Should chemistry or alchemy be taught in science classes?

DUDE! You can turn lead into gold?!

Essentially chemistry is the modern name for what used to be alchemy, but we actually know things on the molecular level now instead of just reactions that usually just changed appearances of things.

Alchemy!

America needs the Philosopher's Stone to end our economic crisis.

With it we could have all the gold we ever need.

America needs the Elixir of Life. That potion can cure any disease. We wouldn't even need a health plan after that.

Clearly Alchemy has much more potential than mere chemistry.

Allow me to play devil'sadvocate ( or God's advocate whom I would consider a devil if it existed)

Sir Isaac Newton seemed to think that Alchemy deserved equal time to science...He actually spent more time on Alchemy than he did science..

You may think that he might have learned from his results that alchemy was bullshit

Obviously alchemy(like creationism) has been debunked, but I think that a brief study on the history of alchemy would do our students some good.

Well why not? Alchemy is the precursor to chemistry. Who knows perhaps having an philosophical approach to chemistry can aid the chemist. The reason why Einstein was so successful is because he thought outside of the scientific box. If he was born in ancient times he would be an alchemist.

Alchemy is not needed anymore

We have science now. By understanding the science of atoms, we have changed simple particles of lead into gold by changing their make ups. It's an extremely expensive extensive process that isn't worth gold in the end anyway.

Turn off the FMA and go visit your library...

What we need to do is teach the history of science. Showing how knowledge progresses and old ideas are thrown out for not matching the evidence would be a serious blow to not only creationism, but also a lot of the wacky alternative (to) medicine.

Texas just took a step that direction. Here's the NPR Science Friday link:

http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/2009...

No, they shouldn't have to teach alchemy, but they should, at least, need to teach the controversy.

sure. We should teach flat earth and round earth theory as well. And the geocentric universe. And Intelligent Falling along side gravity. We'll just let the kids decide for themselves.