Taking their lead from the success of the ID movement, the reDiscovery Institute is doing for chemistry what their ID counterparts have done for biology:
I think we need to get Mechanical Bliss in touch with these guys.
Chemical Design, a new theory that holds that an unspecified superior intellect is the only reasonable mechanism to account for the complexity of chemistry, is increasingly appearing in science forums and journals as an alternative to Chemical Periodicity.
Chemical Periodicity has been widely accepted in scientific circles ever since Mendeleev proposed it in 1869.
However the new Design Theory's support by a handful of chemists and non-scientists has put Mendeleevists on the defensive, while encouraging those who consider Chemical Periodicity something akin to a religious belief. Recently the Cobb County Board of Education, representing a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, scheduled a vote on whether to place warning labels on Periodic Tables. The Kansas State Board of Education has voted to reconsider the role of Mendeleev's Theory of Chemical Periodicity in their curriculum. Although these actions are causing consternation among Mendeleevists, Dr. Azo Mazur, a Fellow of the reDiscovery Institute, notes that the goal is to allow teachers to teach the best science. He believes teachers need to teach that Chemical Periodicity is simply a theory and that other theories can also explain the data.
Chemical Periodicitists brand the new ideas as an unscientific melange of politics and religion. "It is at its bottom a Christian religious movement," said Chemical Periodicitist Barbara Woody, a professor at Northeastern Louisiana State Community College, and a leading critic of the Chemical Design Movement. Dr. Mazur chuckles in response as he describes the intellectual gymnastics of the Mendeleevists, who have been forced to renumber elements by atomic number instead of atomic mass, and have added entire rows and columns over the years to make their Chemical Periodicity Theory fit their notions of what should be.
Designer Argument
Chemical Design supporters argue that Chemical Periodicity cannot answer some large questions of chemistry and chemical reactivity.
"Science doesn't progress by ignoring something that is staring you in the face," says Michael Behe, a Lehigh University professor of biochemistry and an advocate of Intelligent Design. Intelligent Design and Chemical Design are closely related new theories.
Chemical Design holds that the properties of certain chemicals, such as methane and propane, cannot be explained by Mendeleevist Chemical Periodicity. Similarly, Intelligent Design argues that advanced living systems cannot be explained by Darwinist Evolution. Dr. Behe proposes that complex biochemical systems cannot be produced by successive small modifications (mutations) of a precursor system. Dr. Mazur believes that methane and propane cannot react with oxygen to form water and carbon dioxide. These molecules were designed to be stable in oxidizing environments he claims, though designed by whom he is reluctant to say.
God of Gaps
Mendeleevists, who comprise a dwindling and embattled majority of chemists, say that Mazur and others are appropriating what is yet unknown to conclude that it must arise from a higher intelligence.
Spearheading the Chemical Design Movement is the reDiscovery Institute, a non-profit, non-partisan, public policy think tank dealing with science, technology and policy. For more information, browse the reDiscovery Institute Web Site
I think we need to get Mechanical Bliss in touch with these guys.
