Journal Club 5: V. Talanquer, When Atoms Want, Journal of Chemical Education, dx.doi.org/10.1021/ed400311x How many of us have said something like the following when explaining why atoms form ions of a certain charge? Sodium atoms want to lose one electron so that they can have a full electron shell. Vincente Talanquer writes an interesting piece in Journal of Chemical Education this month on the (over)use of teleological explanations in science and chemistry education. A teleological explanation is one which uses the consequence of the event (to become more stable) to explain why the event happened (loss of electron). This is…