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Given a multiple choice True/False test with the statement “people turn food into energy”, I would have had to spend some time deciding on what to answer, not because I have to question whether or not the statement is true, but because I'd have to wonder in whether or not the test writer understands the nuanced implications of that statement. The way I see it, people don't turn food into energy -- they simply move energy around and transform it by breaking the chemical bonds in the food and forming other chemical bonds using enzymes to keep the activation energies low enough to make a net gain despite losses to heat. So based on the conservation of energy, people don't turn anything into energy. The energy was already there -- they simply transformed it. But then with the conservation of mass-energy, we know that some mass is converted to energy when chemical bonds are broken. So technically the statement is true in a sense. But the amount of energy created from mass is so small it can't even be measured or detected, so for all practical purposes, the statement is false. You have to be breaking nuclear bonds before you see that. The article's author says the statement is true, using it as an example of a statement that's consistent with our preconceived ideas, but instead of explaining it, he simply does some pseudo-scientific hand-waving -- digestion, respiration, metabolism, and all that. This suggests the author somehow considers energy as something that is created and used up on a regular basis. Which makes you wonder, what if the writer of the statement was an expert biologist whose major focus isn't understanding the concept of energy or the chemical underpinnings of microbiology? What if they also saw energy in the same way as the author of the article? What if the answer on the answer key is true, despite being arguably false? In that case, the answer is true in the sense that that's what the writer of the test wanted you to answer. I think a better test would give the option of adding a statement or two to qualify or explain your choice on the test. I know that would allow me to finish such a test sooner, especially if it was computerized and I could type my explanations. |