Chemical year
We are in the International Year of Chemistry. The designation, promoted by UNESCO and IUPAC, has been, among other objectives, to make chemistry an esteemed and socially recognized resource to meet the needs of the world. It's not just a goal, because it's not the best times in chemistry, at least if you look at the public image.
Three chemists from the Faculty of Chemistry of San Sebastian speak in this issue of the public image of chemistry. And, with nuances, all three coincide in the bad image of chemistry. In fact, the adjective chemical is pejorative and chemistry has the image of toxic, harmful. Chemistry itself has played an important role. In fact, through chemistry we have achieved a great capacity to transform matter and the environment, but it has also been very harmful for ignorance, accidents and abandonment. On the other hand, vendors of certain products and lifestyles have been able to exploit it perfectly to position their “without chemistry” in opposition. And in this “mediatized” society, bad chemistry has grown strongly.
However, despite the bad public image, in praxis we do not give up chemistry. Sometimes, knowing that at the center of what we are doing is chemistry, and normally without thinking. We live in this dichotomy and contradiction: criticizing the chemistry we consider chemical and praising the chemistry that we do not consider chemical.
It is an opportunity to live, for those who want it. But it is not our option and it is not the one we want to promote from this magazine. Experts who have participated in the roundtable highlight that the response to the breakdown of the dichotomy will be education: “science, science and science”. I would add another: “conscience, conscience and conscience”.
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