The curse of chemists in power
Biologists think of complexity and interconnectivity inherently.
Physicists think of extreme simplicity but do so in order to understand the interconnected whole.
Chemists (like myself) learn about simplicity and find that it works in most cases. The legacy of this sort of thinking has so many failings to answer for.
Chemists thought that artificial fertilisers and chemical pesticides were the answer to managing soil.
Chemists centred medicine entirely on medicines rather than holistic biology.
Margaret Thatcher, a trained chemist (who did the same course as I did), thought that neoliberalism was the answer to capitalism.
This same kind of thinking now frames the climate crisis as a crisis of carbon emissions when it’s really about collapsing natural systems and tipping points.
Few things in life are as simple as this chemistry mindset might lead us to believe, though it’s seductive to think otherwise.
I’m not saying that chemists aren’t intelligent, but still, this kind of training and thinking has an influence on society, albeit subtle. There aren’t many good chemistry jobs around, which means that most of us are out there, loose in the society!
