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Historically chemistry has been used to produce Zyklon B. Doesn't mean chemistry is bad.
by cm2187 4y ago
Historically chemistry has been used to produce Zyklon B. Doesn't mean chemistry is bad.
- giantg2 4y agoBut it does show that it can br used in a bad way or or a bad cause. Someone asked why genocide was mentioned. History supports caution on that front, just as it does for chemistry.
- ben_w 4y agoChemistry gets like a trillion plus points for the benefits it's bright and a few hundred million minus pounds for the harm it's caused. And indeed, for some people the term "chemical" is automatically something bad (they don't appreciate it if you point out water is a chemical, and not only because there's an implied "artificial" in its usage). Eugenics… well, we can see the theoretical benefits of things like ending sickle cell anaemia outside malarial regions, but we're starting from really huge negative points because it turned out that racist people found it to be a really convenient justification for genocide, and sadly genocides get attempted so often[0] that it's probably not going to be possible to dissociate the two. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides
- imtringued 4y agoChemistry isn't about discrimination.