Filling The Knowledge Gap

This guest editorial is by Nance K. Dicciani, HoneywellSpecialty Materials'president andCEO and chair of the American Chemistry Council's board committee with oversight for its Long- Range Research Initiative THE CHEMICAL INDUSTRY IS UNIQUE in being simultaneously a broad, essential catalyst for human advancement and the target of suspicion and mistrust. Be it through life-saving pharmaceuticals or new materials that make our computers faster or our soldiers safer, chemistry is critical to nearly every facet of human advancement. But at the same time, discoveries over the past decades that chemicals have had unintended consequences have fueled misgivings about their use. This suspicion, born from a paucity of real information—or worse, from misinformation— has clouded public debate on chemicals and sometimes has led to misguided regulation or legislation. But how does one fight suspicion and fear? With fact. Indeed, to paraphrase the eminent American thinker Ralph Waldo Emerson, the antidote to fear is kn...