Chemistry as a field seems stuck in the last century. I did an undergrad in Chemistry with some part time lab work. I ultimately left for a few reasons.
1. Research is largely based on guess and check. Computational chemistry (modeling) is not very reliable. It seems stuck between two layers. Its above modeling particles in physics, but below modeling materials in engineering.
2. Ridiculous work hours/times. 80 hours / 6 days a week is barely scratching the surface. I had a few grad students that I worked with that had 0 time outside the lab that was not spent eating or sleeping (which they also did in the breakroom).
3. Confirmation bias plagues the industry. This does affect the larger community, but seems stronger in Chemistry due to how finicky old spectroscopy machines can be. Run a sample 10 times and get 10 results. Good luck when all your samples in the microgram range.
Thanks, that's really a valuable insight into the field. The closest thing I know about is the physics field and I'm not into it enough to be confident about my observations.
But I do suspect it has different problems, yet just as serious and of a similar nature.
2. Richard Ernst, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1991, High resolution nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy
3. Murray Gell-Mann, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1969, classification of elementary particles and their interactions
4. Hans Krebs, Nobel Prize in Medicine, 1953, discovery of the citric acid cycle (aka the Krebs cycle)
5. Herbert Kroemer, Nobel Prize in Physics, 2000, semiconductor heterostructures in high-speed and opto-electronics
6. John Polanyi, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1986, elucidating the dynamics of chemical elementary processes
7. Kary Mullis, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1993, invention of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method
8. Rosalind Yalow, Nobel Prize in Medicine, 1977, invention of the radioimmunoassay (RIA)