, and that the correct deci-
sions are to be made by the process of averaging the
opinions of all of the citizens in the democracy. These

opinions will correspond to a probability distribution
curve, extending from far on the left to far on the right.
If, now, we say that all of the opinions that extend too
far to the right—beyond the point corresponding to
the age 85 in the above example, say—are abnormal,
and are to be excluded in taking the average, then the
average that we obtain will be the wrong one. An
understanding of the laws of probability would accord-
ingly make it evident to the citizen that the operation
of the democratic system requires that every ene have
the right to express his opinion about political questions,
no matter what the opinion might be.

It is of the greatest importance lo modern man that
he understand the modern world. He must have knowl-
edge enough about the world to make the right decisions
—and since the modern world is largely scientific in its
constitution, the citizen must understand science.

How can the citizen get scientific knowledge? The
answer to this question can be drawn from past exper-
ience. Hundreds of years ago it was recognized that
mathematics is of great value to the individual. Mathe-
matics is a difficult subject; one might be tempted to
say that, since it is difficult, the study of it should be
put off till the college years. Yet, through experience,
we have learned that the way to teach mathematics is to
start with the teaching of numbers in kindergarten,
arithmetic in the first grade and other elementary grades,
and to continue steadily, without interruption, through
algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus. This is the
way in which science should be taught.

Science in the Kindergarten

The time has now come for the study of science to be
made a part of the curriculum in every grade, at every
level. There should be a class in science in the kinder-
garten, in the first grade, in the second grade, in the
third grade, and so on. Every boy and girl who finishes
grammar school should know science, in the same way
that he now knows arithmetic, languages, and history.
Every boy and girl who finishes high school should know
still more about science. Every college student should
begin his college work with a sound knowledge of the
whole of science—comparable to the knowledge that he
now has, at this stage, of mathematics—in order that he
might devote his years in college to the more advanced
aspects of the subject. Only in this way can we train
citizens for life in the modern world. Only in this way
can we develop a citizenry able to solve the great social
and political problems that confront the world.

In suggesting that the study ef science should be
carried on throughout the period of school training, |
have in mind that it should occupy one class hour every
day—that is, one instructional period of thirty or forty
minutes in the beginning grades, and forty or fifty
minutes in the higher grades, At ihe present time in
many primary schools elementary instruction is given in
geography, usually at some time between the fourth
and the eighth grade. In addition, it is customary in
many parts of the world for a course lasting for one
year to be given in general science, usually the last year
of primary school work, the eighth grade. In a relatively
few schools a small amount of information about the
nature of the physical and biological world is presented
to the sludents during the first few years of primary
school work. If one classroom period per day were
devoted to science throughout the years of primary
school instruction, the work might begin with very
simple discussions of the physical world, including
simple demonstrations. The fields of knowledge covered
would be largely descriptive in nature, in all branches
of science—physics, chemistry, biology, geology, astron-
omy, geography, etc.; but in addition there could be,
even in the earliest years, instruction in the scientific
method and the scientific attitude.

Understanding Certain Scientific Concepts

The concepts of chemical change and of atomic
structure and other concepts of modern science are no
more difficult to understand than the concept that the
earth is round. We teach students in the elementary
schools that the earth is round, even though convincing
proof is so difficult that the fact has been generally
accepted only during the last few centuries. In the same
way the important basic principles of atomic science
could now be taught to beginning students, in the ele-
mentary schools, with rigorous proof of the truth of the
concepts deferred until a later time.

The principal practical problem accompanying the
introduction of instruction in science for one class period
each day in all school grades is that of deciding whal
activities the instruction in science should replace. This
decision is not an easy one to make, and presumably
the subjects to be replaced or on which decreased empha-
sis is to be laid would be somewhat different in different
schools and in different parts of the world.

There has been just as great reluctance to introduce
extensive teaching of science into the field of adult
education as into the field of elementary education. The
best methods to be used in giving scientific information
and instruction in the scientific method to mature indi-
viduals who have only an extremely limited background
in science probably still need to be discovered. It is
likely that a thorough study of existing alternative
methods and a search for new ones would yield very
important results.

The argument might be presented that it is hopeless
to attempt to give the average citizen an understanding
of science, because of the complexity of science at the
present time and the enormous rate of increase in scien-
tific knowledge. How can even the foremost scientist
keep abreast of the rapidly advancing front of knowledge
when millions of new facts are being discovered every
year? I believe that this pessimism is not justified, and
that, indeed, science as a whole is becoming simpler,
rather than more difficult. Many parts of physics have

already passed through the slage of greatest complex-
ity—the stage at which the body of knowledge in the
field consists of an aggregate of largely disconnected
facts. With the recognition of relationships among these
facts, great numbers of them can be encompassed within
a single principle. An understanding of the field as a
whole can then be obtained by the process of under-
standing the general principles. It is not necessary for
every fact to be learned; instead a few of the facts can
be considered, in order to discover their relationship
lo the general principles, and thereafter other facts thal,
for practical or accidental reasons, come to the attention
of the individual can immediately be correlated by him
with the general principles. At the present time chem-
istry is making rapid progress toward the ultimate goal
of theoretical simplification; chemistry too has passed
through the stage of maximum complexity. In biology
and the medical sciences much of the fundamental in-
vestigational work now going on consists of a search
for the fundamental general principles; we may feel
confident that before many years have gone by the most
significant of these principles will be discovered, and
these subjects too will from that time on become progres-
sively simpler,

One way in which an increased knowledge of the
nalure of the physical and biological world can be of
value to the individual citizen is through the conferring
on him of an increased equanimity, an increased confi-
dence in natural law and order. The well-being of an
individual may be greatly impaired by his fear of the
unknown, which may far exceed the fear that he would
have of a known danger, which he might prepare to
meet in a rational way. In a world in which human
beings have achieved extreme powers of destruction of
one another, through the use of an astounding new
source of energy, the non-understanding individual might
well become extremely apprehensive, in such a way as
to prevent him from making the correct personal and
political decisions, and to cause him to accede without
a trace of protest to suggestions or orders from a dicla-
torial leader.

An incidental advantageous result of scientific educa-
tion for all people which is of more than negligible
significance is the personal satisfaction and pleasure that
accompany pure knowledge and understanding. The
physical and biological world in which we live is truly
astounding and wonderful. No matter what the extent of
his general education nor the caliber of his mental abil-
ities, every human being might achieve satisfaction and
increased happiness through an increased knowledge and
understanding of the world. The sources of happiness
in life are not so bountiful that mankind can afford to
neglect such an important one. If the ever-present
oppressing danger of world war can ultimately be
averted, and the world can enter into a continuing
period of peace and friendliness, the intellectual activities
of the average man may become a source of happiness to
him comparable to that provided by his emotions.

This article was originally written for UNESCO (the United

Noathane EFdnentianal Safontthe and (Cyltyaral Oreanization.}