Why Chemistry?

A professor at IISc once said, “It seems like many UG kids coming here are already very dismissive about Chemistry.” This is also evident from the number of Chemistry majors at IISc. The number remains in the single-digit range, with occasional spikes.

So why is this rejection of Chemistry so prevalent, especially in India? The short answer is — whatever opinion you have about Chemistry is the direct result of a lack of better teaching of the subject at High School. It does not help that Senior Secondary education in India is severely affected (even undermined) by the competitive examination culture. While the latter can certainly lead to better teaching, such instances are unfortunately few.

High Schools in India do not really do justice to actual Chemistry. The modern education system here, with its deterministic epistemic goals, cannot truly encapsulate the rich, fuzzy nature of the subject.

Chemistry is an empirical field. It always has been and always will be. What does this mean? The ‘rules’ of the subject are highly reliable guidelines — guidelines that were put in place from centuries of observations, experiments, and failures. But yes, these guidelines do sometimes fail. They can’t predict everything accurately.

Now you might feel a bit uncomfortable about the idea of a scientific discipline having no ‘laws’. And that is completely understandable. Does that mean Chemistry is fundamentally flawed? Well, no. If you look at everything in nature with different levels of magnification, Chemistry would be the lens focusing on atoms and molecules. But there are other lenses (i.e., other fields) that go deeper than that. In many cases, the ‘exceptions’ that you encounter can be explained when viewed through those lenses.

Chemistry does not deal with those deeper levels of magnification, and fortunately, it is not required to do so either. It would be like saying, “Why do we need to study organs at all if we can just study every single cell in them and then correlate that knowledge to the functions of the organ?” That is tiresome. And unnecessary. And will take a very, very long time. And time is a resource; we wouldn’t have survived plagues if not for Chemistry saving the day with modern medicine, for example.

Chemistry is about understanding the world as it is; we can’t make “laws” and expect everything to follow them, especially when we might not have even begun to fully understand existing phenomena.

While there is some truth to “we can’t teach everything very deeply to teenagers,” it certainly does not mean that anything that cannot be fully explained by Chemistry should be labeled as an exception. This is unfortunately done by schools. And that leaves a bad impression of the field on students.

What we, as Catalysts conveners, ask of you is simple. Please let go of falsely taught narratives about Chemistry, keep the above points and analogies in mind, and approach Chemistry with an open mind. Fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, personal care products, preservatives, batteries — the contributions of chemists are immense in value. The future has much more to offer with a booming semiconductor industry, electric vehicles, and a growing need for drugs. We are sure that many of you will find something you are interested in if you choose to look for it. Explore more of Chemistry before you conclude it is not for you.

We will certainly help you along the way. We have quite a few activities in mind which we think might help you in this exploration; any Chemistry major will try to answer queries you might have, and of course, this learning should not be limited to activities by us.