Chemophobia - and How to Deal With It

In the post Keeping up with the Jonses I talked about trends in Organic Chemistry, discussing things like 'green chemistry' and calcium catalysts.  On a more meta level, there are trends about the discussion of chemistry, on blogs, podcasts, etc. In case you haven't been keeping up-to-date, Chemophobia (if your Latin's a bit rusty, "the fear of chemicals") is the go to topic ('fraud' also happens to be kind of big too). I figure I should throw in my two cents (0.0128 pounds sterling at current exchange rates).

In popular culture, it is fashionable to be afraid of chemicals. I'm not saying that people are running in fear, just that they tend to avoid it when possible. Natural diets, home cures, organic foods, and the like are all the rage and promoted by high profile individuals. There's nothing wrong with a person's right to choose how they live their lives, but it brings about a fear of anything that can be labeled "unnatural".  And as much as we despise it, the word "chemical" has been branded "unnatural".

Can't really blame the people, there have been some unfortunate run-ins with "chemicals" in the past; DDT and Agent Orange come to mind. It is unfortunate the bad consequences of these chemicals have been placed on good chemicals as well.  Pesticides and prescription drugs all get a bad wrap. Public reaction, however, has become over-reactionary. Walk into a your local big box store and you invariably find soap, cleaners, and the like labelled as "chemical-free".  Never mind that it still has chemicals like water in it.  Never mind that the formula hasn't changed in 50 years. People will appreciate and gravitate towards these products because of the pejorative use of the word chemical. And this sort of use of the word 'chemical' will continue until chemophobia starts being less prevalent. And how do we that?

By making Chemistry more accessible. The argument has been made that Chemistry is the least accessible science. Astronomy has lots to look at, physics makes roller coasters go, biology is squishy but still understandable. Chemistry doesn't have any sort of equivalent. It is inaccessible to the Average Joe.  One of the reasons I started this blog is because I felt much of the chemistry going on today was inaccessible to an undergrad as well. We need to find ways in which chemistry can be more easily understood by the population in general, not just by professors and post-docs. This will be an uphill battle, and there is no easy solution, but if we start now, by blogging, talking with friends, using social media, and the sort, perhaps we can make chemistry a more friendly field for the next generation of scientists.

-Woodward

A great article at The Collapsed Wavefunction talks about not "punching down" chemophobia.
See Arr Oh wrote a great article highlighting the pervasiveness of chemophobia at Just Like Cooking.
Here's a graphic that shows how everyday chemicals can have scary sounding names.
Edit - Perhaps xkcd has the best way to deal with chemophobics