The Dangers Of Being Organic

I think that everyone should be taught chemistry at least at high-school level. It would avoid a lot of the egregious crap that's been thrown around for the last few decades. (What?! He used the word 'crap'!)

Let's start with the basics. Type "define: organic" into your Google search box. You should get a whole bunch of definitions of the word 'organic'. Probably, you will get something like this in the first few hits:

• relating or belonging to the class of chemical compounds having a carbon basis; "hydrocarbons are organic compounds"
• being or relating to or derived from or having properties characteristic of living organisms; "organic life"; "organic growth"; "organic remains found in rock"
• involving or affecting physiology or bodily organs; "an organic disease"
• of or relating to foodstuff grown or raised without synthetic fertilizers or pesticides or hormones; "organic eggs"; "organic vegetables"; "organic chicken"
• simple and healthful and close to nature; "an organic lifestyle"
• constituent(a): constitutional in the structure of something (especially your physical makeup)

Do you see the problem?

It strikes me that one very obvious class of substances that is related to all these definitions is the class of substances that humans excrete. Yep, definitely organic and relating to foodstuff grown or raised without synthetic fertilizers.

But take the other direction of approach. Can you imagine eating 'inorganic chicken'? Or 'inorganic eggs'? It sounds like eating aluminium foil or manganese nodules. Like a von Neumann machine devouring resources to spawn more machines.

The truth is that the word 'organic' is now officially overused. One day, we'll teach organic chemistry and it will be all about using natural fertilizers, pesticides and/or hormones. Ho ho ho.