Friday, June 02, 2006

No more home chemistry experiments

It's a terrible sign that we live in an age of such fear. We fear terrorists more than we fear our government taking away our freedoms, with some people willingly throwing their freedom away. Maybe some people think taking away some kid's home chemistry set is an acceptable loss, but I don't agree. As the article states, a lot of people who have contributed a great deal to science started with one (with real chemicals, not the kind you get now). Sometimes you have to be willing to take risks, and I think education and love of science requires you to be a little more open-minded about the kinds of things people should be doing for themselves.

Paradoxically, at a time when young people are particularly excited about technology, their enthusiasm for learning about the science behind it is waning. Thirty years ago, the US ranked third in the world in the number of science and engineering degrees awarded in the 18-to-24 age group. Now the country ranks 17th, according to the National Science Board.


We have a problem, and whatever the solution is, taking away kids' ability to learn at home is not it.

3 comments:

Alexander Wolfe said...

That is so amazingly stupid. I can understand how we may need to restrict the sale of SOME chemicals, in largue quantities, or to suspicious persons. But that's no excuse to be raiding people for daring to sell chemicals that some idiot out there might us to make their own fire cracker.

Anonymous said...

When they banned dynamite sales for agricultural use, do you think they realized they were starting the run down a slippery slope?

Nat-Wu said...

Hell, if we let people own guns we can let people own home chemistry sets. I imagine people are less likely to use use a magnesium/water reaction to murder someone than they are to use a 9mm pistol.