Been working on second half of my Pageant of Evolution column (Dropdead line looming) and the thought popped up in a sentence I wrote and I’ve been chewing on it since.
CarbonDioxide, the molecular backbone of life.I appreciate my understanding is more broad than deep - so I'm curious if that stands up to scrutiny?
Chemistry is one area where my knowledge is sadly lacking. It does bring to mind an anecdote I thought I would share, though. This is one I give to anti-vaxxers on occasion.
One of the claims of what is wrong with vaccines is that they contain mercury (never mind that’s very rare these days). Thimerosal, an older, barely used preservative, does contain “ethylmercury”. Ethylmercury is a compound of carbon, hydrogen and mercury. It is not just mercury. So I ask this:
Would you eat a metal which explodes violently when it gets wet? Would you put a deadly poisonous gas in your mouth? You do every day. Table salt is made of sodium, which explodes when it gets wet and will kill you if you put it in your mouth, and chlorine, a poisonous gas which will choke the life out of you if you put it in your mouth. Put them together and you have ordinary table salt, a requirement for life which is so necessary for life that cows have to be given blocks of salt to lick to make sure they get enough exploding metals and poisonous gasses in their diet. Sodium and chlorine will both kill you, but sodium chloride is required for life.
Yeah, makes me think of water and fire also. 
A) part two will be posted in the next day or two.
B) Who the hell knows, (Once, I thought I knew the type, but seems folks fitting that profile are much rarer than I thought.) I sure don’t anymore… Bots from every corner of the world seem to take an interest. {Though the main reason for writing is to better understand it for myself. I find writing has been one of my best teachers. Even when it feels like it beat the snot outta of me, the way these pageant of evolution columns felt. But I finding humbling experiences can be rather illuminating and valuable in themselves. I look forward to doing a better job a next time, as I allow this one to percolate some. }
C) part one: Confronting Science Contrarians: Pageant of Evolution (3), Earth's Evolution in 24 hours (#a)
part 2 will show up in the next day or two.