Chemistry Set Boasts “No Chemicals”

Education Science
Chemistry Set Boasts “No Chemicals”

In point of fact, I have some empathy for the makers of this Chemistry 60 educational laboratory kit. They are, after all, just responding to the demands of the market, and we at MAKE actually have some first-hand experience of how hard it is, these days, to manufacture, market, and/or distribute chemistry sets that don’t, for lack of a better word, suck. So I post this not so much in the spirit of “shame on such-and-so” for creating this astounding oxymoron of a product, but rather to lament the general state of affairs we have come to thanks to litigiousness, chemophobia, and flagging scientific literacy. There has got to be a way back. [via C&E News]

52 thoughts on “Chemistry Set Boasts “No Chemicals”

  1. Scott Estes says:

    Sad. There’s more ‘chemistry’ in the easter eggs my daughters and I dyed yesterday.

  2. Stuart Anderson says:

    We see open source hardware kits all the time. Would it really be so difficult to make an open source chemistry set? That’s an effort that I would certainly be willing to get behind.

    1. Anonymous says:

      This is a great idea. Write up a book that has all the experiments and sell that, and in the book have guidelines and sources to acquire all the chemicals and equipment needed.

      1. Mark says:

        You mean something like the book that Make published? The Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments?

        1. Anonymous says:

          Perfect, I must have missed or forgot about that one.

        1. Stuart Anderson says:

          Make needs to learn about doing an upsell ;-)

          The business model for information/software + hardware already exists in several forms (eg. Arduino, et al.), so I don’t see why this couldn’t be applied to chemistry sets. This is a doable proposition as a business concern (which I consider important for a tangible good like a kit – not everyone is going to want to assemble their own kit, some will want to buy).

  3. JAmes says:

    How can it have no chemicals in it, if the components and tools are made of plastic? LOL!!!

  4. Anonymous says:

    The ultimate in “dumbing down”… how dare we … even countenance a chemistry set with “active chemicals” in it. What would the right wing Christian, republican, climate change deniers do to us. By God … don’t let there be another Einstein, Galilao, Capurnicus…let alone intelligent, literate and articulate President in the White House or other Americans with with a ounce of nouse… Heaven forbid!

    1. Anonymous says:

      That’s right, down with Christians and Republicans… THEY have taken the chemicals out of chemistry.

      And I thought only really smart people visited MAKE…

    2. Forrest Higgs says:

      Seems to me that it’s the left and their legions of lawyers that making everything illegal that might possibly give some lawsuit-for-profit prone peasant a reason to file a suit. :-D

    3. Adam Lucas says:

      Absolutely right. We wouldn’t want the Church producing another Newton, Mendel, or Gauss. We don’t want people learning virtues like ‘Industry’, ‘Frugality’, or ‘Humility’ (like Jesus or Socrates no less!) from whacked-out hyper-religious Republican Puritans like Ben Franklin. Not here at Make Magazine. A morally void state that fines and imprisons people for not following Lysenkoism is the way to go.

  5. Anonymous says:

    Just realised… looking at the picture…. it’s all hydrocarbons (plastics, paper and cardboard!!!)! OMG!!! I’s an “organic chemistry set” That’s all right then… standard American fare (much like everything else you eat in America.)… Gotta be good!!!

  6. Timothy Gray says:

    There is. Be a good parent and buy from a scientific supply house the stuff needed to make a REAL chemistry set. and get them real chemistry set books and sit down with them and perform real experiments.

  7. Elliott Fackler says:

    Where do we cross the barrier from living to just being alive?

    1. Rahere says:

      You already did: ever look on the packet for the ingredients?

  8. Greg Corson says:

    The one thing I’m loving…the product page has a big “WARNING this product contains magnets” label….

  9. JustAGuy says:

    They just need to rebrand it as a Homeopathic ( C60 ) Chemistry Set. That way, it will be merely moronic rather than oxymoronic.

    -S

    1. Paco R says:

      But then you’d be de-oxydizing it. That’s chemistry, and chemistry is bad, mmmmmkay?

  10. Anonymous says:

    They’re not responding to the market. They’re responding to regulators.

    1. Rahere says:

      Regulators get fitted to scuba tanks before disappearing underwater for an hour or so.

  11. Anonymous says:

    Is that a bubble wand?

  12. AndrewS says:

    dont like it? dont buy it.

  13. David says:

    You can’t even buy potassium permanganate now at a chemists or any solvents
    whatsoever. It’s all about the dumbing down of science especially chemistry.

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I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

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