joz writes:
quote:
Actually I'm pretty sure that would be organic/inorganic molecules, as in organic are produced by living creatures (although not exclusively, H2O an CO2 for example) or contains a carbon backbone...
Just because I'm feeling ornery:
Water and carbon dioxide are not considere "organic" molecules. The former precisely because it contains no carbon and the latter because it does not contain carbon in the right way (they need to contain hydrogen or a halide.) Given that silicon is chemically similar to carbon, some definitions include silicon in organic chemistry. Though, of course, I'm sure we could find at least one chemist somewhere who would argue that carbon dioxide is, indeed, "organic."
By the way...organic chemistry forms the bulk of most practical chemistry: Over 95% of all known chemicals contain carbon.
There was a time when the division of organic/inorganic was, indeed, the chemistry of chemicals found in living things/everything else, but this was based on the idea that there was some "vital force" in chemicals in living things.
Then urea was synthesized from non-living sources and found to be identical to the urea isolated from living sources and thus, there needed to be a different definition. The "chemistry of carbon" became the definition (with certain exceptions).
A question I often ask of creationists is whether or not the chemistry that happens inside of a cell is fundamentally different from the chemistry that happens outside of a cell.
F'rinstance, is there a difference between H
2O that is created from taking two moles of hydrogen gas and a mole of oxygen gas, mixing them at STP, and sparking the mixture and H
2O created by taking oxygen gas and putting it through the respiratory chain?
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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!
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