Esterification

es•ter•i•fi•ca•tion (noun)
the process /reaction through which an ester is formed, usually from a carboxylic acid and an alcohol.
Origin: derived from "ester" from the german Essig-Äther, meaning "Acetic acid ethyl ester"


I performed an esterification just this morning in my chem lab! Esters are common in nature and are very pungent; many fruits and flowers produce esters that smell and taste good. Vanillin (main chemical that gives vanilla its flavour), banada essence, apple essence, and pineapple essence are some examples of the many ester compounds found in nature (we made banana essence today).

An ester is basically any molecule that has a carbon atom that is 1) bonded to another carbon atom 2) double bonded to an oxygen and 3) bonded to an oxygen that is bonded to another carbon. Here is the general formula:

The carbons on the ends can be attached to pretty much anything else.

This is an easy concept, so I'll give you some practice here: try to identify which ones of the following compounds have esters in them. There are more than one.

I'll include the answers to these questions in my next post =) Good luck!

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So bonus post here from me in response to your post today.

First of all, Inhumanism:

You mention that you disagree with (at least part of) inhumanism because it the poem that you cited, the poet asserts that the symbols of nature and its indifference is a more powerful symbol than the Cross. While I do agree that this is not something that we should agree with, I think the diction and syntax you used in the post made me apprehensive towards your approach of inhumanism, although I may be misinterpreting your thoughts.

I know you mentioned that inhumanism does offer good insight into the human condition, you failed to elaborate on this point, and I am thus unsure of which aspects you are referring to and I am not confident that we have drawn the same conclusions. From your brief summery of Inhumanism, I would tend to agree with these points:

-humans, as a species, are too obsessed with themselves.
I personally think this is a huge issue and its true: too many people in the world think that we are so much better than all the other species. An important concept we learned last year in evolutionary biology is that ALL ORGANISMS ARE EVOLUTIONARILY EQUAL. At first, I resisted this thought, but that was because I had failed to differentiate complexity with superiority, as many people still do. The argument made by biologists goes something like this: All organisms originate from a common ancestor (this is not an assumption, but an application of Mathematical principle of Sets and Groups that states that all groups originate from branching sets), and thus every single living organism on the earth has evolved over the same period of time. In other words, every organism alive has had the same amount of time to evolve. Therefore, all organisms are equal. Even though some organisms are more complex and have changed more over time than others, doesn't mean that they're superior; it just means that they've needed to change more to survive. Sharks, turtles, and some insects haven't changed much at all over the past few millenia, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're superior or inferior to species such as some birds or mammals that have changed a lot over the same period of time. By this virtue, it is not plausible to argue that humans are superior to other species.

-nature is more beautiful than humanity.
I would tend to agree with this statement. As humans, we are flawed. Whether you believe it is because we were created in God's image and are thus imperfect, or whether you believe there is no higher power or deity, I think that, religious and atheist alike, we can agree that humanity is imperfect. Nature, on the other hand, I believe to be an extension of God. The fact that there are so many inexplicable and incomprehensible phenomena in the world lead me to believe in the Divine presence in the natural. For a non-religious argument: you may argue that the laws of nature are just that: laws of nature. The natural world has an efficient and effective way of conducting itself, with rules that never contradict, but to that I ask: Why do these rules exist in the first place? Why is it that the Law of Conservation of Mass and the Law of Conservation of Energy or Newton's Three Laws of Motion even work? What determines that electric charges are equal but opposite in a binary/quaternary system? Why not with three separable charges? What makes it so that the Gravity is a force that exponentially decreases as distance increases? As humans, we may never understand, but that is the point: we don't understand because we simply cannot. There is much truth to the statement that "we are only human"

It is becoming a growing concept to me that Science is for the Worldly, the Physical, the Concrete and Religion is for the Metaphysical, the Ethereal, the Moral, the Abstractual (if that's even a word...) which are (as I discussed before) separate identities in that one should not venture into the realm of the other. (Another thing that I realized that I forgot to mention in that review blog post is that when the student argued that the professor didn't have a brain, my counter should have been: but if we cut open his head, we can determine for sure if the brain is present or not. With religion, we can search the physical and measurable world, but we will never find physical, measurable proof that God exists because what he does is not measurable: he deals with lives, revelations, changes of heart, moral improvement, things that are things that science can never describe)

I guess what I'm trying to say is that in the hierarchy of things, Humanity is at the bottom of the list, followed by Nature, and then, above all, God. So yes, a symbol of nature is greater than any symbol of humanity, but not greater than symbols of God. I wasn't sure if that was your conclusion as well.

Next, to respond to your concern:

I may not have worded myself correctly, and you may not have interpreted my view correctly, as I wrote my comments on Machavellians very quickly and briefly. What I wanted to say was this:

People should be rooted in the world in that they should be concerned with worldly happenings: national conflicts, poverty, injustice, inequality, suffering, social morality, etc.; things and issues that concern the world here, today, and now. We should study the past and work together for a better future, but we should be concerned with making this world better while we are here; the world beyond this life, Heaven, is already known to be perfect.

Yes, I agree, it is important to hope and look forwards to the eternal, but ultimately, I believe that the fear of going to hell and/or the desire to live "happily ever after" should not be what is drawing us to God. Like I mentioned in the last post, I quite admire the saint who ran through the streets with the bucket of water and the flaming torch, because ultimately, I love God because I know that he loves us and he is in control, that he has a plan for us in the life, that no matter how bad things get or how bad things may seem, He is always protecting us, and in the end, He will always be there to guide us, love us, and help us through life. I was trying to express that people should not be drawn to God nor love God solely because they are afraid to go to hell or want to go to heaven; these people would only love God because it is convenient, because it benefits them; they won't (at least at the beginning) love God for who He is or because of his love or his ability to make them better people, and indeed many of these people are not interested in becoming better people, which totally defeats the purpose of a religion, IMO

No, I believe we should love God because he love us and makes us better people. I do believe that Eternal life is given through our faith, but right now, I am inclined to be happy with God's love; I don't need Heaven or Hell to exist to motivate me to love Him. This is a part of my faith that I've been working very hard on and I've been struggling with it (and this is one of the reasons why I feel that your faith is more mature than mine is), because at this moment, and I know this will sound rather blasphemous, but I don't care whether there is an afterlife or not; I believe that God has gives us Heaven, but if in fact no afterlife exists, it wouldn't (and, I argue, shouldn't) change how I live or change how I love God.

When I say we should be rooted in the world (but not of it), it is to the metaphysical, cultural, and moral world to which we live in, not the physical, concrete world that I refer to. And this is the point with which I agree with Machiavellians: we should not look solely to the afterlife for the hope of today because then we would be living totally for the Tomorrow, for That Which Is To Come; I think that this is unhealthy, because then our daily lives would become mundane, dead, and without inspiration; life would become routine, because what is the point in trying when this life can never hope to achieve the perfection of the next? I fear that this kind of thinking would distract people from action and make people passive about their lives because they look entirely to the life beyond this one. I believe that we need to look to it, yes, but we should also be concerned with the Today, with solving the problems of Today so that when the future of Today arrives, the children who live there may live in a better world.

You said yourself that we need to keep our eyes on the love and perfection of God, which I totally agree with, but is it not possible for the love and perfection of God to be (at least partially) separable from the afterlife? I'm saying we can still focus on the love and perfection of God and grow and learn from his love and perfection without needing to look at the afterlife.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is this: If Heaven does not exist, and if God doesn't offer us the Eternal, would you still love him? My answer would be Yes, because I love God for who He is, and not what He offers us. I understand that Heaven is an important part of our faith, and its still very important to me, but all I'm saying is that it is not THE MOST important part of my faith: loving God is the most important part, and I think that with the whole "everlasting life/eternal damnation" thing, some people forget to love God for who he is.

I guess to clarify, I should say that the whole argument of the previous 6 paragraphs is based upon the view of Heaven/Hell as the "carrot/whip" that "motivates the donkey to move" sort of idea, which is just one aspect/way to approach the concept of Heaven/Hell. I mean, the way I've evaluated and built my faith, as I've explained before, I try to ascertain what I believe and what I don't believe by evaluating them based on a truth. That truth is this: God is perfect and loves us to the point where he is willing to die for us, and this, as Christians, we aspire to follow Him and his teaching, which means we must 1) Love others, and 2) Respect others. All rules are derived from these. If I added "3) God will send us to Heaven" to the list of founding truths, how does this truth help me explain why something like adultery is bad? Adultery is bad because God will send us to Hell? That doesn't make much sense to me. It makes much more sense to me to say that adultery is bad because it (a) disrespects the commitment you have made to your spouse/the sanctity of marriage, and (b) violates the rules of loving someone as your significant other, because, if you are married, then you have committed your life to each other, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, and physically. I guess I'm trying to say that the fact that God gives us eternal life through our faith is not a founding rule of my faith, but it is a result of my founding rules, i.e. God gives us eternal life through our faith because he loves us that much, and thus all those who are faithful receive this gift, and thus Heaven and the Eternal is still a very important part of my faith, it's just not something that helps me explain every single other aspect of my faith. Please let me know if you disagree, because I may be flawed in my thinking/conclusions. I would like to hear what you think about this subject; your thoughts are very valuable.

Anyways, that was a hideously long block of text. I hope what I'm saying is understandable.



Hope to hear from you soon,
~Tim~