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Poid said:

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usulpsychonaut said:
Surely todays science and medicine will in the future become as primitive, flawed and superstitious as alchemy and astrology.

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Surely? You honestly think that the scientific method is going to be deemed superstitious in the future?

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Poid said:
No I'm not.
I don't think alchemists can be credited with being the first ones to come up with the concept of atoms:

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yada yada

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Don't see any mention of alchemists there.

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desert father said:
and so what is it about astrology that is flawed?

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HarveyWalbanger said:
Oh!  I see the problem.  you ONLY consider alchemists to be people who

a)  self identified as alchemists  (a term that only appeared later,  many of these early scientists called themselves alchemists or equivalent names in their language because there was no other word for it)

and most importantly b) integrate hocus pocus into it.

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HarveyWalbanger said:
In reality,  all early elemental purifications and recorded reactions fall under the realm of what was then called "alchemy".

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HarveyWalbanger said:
There was no other word for it until scientific analysis became fully fleshed out under lavoiser and boyle in the 16-1700s.

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I don't think it matters if the word "alchemy" wasn't in use back then... as long as they practiced what is today known as alchemy, then they were alchemists.

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Poid said:
I consider anyone who practices alchemy to be an alchemist.

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poid said:
One who conducts studies on chemicals isn't necessarily an alchemist.

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http://historymedren.about.com/od/aentries/a/11_alchemy.htm
ALCHEMY. In the narrow sense of the word, alchemy is the pretended art of making gold and silver, or transmuting the base metals into the noble ones. The idea of such transmutation probably arose among the Alexandrian Greeks in the early centuries of the Christian era; thence it passed to the Arabs, by whom it was transmitted to western Europe, and its realization was a leading aim of chemical workers down to the time of Paracelsus and even later. But "alchemy" was something more than a particularly vain and deluded manifestation of the thirst for gold, as it is sometimes represented; in its wider and truer significance it stands for the chemistry of the middle ages. The idea of transmutation, in the country of its origin, had a philosophical basis, and was linked up with the Greek theories of matter there current; thus, by supplying a central philosophical principle, it to some extent unified and focussed chemical effort, which previously, so far as it existed at all, had been expended on acquiring empirical acquaintance with a mass of disconnected technical processes. Alchemy in this sense is merely an early phase of the development of systematic chemistry; in Liebig's words, it was "never at any time anything different from chemistry."

Regarding the derivation of the word, there are two main views which agree in holding that it has an Arabic descent, the prefix al being the Arabic article. But according to one, the second part of the word comes from the Greek chumeia, pouring, infusion, used in connexion with the study of the juices of plants, and thence extended to chemical manipulations in general; this derivation accounts for the old-fashioned spellings "chymist" and "chymistry." The other view traces it to khem or khame, hieroglyph khmi, which denotes black earth as opposed to barren sand, and occurs in Plutarch as chumeia; on this derivation alchemy is explained as meaning the "Egyptian art." The first occurrence of the word is said to be in a treatise of Julius Firmicus, an astrological writer of the 4th century, but the prefix al there must be the addition of a later copyist. Among the Alexandrian writers alchemy was designated as e tes chrusou te kai argurou poieseos techne theia kai iera or e episteme iera. In English, Piers Plowman (1362) contains the phrase "experimentis of alconomye," with variants "alkenemye" and "alknamye." The prefix al begins to be dropped about the middle of the 16th century.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemy#Relation_to_the_science_of_chemistry
Practical applications of alchemy produced a wide range of contributions to medicine and the physical sciences. Alchemists Jābir ibn Hayyān[6] and Robert Boyle[7] are both credited as being the fathers of chemistry. Paracelsian iatrochemistry emphasized the medicinal application of alchemy (continued in plant alchemy, or spagyric).[8] Studies of alchemy also influenced Isaac Newton's theory of gravity.[9] Academic historical research supports that the alchemists were searching for a material substance using physical methods.[10]

It is a popular belief that Alchemists made contributions to the "chemical" industries of the day—ore testing and refining, metalworking, production of gunpowder, ink, dyes, paints, cosmetics, leather tanning, ceramics, glass manufacture, preparation of extracts, liquors, and so on (it seems that the preparation of aqua vitae, the "water of life", was a fairly popular "experiment" among European alchemists). Alchemists contributed distillation to Western Europe. The attempts of alchemists to arrange information on substances, so as to clarify and anticipate the products of their chemical reactions, resulted in early conceptions of chemical elements and the first rudimentary periodic tables. They learned how to extract metals from ores, and how to compose many types of inorganic acids and bases.

During the 17th century, practical alchemy started to evolve into modern chemistry,[11] as it was renamed by Robert Boyle, the "father of modern chemistry".[12] In his book, The Skeptical Chymist, Boyle attacked Paracelsus and the natural philosophy of Aristotle, which was taught at universities. However, Boyle's biographers, in their emphasis that he laid the foundations of modern chemistry, neglect how steadily he clung to the Scholastic sciences and to Alchemy, in theory, practice and doctrine.[13] The decline of alchemy continued in the 18th century with the birth of modern chemistry, which provided a more precise and reliable framework within a new view of the universe based on rational materialism.

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HarveyWalbanger said:
You are a totally irrational person to talk to.

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Nice, a personal attack.

I am not at all being irrational BTW.

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HarveyWalbanger said:
Lets cut to the chase on this one.  You define alchemy for me.

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HarveyWalbanger said:

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Source?

One who conducts studies on chemicals isn't necessarily an alchemist.

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Source?  Alright but,  I'm done spoon feeding you info (since you have no intention of changing your mind anyways).  It's going to involve alot of reading on your part from here on out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_chemistry#Early_chemists

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Oh great, a link without an accompanying quote containing the information relevant to your claim... that's helpful!

Nothing in that section of the Wikipedia article supports your claim that "all early elemental purifications and recorded reactions fall under the realm of what was then called 'alchemy'"; if you disagree, then please quote where it supports that claim.

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HarveyWalbanger said:
Everyone of the chemists before Boyle identifies himself as an alchemist.

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More claims without a link and an accompanying quote with information relevant to your claim.

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HarveyWalbanger said:
Especially the islamic alchemists who began the first steps towards the scientific method and the first techniques of chemistry while calling themselves "kīmīāʾ"  the arabic word for alchemist.

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Sure, some people in the Islamic world who studied the behaviors/properties of chemicals called themselves "kīmīāʾ", but this doesn't necessarily mean that all people in that time period who studied the behaviors/properties of chemicals called themselves alchemists. Further, it doesn't really matter what they called themselves, what matters is the kind of practices they engaged in; if they engaged in what we recognize today as alchemical practices, then they were alchemists.

Once again, one who conducts studies on chemicals isn't necessarily an alchemist; there is more to alchemy than studying chemicals.

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Poid said:
...then you get a different word that has a different definition!

What did I win?

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Noteworthy said:
Well, you believe that you don't believe in anything.

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No I don't... I'm pretty sure that I don't believe in anything, but I don't believe that I don't believe in anything.

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Poid said:
That doesn't magically make "alchemy" synonymous with "chemistry".

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Rahz said:
The history of chemistry started with alchemy.

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Therefore, alchemy is the same thing as chemistry?

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Rahz said:
This is undisputable. Feel free to argue otherwise but it won't help your case.

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Alchemy is an influential philosophical tradition whose early practitioners’ claims to profound powers were known from antiquity. The defining objectives of alchemy are varied; These include the creation of the fabled philosopher's stone possessing powers including the capability of turning base metals into the noble metals gold or silver- as well as an elixir of life conferring youth and immortality. In general alchemists believe in a natural and symbolic unity of humanity with the cosmos. Lately western alchemy has become recognized as the proto-typical protoscience presaging the seminal western sciences such as chemistry and medicine. Alchemists nurtured a framework of theory, terminology, experimental process and basic lab techniques still recognizable today. But alchemy differs from modern science in the inclusion of Hermetic principles and practices related to mythology, religion, and spirituality.

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Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds.
Chemistry is sometimes called "the central science" because it connects physics with other natural sciences such as geology and biology. Chemistry is a branch of physical science but distinct from physics.

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