Dear IDS editors,\nWe were recently surprised, and frankly disappointed, to see a headline on page 13 of the August 29, 2006 edition of the IDS that read "Scientists create alcohol from ethanol." We were surprised, because as chemists, we realized that the title makes no sense. Ethanol is a type of alcohol -- another name for ethanol is ethyl alcohol. You may be familiar with other alcohols, such as methyl alcohol (methanol), propyl alcohol (propanol) and its isomer isopropyl alcohol (isopropanol). So you see now that the headline actually does not make logical sense. Our other reaction, disappointment, resides at two levels. First, we would expect more of the IDS than to provide illogical headlines. Second, we have even higher expectations of the Associated Press which, at least according to the byline, provided the article. Not experts in newspaper editing, we don't know if the headline originated at the IDS or the AP, so our disappointment encompasses both.\nWe want to work with you on a solution to this problem -- the problem of science illiteracy in our society. You see, not many people would catch the problem with this headline unless they had taken a course in general chemistry or perhaps organic chemistry. Yet those of us who have can spot the problem immediately. So, how do we solve this problem? Well, the first way is for those of us who call ourselves scholarly scientists to address the issue first hand. If we ignore the problem and wait for someone else to solve it, it will surely remain unsolved.\nSeveral of us who teach introductory courses in the Chemistry Department are offering to serve as "guest editors" for the IDS. Please feel free to send any of us an article for our review, and we promise to catch any obvious errors. Working together, we can solve this problem of science illiteracy. We're ready to do our part.\nSincerely,
Randy Arnold \nFall '06 Instructor for C121\nKimberly Aumann \nFall '06 Instructor for C100 \nTodd Stone \nFall '06 Instructor for C117 lab
