What Is Chemical

To the public, a pesticide made in a factory is a chemical. But the crop on which it will be sprayed isn't chemical. To a chemist, a lettuce leaf, a cucumber, or any other tangible thing is chemical. They are chemical in the sense that they can be analyzed, studied, and largely understood in chemical terms. Developing such understanding and applying it to the public good is what chemists do—and do very well. These different perceptions of what is chemical are at the source of many of the chemical enterprise's continuing image problems with the public. The position of the public is not an irrational one. A typical dictionary definition of the noun chemical is: "A substance (such as an acid, alkali, salt, synthetic organic compound) obtained by a chemical process, prepared for use in chemical manufacture, or used for producing a chemical effect." Chemists may argue this definition applies to what goes on within ...